Board index ‹ Assorted Bible Questions

[JarJar Binks]

Are Christians persecuted in the USA and if so, what are examples of persecution?

In what ways are Christians persecuted in the United States?

[jimwalton]

Christians in America face intellectual persecution: cultural ridicule, marginalization, slander, and exclusion.

• 2011. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship excluded from campuses across the nation because they had a policy that leaders follow Christian principles and the goals of their organization.
• 2016. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights argued that Bible-believing Christians employ the phrase "religious liberty" as a code for "discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance."
• 2017. The SPLC labelled all Christian churches and ministries as "hate groups." Mark Potok, former SPLC spokesman, said, "Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them.”
• Dec, 2017. In 2015 a fire chief in Atlanta wrote in a devotional guide that he believed in traditional marriage and sexuality. All the writing was done on his own time and outside of work. He was relieved of his duties.
• Jan, 2018. There are numerous media articles showing that professors are hard on, if not discriminating against, conservative students, including Christian students. The articles talk about how any such student gets lower grades because they don't subscribe to the liberal and atheist worldview.
• Feb, 2018: University of Central Oklahoma welcomes drag queen shows and safe sex carnivals, but denies the Christian group their right to invite Christian speakers to campus.
• Feb, 2018. A Christian student organization at Harvard University was placed on probation as a "hate group," claiming the group gives a “platform to homophobia, conversion therapy, and hate," all untrue.
• Feb, 2018. South Carolina: The 4th church in less than a month was defaced by Satanic and anti-Christian graffiti.
• March 1, 2018. Actor Chris Pratt was severely criticized on social media for tweeting prayers to comedian Kevin Smith after a life-threatening heart attack.
• April, 2018. George Washington University offers a seminar on "Fighting 'Christian Privilege' " in the country. "The training sessions are designed to ‘equip students and staff with the necessary skills to promote diversity and inclusion in the different environments in which they find themselves frequently.' "
• May, 2018. A Michigan high school refused to let a motivational speaker on their campus (who was going to speak about his personal story as an adopted son and what it takes to overcome life's difficulties) when someone did an Internet search and found out he was a Christian. He was uninvited, even though he was not speaking about his religion.
• June, 2018. A Christian high school teacher in Brownsberg, IN, was forced to resign when he refused to call transgender students by their chosen names instead of—as was his policy—to call them by their last names.
• June, 2018. Indianapolis, IN. CrossFit fired a Christian employee over his religious beliefs.
• November, 2018. Isabella Chow, a student senator at Berkeley, UC, was harassed for abstaining from an LGBTQ vote because she was Christian. She made a statement decrying discrimination, condemned bullies and bigots, and called the LGBTQ community "valid and loved." She was accused of "hateful prejudices," "bigotry," and "disturbing" views. Over 1000 students signed a petition accusing her of hatred and called her comments "violent, hypocritical, and bigoted."
• March, 2019. Administrators of Rider University (NJ) refuse to allow a Chick-Fil-A to have a franchise on campus (despite that students voted for it) because the owners of Chick-Fil-A are Christians. Posters on Reddit (with many agreements) commented that Chick-Fil-A pushes hate, which it does not.
• March, 2019: A post on Reddit reposted a YouTube of Chris Hedges from 2007, claiming that Christians = American Fascists, with the comment that it was accurately prophetic.
• March, 2019: Chick-Fil-A has now been banned at the San Antonio airport and the Buffalo (NY) airport, along with Rider University, for their alleged "anti-LGBT rhetoric and views" and because they allegedly "spread hate and discrimination." This is contrary to any action, policy, or behavior on the part of Chick-Fil-A headquarters or their restaurants, but only because they have publicly declared that they believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and they also support groups who share that belief. To express a position is not hate speech or discrimination.
• June, 2019: National Guard in Fort Indiantown Gap, PA, banned a Christian scouting group from touring their facilities because of their religious affiliation.
• June 28, 2019: CA bill presented a bill (Resolution ACR 99) to force pastors, religious workers, counsellors and educators to stop calling homosexuality a sin.
• July 2019: A private Christian boarding school in northern CA may be force to shut its doors for not allowing same-sex relationships.

Taken together, one can observe a trend of oppression if not outright persecution. Anti-Christian sentiment is escalating. It's not hard to project that laws against Christian expression and belief, along with prosecution, putting out of business, and even imprisonment could be in the near future.

[Boom Izzy]

> 2011. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship excluded from campuses across the nation because they had a policy that leaders follow Christian principles and the goals of their organization.

The policy ment gay people could not lead and though it is a Christian principal it is still discrimination

The school would have done the same thing if Christians where discriminated against by any other organisation

> 2016. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights argued that Bible-believing Christians employ the phrase "religious liberty" as a code for "discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance."

This was to protect against discrimination, Without this people can go around denying people service and calling it religions liberty, you my not see it as a problem in the stupid cake case but there are bad people how would abuse this, You are Christian but if another sect of Christian denied you service because you were not a virgin laws like these would help you

> 2017. The SPLC labelled all Christian churches and ministries as "hate groups." Mark Potok, former SPLC spokesman, said, "Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them.”

