They have been persecuted to the verge of extinction.
East German Lutherans, living in a society that was hostile to Christianity and intermittently persecuted Christians, sought to avoid confrontations with the state, even when it decreed an all but mandatory "youth consecration," which was to replace confirmation.
Or, does it want to continue to hold women solely accountable, blaming and persecuting women, thus allowing men to avoid changing a long tradition of invisibility when it comes to abortion and sexual acting-out?
You'd think something that big and that's been around so long, would have worked out a way to avoid being caught and persecuted, but they really don't.
Bolivia's vice president, Álvaro García Linera, said at a news conference on Wednesday that Mr. Pinto was not being persecuted and suggested he was seeking asylum to avoid facing the criminal charges against him.
Getting atheists on camera was rare, one of the reporters told me it was common for Nashvillians to hide their lack of belief to avoid getting harangued and persecuted by the region's ruthless and plentiful evangelicals.
We will be persecuted and hunted down like the vile abominations we are... Act quickly to avoid any link to this place".
But someone who persecutes you over e-mail, social networks, or anonymous comments is far more difficult to avoid and dismiss.
The new term was constructed to avoid association with religious practices, which were prone to being labeled as "feudal superstition" and persecuted during the Maoist era.
The overall rule is to say what a plain-speaking English-speaker would say and to avoid waffle.Against that is the curiously Anglophone fact that referring to people with a noun minus an adjective seems reductive, especially for groups that have been persecuted or are more vulnerable than others.
