Book: They Tried to Bury It: Chapter 1: The Most Attacked Claim in History
- Dr. Layne McDonald
- May 29
- 11 min read
Begin with a thought experiment. Imagine you are a historian from another galaxy: no cultural baggage, no axe to grind, no inherited assumptions about religion or science or the supernatural. You arrive on planet Earth in the year 2026 with one assignment: examine the major belief systems of this civilization and note which one has attracted the most sustained, most organized, most passionate opposition throughout recorded history.
You start your research. Buddhism has faced persecution in certain Asian contexts, but nothing approaching a systematic, cross-cultural, multi-millennial campaign. Islam has faced opposition, but it has also governed empires and held state power across vast stretches of the globe for centuries. Hinduism has been challenged and colonized, but rarely subjected to the specific pattern of organized suppression you are looking for.
Then you get to Christianity. And the pattern is immediately, unmistakably different.
Here is a faith that was targeted for eradication by the greatest empire on earth almost from its first generation, surviving ten major waves of imperial persecution over three centuries. That was targeted by the French Revolution, which closed its churches, burned its Bibles, guillotined its clergy, renamed its calendar, and installed a goddess statue in its most sacred building. That was targeted by the Soviet state, which destroyed over 49,000 churches, shot approximately 200,000 clergy and religious, and subjected two generations to mandatory atheist education: and failed. That was targeted by the Mao regime, which expelled its missionaries, closed its institutions, and drove its followers underground: and failed so thoroughly that Chinese Christians grew from roughly one million to tens of millions during the decades of suppression.
Why? If this is just a collection of myths, why do the most powerful regimes in human history treat it like a biological weapon that must be contained? You don't try to "bury" a fairy tale with the full weight of a totalitarian state. You bury things that are dangerous. You bury things that, if left alone, will change the world.
The Specificity of the Opposition
What makes this opposition so strange is its persistence. Normally, a movement is opposed because of its political threat or its ethnic identity. But Christianity has been opposed by the Far Right and the Far Left, by emperors and by peasants, by the "Enlightened" and by the "Scientific."
In the first century, the Roman Empire didn't care much about what gods you worshipped, provided you also dropped a pinch of incense to Caesar. They were the ultimate practitioners of religious pluralism. You could have your Egyptian cat-gods, your Greek pantheon, and your local spirits. Rome only required one thing: the state is supreme. But the early Christians whispered something that sounded like treason to Roman ears: Jesus is Lord.
That phrase wasn't just a "spiritual" sentiment; it was a political earthquake. If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not. If a crucified carpenter from a backwater province has more authority than the Emperor, the entire Roman social order is under threat. So, they tried to bury it. They threw Christians to the lions, turned them into human torches for Nero’s garden parties, and made it a capital offense to follow the Way.
Yet, as the early church father Tertullian famously noted, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." The more they buried the believers, the more the faith grew. It’s as if the soil of persecution was the perfect fertilizer for the Gospel. By the time Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, the "claim" that Rome tried to bury had conquered the very heart of the Empire.
But the burial attempts didn't stop with the Romans. Fast forward to the 18th century, the "Age of Reason." The French revolutionaries didn't want to just reform the Church; they wanted to erase the memory of it. They wanted a world where Man was the measure of all things. They literally tried to change the structure of time, introducing a ten-day week to eliminate Sunday worship. They turned the Cathedral of Notre Dame into a "Temple of Reason."
And yet, within a few decades, the revolutionary calendar was in the trash heap of history, and the Church was back.
In the 20th century, the stakes were even higher. The Soviet Union launched the most systematic "scientific atheist" campaign ever seen. They didn't just kill Christians; they tried to out-think them. They taught children that the Bible was a collection of agrarian folklore. They used the full power of the KGB to monitor every prayer meeting. They tried to bury the Gospel under the weight of the gulag and the textbook.
What was the result? The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The Russian Orthodox and underground Pentecostal churches emerged from the rubble, battered but alive. In China, the Cultural Revolution tried to burn every Bible in the country. Today, there are more Christians in China than there are members of the Communist Party.
The Bullseye: The Resurrection
Why is the opposition so consistent? Because there is a bullseye at the center of this faith, and every attacker knows exactly where to aim. The bullseye is not a moral code. It’s not a list of "thou shalt nots." It’s not a philosophy of social justice.