I am having a problem finding that one that says all Christian churches bit the labelled the organisation that stand against gay marriage Can you give me e link to that one

> Dec, 2017. In 2015 a fire chief in Atlanta wrote in a devotional guide that he believed in traditional marriage and sexuality. All the writing was done on his own time and outside of work. He was relieved of his duties.

I'm not saying the city was right for what it did but I a case where an organisation is incharge of savings people's lives trust is important and someone holding belief that make it hard to trust is a problem, Shoe on other foot, if someone wrote a book on how Christians are vile, vulgar and inappropriate that will make it difficult for him to be trusted with savings people with such a view point

I don't have time for the rest now but I will try to get to them throughout the day

[jimwalton]

The point is not whether you disagree with the policies and actions of the Christian groups. My point, instead, is that Christians in the U.S. face intellectual persecution which plays itself in discrimination against Christians.

> 2011 IVCF policies and gays

Is it discrimination for a Republican group on campus to disallow Democrats from being elected as their chairperson? Is it discrimination for antifascist group on campus to have a policy that Nazis are not allowed to be elected as leaders? Discrimination gets tricky, just like freedom of speech. We advocate freedom of speech, but then we discriminate against hate speech, racist speech, etc. With freedom of speech goes the understanding that hate speech and racist speech is not tolerated as part of it. Someone who spouts racist or hate speech as a TV commentator is fired, but we don't think of that as discrimination (technically it is, but civilly it is not).

So why should a Christian group not have a policy that one has to subscribe to Christian principles to be in leadership there? If they disallow or discriminate against gays attending, that's one thing, but it makes sense that to be a leader in an organization one should be required to subscribed to the basic tenets of their raison d'être.

> The school would have done the same thing if Christians where discriminated against by any other organisation

This is not true, and this is my point. Christians often get discriminated against. That was inherent in my list.

> This was to protect against discrimination

It went far beyond "protection against discrimination." It's simply a slanderous lie that "religious liberty" is a code for discrimination, intolerance, racism, etc. This is a very bigoted, biased, and false position on the part of the Commission.

> in the stupid cake case

But you'll notice that the Supreme Court showed how the action against the bakers was discriminatory.

> SPLC

Their policy and the quote by Potok betrays an aggressive position of hate speech and discrimination against Christians. I don't have a link to it. I wrote it down when it happened.

I found this here (https://www.wnd.com/2017/07/southern-po ... hristians/): "Richard Cohen, the president of SPLC, which has been linked to a domestic terror attack, wrote in a Huffington Post commentary that Christians deserve the designation because they 'sow the seeds of hate.' ”

> an organisation is incharge of savings people's lives trust is important and someone holding belief that make it hard to trust is a problem

Are you claiming that a person who holds to a traditional view of marriage can't be trusted as a fire official?

> Shoe on other foot, if someone wrote a book on how Christians are vile, vulgar and inappropriate that will make it difficult for him to be trusted with savings people with such a view point

But the man did no such thing. He didn't write that anyone was vile, vulgar, or inappropriate, but only that he believed in traditional marriage. Isn't it part of American values that we are free to hold different opinions? Kelvin Cochran didn't denigrate anyone. You may think I'm an idiot because I'm a Christian. So what—you shouldn't lose your job over it. I value Christianity and you don't. So what? Cochran values traditional marriage, and other value alternate sexual preferences. So what? Welcome to America.

But no, he was FIRED. Fired for writing about Christian values. No discrimination, no denigration, no hate speech.

In my opinion, this is discrimination against Christians, since apparently it was the opinion of this court that we are not entitled to our beliefs. Interestingly, the US District Court upheld the firing, but also ruled that the City's rules were unconstitutional. Go figure.

But the point here is not whether you think these actions against Christians were legitimate (if you are a secular humanist, I would expect you to perceive Christians as discriminatory because we don't follow the culture's value system). The point, instead, is that Christians are under increased physical attack, court rulings, business bigotry, and cultural marginalization and exclusion—and all this is growing in the past decade. Before that, people may have disagreed with Christians, but we were allowed our religious liberty. Now, increasingly, we are not, and it's mostly because we believe that homosexuality is not God's design. It's not homophobia or discrimination, but a value based on what we consider to be truth.

A belief is different from discrimination. Chick-Fil-A, for instance, hires gays and serves gays, so where is the discrimination? Chick-Fil-A has a corporate policy of “We embrace all people, regardless of religion, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity.” So where is the discrimination? There is none.

Part of the wonder of pluralism and tolerance is that I do not discriminate against hiring or serving someone despite my beliefs. It works because my beliefs, though held with conviction, don’t dictate my obligation to give employment and service to people with other belief systems.

Chick-Fil-A is not a hate group just because they have Christian beliefs. They are only a hate group if they show hate, which they do not. They are not discriminatory if they don’t discriminate. Chick-Fil-A doesn’t require that all other businesses in the airport or campus share their values and beliefs. It doesn’t require that all employees share their beliefs, nor that all customers share their beliefs. THOSE would be discrimination. In actuality, in these cases it is those who are refusing to do business with Chick-Fil-A who are guilty of discrimination. They are using their belief system as the basis to shut out a business with a different belief system merely on the basis of those beliefs, but not for any discriminatory policies or actions.

The culture is ramping up its discrimination and hatred against Christians. That's what my list was about.