Dismissing a few millennia of abysmal behvaior, it is hard to rush to the defense of the Church just with today's headline. Or yesterday's. And probably tomorrow's. 

How is it persecution?  Maher cannot harm truth. Persecution is the action of Riight Wing evangelicals tarnishing and distorting, with their enmeshment in partisan politics, the message of Christ. 

Justice for Americans to kill bin Laden without a tiral? Jesus gave us restorative justice; an eye for eye is dead. Yes, as sinners we deserve death but Christ gave us a new order of Justice: endless mercy and forgiveness. 

The whole story of Scripture is not murder and assassinations by agents of government.