Is Christianity persecuted in America?
Christianity has a long tradition of matrydom and being under attack. It started out real enough, from the early Roman Christians to the Protestant reformation to Europeans fleeing whatever state-sponsored religion they had to America. In fact many early states (colonies at the time really) tolerated any religion that was not dominant. Keep in mind this is the old school tolerated which meant “we’re not going to run you out of town or kill you, but that’s as nice as we’ll be.” I have a strong feeling that evangelicals pull upon this notion to rally their troops. It is much easier to motivate people by reminding them that the government and media are against them and they must get involved to stop the spread of Satan. That’s the whole gist of evangelicalism really, and it appeals to everyone’s sense of underdog moral rebellion. I went to Catholic schools all my life and never once felt as if Christianity was under attack. Of course I heard a lot about abortion, but I never felt that the
Let me preface by saying that a lot of ugly things have been done and said in the name of Christianity. I completely understand why many people have a lot of ill will toward it. Second, I am a Christian. I come from a traditionally Bible-thumping, conservative denomination. I’m pretty middle of the road, am friends with all kinds of “sinners”, don’t use my faith as a cop-out when making political decisions and agree that a secular government is probably the way to go. I can’t say that I feel under attack, that there’s some athiest-islamic-homosexual-newage agenda to destroy Christianity. But I know lots of people who do, namely American Christians. For people who feel that they are living in “God’s land”, that it is the new Israel, all of a sudden getting the boot from mainstream society is difficult. Many of them grew up getting to pray in school and studying stuff that lined up exactly with what they believed. Being the dominant majority was all they knew. Fast forward to today: Thin
I grew up evangelical Christian and went to two different bible colleges in Ontario. I’ve since left the faith, so I look at it a bit differently. 1. Christianity seems to do best when suppressed and oppressed. Looking at history and the rest of the world, the times that created the greatest growth were when Christianity was hard to practice. It created a much deeper level of faith, a faith that people were willing to die for. 2. Even though there have been lots of little battles lately, Christianity is still pretty dominant. And though I have heard sermons fearing this would happen, no one has been banned from preaching this or that from the pulpit. 3. The Bible, which is almost 2,000 years old, tells Christians that they are being attacked (but by Satan and crew) and yet people are complaining as if this were something new. These are good points. For #1, I heard that all my life in church, but I’m not sure how valid it is, since I only ever heard it there. It makes for a bit of a per
