Dealing with religious persecution can be a very heavy and impactful, but proceed with caution. It’s a minefield that requires careful navigating.
As an extreme example I’ll point to an English author getting dropped by her publisher after releasing a story on a romance between the son of a KKK leader and a daughter of a Mexican drug kingpin. Surface level, this is a weighted story that could be a very meaningful delve in overcoming prejudice with a tale of star crossed lovers. Instead it was so incredibly fetishized and handled so clumsily it was just an offensive mess.
If you are delving into a religious theme, I would also advise either drawing from your own personal religious experiences. If you want to explore others than research, research, research. In the above example, the Latina female lead’s offensive behavior was made so much worse since it was written by a White woman in England. It showed no respect to the cultures she was drawing from and full of stereotypes.
If you have a story to tell, please do. I wrote a story I was very proud of who’s main character was a Black lesbian during the 40’s for the noir competition last year. I had a few female friends and Black friends consult as I wrote and read my drafts. I took notes from them extremely seriously and made a few changes along the way. Tell your story, be respectful, do your research.