PERSECUTION
In America, Christians have been tremendously blessed. For the most part, American Christians have lived lives free from religious persecution. The only persecution I have heard Christians in America suffering is ridicule, which is minor compared to the tremendous suffering Christians have endured throughout the history of the faith. In fact, Christians are enduring enormous
persecution in some parts of the world still today.
The historic protections afforded Christians in America continue to take an ominous turn, however. Under the guise of civil rights, organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) have become ever bolder in their drive to silence the voice of Christians in the public sector of American life. For the simple act of public prayer, the ACLU advocates arrest and incarceration. In Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, school officials allowed a private individual to pray before a school event. The ACLU issued a startling threat: “Their refusal to comply… should and must result in their removal from society.” At a county council meeting in Oconee County, South Carolina, discussing the issue of prayer at the board meetings, an ACLU board member issued this threat: “[P]rayers should not be allowed. Especially prayers to Jesus… [I]f they continue to break the law, I want to say, the handcuffs are going to come.” Respected members of Gideon’s International have been arrested for handing out New Testaments near, not on, school grounds (South Florida, 2008).
In their zeal to completely dismantle the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, the ACLU is turning to international law. A recent
Alliance Defense Fund report tells us, “For decades, the ACLU has worked from within this country to attack Our First Liberty – religious freedom. But in recent years, they have worked to import the legal decisions of foreign governments, creating new ‘rights’ our Founding Fathers never intended.” Using the homosexual agenda as another of their civil rights platforms, the ACLU hopes to establish that any Biblical teaching of homosexuality as sinful behavior will be regarded as a “hate crime.” If they succeed, the persecution of Christians in America will become much more than ridicule. (To watch the five minute video “Foreign Law in America,” click
here).
For the time being, we still live in a nation where its citizens have a voice in their government. But that may change in less time than we think possible. Until then, Christians can continue to confront bad ideas like this. We can continue to uphold the values that America’s Founders considered the foundation for the new republic they established. Without the foundation of the faith upon which our Founders placed their lives, we cannot hope that we will long sustain the liberties that they so successfully established. Without this as our nation’s firm foundation, Christians throughout this nation can expect to once again meet the wild beasts.
“We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” —James Madison
In Christ,
Pastor Chuck
