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Who Is Persecuting Whom?
by James Glaser
Alan Cooperman of the Washington Post explains, "White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and 85% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are the minority under siege and nearly half believe they are looked down upon by most of their fellow citizens, according to a 2004 poll." A few weeks ago there was a two day conference in Washington on "War on Christians and the Values Voters in 2006." These people assume that only Christians can vote on values, and they have taken George Bush's line of "They hate our freedom" and have morphed it into, "They hate our religion." "They" must be the 15% of America that does not claim to be Christian. Top Ten Largest Religious Bodies in the United States (Figures reflect U.S. membership only. A few of these religious bodies
From this list (All Christian Churches in the top ten) we can see that whoever is 'Looking down on" or "persecuting Christians are a small minority. At the War on Christian's conference, the opening session was devoted to "reports from the frontlines" on "persecution" of Christians in the United States and Canada, "including an artist whose paintings were barred from a municipal art show in Deltona Fla., because they contained religious themes." Cooperman reports that some Christian groups "declared that religious celebration of Christmas—and even the phrase 'Merry Christmas'—was under attack by secular forces." Some of the speakers at the conference were Representative Tom Delay, Senator Sam Brownback, Christian leaders like Phyllis Schlafly, Gary Bauer, and Alan Keyes. After the "reports from the frontlines" was given, K. Hollyn Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty said, "Certainly religious persecution existed in our history, but to claim that these examples amount to religious persecution disrespects the experiences of people who have been jailed and died because of their faith." Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ, and professor of social ethics at Emory University said, "This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war on Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position." This year George Bush needs his fundamental religious base to come out and vote Republican, or the Democrats could take over the leadership in the House or Senate. Their best chance is in the House though. George knows if that happens, every thing he has done in the last five years will be under an investigation. So, George Bush and his backers are pulling out all the stops. Claiming that Christianity in an 85% Christian country is under attack, seems almost like a last ditch effort. Tom DeLay used abortion when he talked about this "war." "We are after all a society that abides abortion on demand, that has killed millions of innocent children, that degrades the institution of marriage and often treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition. Seen from this perspective, of course there is a war on Christianity." Now Right Wing Tom Delay wants the federal government to legislate morality for this country. With 85% of the country claiming Christianity as their faith, you know most abortions are being performed on Christians. DeLay knows that the Christian Churches have almost no effect on their members when it comes to the demand for abortions, yet he claims that those abortions are a part of a war on Christianity. That makes it a civil war if anything. Oh yeah, remember that painter who they claimed couldn't show his paintings because they had a religious theme? Well come to find out Lloyd Marcus, the painter got to show his work. A Christian legal group, Alliance Defense Fund, threatened a lawsuit, and the City of Deltona let him in. His paintings are really nice and you can see them if you go to http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/2/9/152547.shtml. I guess that means the Christians won this battle. People tell me that Christians are hated here in America. When all those churches were being burned in Alabama this spring, every one was telling me,"See what they are doing." Well it turns out those churches were burned by some stupid Christian kids as a prank. Really a dumb prank that will put those kids behind bars, but nothing to do with any organized war on Christians. There is no war here in America on Christians, and you know what? "They," who ever "they" are don't hate us for our freedom either. When George Bush uses that line he is talking about the attackers on 9/11 and the insurgents in Iraq. It isn't our freedom they hate; it is our backing of Israel, it is our putting American troops in Muslim countries, it is shock and awe bombing campaigns, it is the torture of Iraqi and Afghan prisoners, and it is the pornographic movies and magazines we push. It is our western culture that they hate. It is the beaming of our television shows to there country they don't like, and yes it is our arrogance that we can claim our religion is under attack. |
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