The bullseye is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul was remarkably honest about this in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19: "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."
Christianity is the only major religion that hangs its entire validity on a single, verifiable, historical claim. If you could prove that Buddha never reached enlightenment, you’d still have the Four Noble Truths. If you could prove that the Vedas were written later than thought, you’d still have the philosophy of Hinduism. But if you can produce the bones of Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity vanishes instantly.
This is why the Resurrection is the most attacked claim in history. It is the hinge of the entire worldview. If it happened, Jesus is exactly who He said He was: the Son of God, the King of Kings, and the Savior of the world. If it didn't, He was either a lunatic or a liar, and we are wasting our time.
The attackers know this. That’s why they don't usually spend much time arguing against Jesus' command to "love your neighbor." Everyone likes that part. They don't argue against "do unto others." They argue against the Empty Tomb. They try to bury the possibility of the supernatural within history.
The "Burying" Tactics
Throughout the centuries, the attempts to bury the Resurrection claim have taken three primary forms:
Physical Suppression: Kill the witnesses. Destroy the records. Burn the Bibles. This was the tactic of Rome and the 20th-century communists.
Intellectual Dismissal: Claim it’s a myth, a "pious fraud," or a late legendary development. This is the tactic of the modern academy and the "Enlightenment" thinkers.
Theological Erosion: Suggest that the Resurrection was "spiritual" but not physical. This is the subtle attempt to bury the power of the Gospel under the guise of "nuance."
But there is a problem with all these tactics. They don't account for the "Minimal Facts" that even skeptical historians have to grapple with.
The Logic of Gamaliel’s Test
In the early chapters of the book of Acts, we find the disciples causing an uproar in Jerusalem. They are preaching that the man the authorities just executed is alive. The Sanhedrin: the Jewish high council: is furious. They want to execute the disciples and put an end to this "superstition" once and for all.
Then, a wise Pharisee named Gamaliel stands up and offers a bit of logic that has become the definitive test for any movement.
"Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God." (Acts 5:38-39, NIV)
Gamaliel wasn't a Christian. He was a pragmatist. He had seen "Messiahs" come and go. He mentioned Theudas and Judas the Galilean: men who led uprisings, got killed, and their movements vanished like smoke. That is the natural law of human movements: when the leader dies, the movement dies.
Unless.
Unless the leader doesn't stay dead.
Two thousand years later, the verdict of Gamaliel’s Test is in. Every attempt to stop this "activity" has failed. The Roman Empire is gone; the Church remains. The French Revolution is a history lesson; the Church remains. The Soviet Union is a memory; the Church remains.
If Christianity were of human origin, it should have died in a Roman colosseum. It should have been buried under the weight of the "Age of Reason." It should have been crushed by the iron fist of the 20th century. The fact that it didn't: and that it continues to grow in the very places where it is most suppressed: is a historical anomaly that demands an explanation.
The Minimal Facts: Why They Can't Keep It Buried
When we talk about "understanding the Bible" through a "biblical worldview," we have to deal with the evidence. Modern apologetics, pioneered by scholars like Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, uses what’s called the "Minimal Facts" approach. These are facts that are so well-attested historically that the vast majority of scholars: including atheists, agnostics, and skeptics: concede them.
What are these facts?
Jesus died by crucifixion. (Even the Roman historian Tacitus and the Jewish historian Josephus confirm this).
The disciples believed they saw the risen Jesus. (They didn't just claim it; they lived it, suffered for it, and died for it).
The conversion of the skeptic, James. (Jesus' own brother didn't believe in Him during His ministry, yet became a leader in the church after the Resurrection).
The conversion of the enemy, Saul of Tarsus. (A man dedicated to destroying the church became its greatest missionary after an encounter with the risen Christ).
The early proclamation in Jerusalem. (The disciples started preaching the Resurrection in the very city where Jesus was buried, just weeks after His death).
If you want to "bury" the claim, you have to explain these facts using only natural means.
The Theft Theory? If the disciples stole the body, they were dying for a lie they knew was a lie. People die for lies they believe to be true, but nobody dies for a lie they know is a hoax: especially when they have nothing to gain but torture.
