Is Christianity Under Attack

I was shocked to see the latest from the Pentagon. Someone in the military who shares their Christian faith can now be court martialed and possibly imprisoned. I guess this is the new form of the military code, except now it is "Don't talk, don't tell." That said, I am just now finding out some new things about Christianity.

I didn't know that Evangelical Christianity is a form of religious extremism comparable to Hamas, the KKK and Al Quaeda according to training given to Army Reserves in Pennsylvania.  http://www.adfmedia.org/files/ExtremismPresentation.pdf For Christians in the military, it gets worse.

“Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”

That is a quote from Mikey Weinstein,who is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He has also said that Christians who share the gospel in the military are guilty of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.” I wonder how women and men that have been raped would feel about that comparison. I know it shows me his lack of education on the issue. I was Agnostic for over 20 years and when a Christian talked to me about their beliefs it was nothing like getting molested when I was a youth.

The scary thing is that Mr. Weinstein is sitting down with the Pentagon as a consultant to help them develop new policies on religious tolerance.  There does not seem to be too much tolerance coming from Mikey. It is becoming more and more obvious that there may be issues for Christians.

For starters, Christians are held to different standards. While Mr. Weinstein can say whatever he wants about Christians, imagine if Christians spoke the same way about his organization. They would be vilified. If Christians voice opinions about the veracity of the Koran or who Muhammad was they are branded bigots. If Muslims burn Bibles it is considered no big deal.

Take Jason Collins coming out and telling the world he is gay this week. When Tim Tebow prays on the side of the field he is told by the mainstream media, "Keep that to yourself. No one cares." When Jason Collins comes out the media proclaims, "He is a hero." I would argue that both feel that the things they share are a huge part of who they are, so what is the difference?

Then Chris Broussard is asked his opinion about Jason coming out and he is called every name under the sun for giving it. I have a rule, do not ask questions you do not want answers to. That said, it was not like Chris spoke with the kind of malice those posting on his site are displaying.

Christians are facing a day when freedom of speech for them is fading. Christians are told to keep their opinions to themselves and to be tolerant of others. From what I have seen, they are. In fact, they show love and give support in the way of shelter and food to people who live lives that they do not agree with. I believe they say, "Love the sinner hate the sin." Then you have people like Richard Dawkins saying, "Mock them. Ridicule them in public," when speaking about Christians and he is applauded. That does not sound very tolerant.

A quote that I saw attributed to Voltaire said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." Point being, it would seem that as much as the media shouts about the Christian majority, Christians do not seem to be the ones in power. They are the ones told to be tolerant while everyone else picks on them and calls them names.

Thankfully, Christians continue to give millions upon millions of dollars as well as hours of their time to help those who are struggling. I remember working the Joplin tornado doing psychological first aid and seeing tent upon tent staffed and funded by churches as well as Convoy of Hope and Compassion International semis loaded with supplies. Would have been nice to see some secularists putting forth the same unified effort.

I guess none of this should shock me. It was predicted 2,000 years ago by Jesus in John 15:18-19, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.