The Hallucination Theory? Hallucinations are individual experiences. You don't have 500 people having the same detailed hallucination at the same time, touching the same person, and eating with him.
The Swoon Theory? The idea that Jesus didn't die but just "fainted" and then pushed a two-ton stone away from inside a tomb after being whipped to the bone? Even the skeptics find this laughable.
The most attacked claim in history survives because the alternative explanations are more miraculous than the Resurrection itself. It takes more "faith" to believe the disciples successfully executed a 2,000-year-long heist than it does to believe that the God who created the universe has the power to raise the dead.
The Assemblies of God Theology: A Spirit-Empowered Endurance
From an Assemblies of God theology perspective, we understand that the endurance of the Church isn't just about historical evidence; it's about the present-day power of the Holy Spirit.
We believe in the literal, physical Resurrection of Jesus, but we also believe in the ongoing activity of the Spirit. When the Romans tried to bury the Church, they weren't just fighting men and women; they were fighting the Third Person of the Trinity. As we read in the book of Acts, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead was poured out on the believers, giving them a "supernatural boldness."
This is why the "burying" attempts always fail. You can kill a man, but you cannot kill the Spirit. You can burn a book, but you cannot burn the Truth. In our Pentecostal heritage, we see this pattern repeated: from the fires of Azusa Street to the underground churches of Iran and China today. The more the world tries to suppress the Gospel, the more the Spirit fans the flames.
The Resurrection isn't just a "minimal fact" to be debated; it is a "maximal reality" to be experienced. When we look at the world through a biblical worldview, we don't see a Church that is "clinging to survival." We see a Church that is destined for victory, because its Head is alive.
The World You Live In
You might be wondering, "Why does this matter to me? I’m not being persecuted by a Roman emperor."
It matters because the attempt to "bury" the Resurrection continues today, just in subtler forms. Our culture tries to bury the claim by making it "irrelevant." We are told that faith is a private matter, that the Bible is just one of many "sacred texts," and that science has replaced the need for the supernatural.
But look at the world around you. We live in a society that has tried to bury the "Hinge of History," and what has happened? We are more anxious, more divided, and more searching for meaning than ever before. We have tried to live in the "Aftermath of the Grave" without the "Power of the Resurrection."
When you understand that the claim of the Resurrection is the most attacked because it is the most true, everything changes.
Your identity changes: You aren't just an accident of biology; you are a child of the Risen King.
Your hope changes: Death isn't the end; it's a doorway.
Your purpose changes: You aren't just living for the weekend; you are living for Eternity.
Takeaways for the Thinking Reader
The pattern of opposition to Christianity across cultures, centuries, and ideological systems is not random. It is specific. It demands an explanation.
Persecution is not proof of truth, but its specificity and consistency are evidence worth examining. If a thousand different people from a thousand different backgrounds all try to stop the same thing, you should probably find out what that thing is.
Gamaliel's test has been applied over two thousand years. The verdict is not ambiguous. Human movements fail. Divine movements endure.
The failure of every attempt to eradicate Christianity is a historical fact that requires a theory. If you reject the Resurrection, you have to find a better reason why the Church is still here.
The Resurrection is the bullseye. If you want to understand the Bible and a biblical worldview, you must start at the Empty Tomb.
In the next chapter, we are going to look at how this "buried" claim actually reshaped the very way we track time. We’ll explore why, even if you are an atheist, you still use a calendar built on the life of a Galilean carpenter.
But for now, ask yourself: Why are they still trying to bury it? And why does it keep coming back to life?
About the Author: Dr. Layne McDonald, Ph.D.
Layne McDonald, Ph.D. is a theologian, author, and cultural commentator dedicated to helping believers understand the deep roots of their faith. With a focus on biblical worldview and historical Christianity, Dr. McDonald serves as a guide for those navigating the complexities of modern culture through the lens of Scripture. His work is rooted in the belief that the Gospel is not just a personal sentiment, but a historical reality that transforms every aspect of life. He is the author of numerous books and resources designed to strengthen the Church and equip the next generation of leaders.
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The 'Zinger' Hook: If the Resurrection was just a legend invented by a few grieving fishermen, why did the most powerful empires in history spend two thousand years trying to kill it: and why are they the ones who ended up in the grave while the "legend" is still transforming lives today?
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