Persecution of Christians In US Growing Problem

  Over the past year, we have presented a number of articles concerning the persecution of Christians that seems to be escalating, both overseas and here in the United States. In this article, we're going to look more closely at several instances of blatant anti-Christian discrimination, persecution and harassment that are indicative of the rapidly increasing attitudes of secularists here in the United States.

According to Christian Solidarity International, More Christians died for their faith in the twentieth century than at any other time in history. Global reports indicate that over 150,000 Christians were martyred last year, chiefly outside of the United States. However, persecution of Christians is on the increase in the United States.

Some experts believe that a pattern is emerging reminiscent of Jewish persecution in post war Germany. Don McAlvany, writing in The Midnight Herald, says "Isolation of, and discrimination against Christians is growing almost geometrically". "This is the way it started in Germany against the Jews. As they became more isolated and marginalized by the Nazi propaganda machine, as popular hatred and prejudice against the Jews increased among the German people, wholesale persecution followed. Could this be where the growing anti-Christian consensus in America is taking us?"

In the past several months, we have seen our North of the Border neighbor, Canada, write legislation that has the capability of restricting and prohibiting the preaching, publication or writing of any part of the Holy Bible that could be construed as "hate" literature. In Great Falls, Minnesota, a secular newspaper invoked censorship on the writers of the religion page (local pastors and ministers), prohibiting the inclusion of any scripture in their articles. The editor of that paper has not replied to requests for comment.

More recently, in Balch Springs, Texas, the city moved to prohibit prayer before meals, gospel music, or bible studies by the senior citizens that use the city's Senior Citizen Center. Pat Cook, who goes to the center, filed a complaint with the city about the prayers, music and bible studies. Although she claims to be Christian, Ms. Cook says that such "religious expression" is inappropriate at a center funded by tax dollars. According to her, she is free to go to another room, but chooses to stay and listen, saying only that she doesn't think she should have to listen.

Marcelline Green, 75, along with several others has filed a suit against the City of Balch Springs, claiming that the city has arbitrarily "deprived them of their right to free speech and religious expression."

"The city attorney may believe that prayer should be left in the church pew and that God only wants his praise on Sundays, but we have a constitutional right to exercise our religion, and we have been stripped of that right," commented former Dallas County Sheriff's Deputy Barney Clark. "We don't lose our First Amendment rights and religious freedoms when we walk into a public building or step onto a public park or public street or public sidewalk." Barney, a 77 year old WWII veteran who plays guitar for a gospel group "Silver Threads", says "'I fought for love of freedom and country." "And here I've got old and useless, they say, and I ain't got no freedom no more."

Peggy Rial, a local senior, stated, "A lot of seniors that attend don't drive or have a car and can't get to church on Sunday. This is the only way for them to get a teaching of the Bible. It's not a structured serviceŠ [it's] just studying the Word of God."

Balch City Mayor James Kelsey said "I still say we can't sanction prayer." The city says that if necessary, they will close down the center to maintain "the constitutional wall which prevents an intermingling of religious activities and local government."

In Plano, Texas, the Plano Independent School District (ISD) told a third grade boy that he could not pass out candy with a religious message at his class Christmas party. Jonathan Morgan, a student at Thomas Elementary School in Plano, had plans to pass out candy with an attached religious message, entitled "The Legend of the Candy Cane." Morgan was set to pass out the gifts at a class party on December 19, 2003, but was informed that no student is allowed to give a gift containing a religious expression.

Kelly Shackelford, Chief Counsel with Liberty Legal Institute, says "Our public schools are not 'zones of religious censorship' where students are bound and gagged as to their religious freedom." The Liberty Legal Institute has sent a demand letter to the PISD asking them to stop censoring religious expression and comply with the First Amendment's protection of religious speech provisions.

"It is a fundamental principle of law that school officials may not suppress or exclude the speech of private parties simply because the speech is religious or includes religious content. It is about time that our schools start doing the right thing on their own instead of always forcing us to resort to legal action to educate school officials on the law," said Hiram Sasser, Director of Litigation with Liberty Legal Institute.

A letter sent by this paper to the Superintendent of the PISD, Dr. Douglas Otto, asking comment on the PISD's actions has gone unanswered.

The Iowa Supreme Court has recently ruled that a church could be sued for using the term, "the spirit of Satan." The case focuses on a letter authored by the former United Methodist Church District Superintendent, Reverend Jerrold Swinton. In his letter responding to strife within the church, he warned that "the spirit of Satan" was at work in The United Methodist Church of Shell Rock in Iowa.

Swinton visited the church after hearing numerous complaints of strife and division. In the letter, he wrote: "Folks, when is enough, enough? When will you stop the blaming, negative and unhappy persons among you from tearing down the spirit of Jesus Christ among you?" The letter recommended that church members take notice that "the spirit of Satan" was at work in the church.

The suit was originally filed by Mrs. Kliebenstein and her husband, members of The United Methodist Church of Shell Rock, who sued the church and Swinton for defamation, which was thrown out by a lower court citing that they did not have jurisdiction to rule on matters involving church discipline. The Iowa Supreme Court, however, overruled the lower court's decision and held that a church can be sued for referring to a church member as acting within "the spirit of Satan." According to some legal observers, "It is outrageous to think that judges could haul churches into court for calling a sin, a sin."

Intolerance for Christianity and Christians in the United States is escalating.

 Recently, a woman in Houston, Texas was ordered by local police to stop handing out gospel tracts to children who knocked on her door during Halloween. Officers informed her that such activity is illegal (not true), and that she would be arrested if she continued.

In Madison, Wisconsin, the Freedom from Religion Foundation distributes anti-Christian pamphlets to public school children entitled, "We Can Be Good Without God."

The entertainment industry and syndicated media increasingly describe Christians as sub-standard, bigoted, intolerant, and incapable of rational thought.

The Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago warns that plans by Southern Baptists to hold a convention in the Windy City might foment "hate crimes" against minorities, causing some Christians there to fear that speaking openly about their religious beliefs will soon be considered a crime.

And yet, Christianity itself is often a target of hate-crime violence. Remember the students at Columbine, attacked and murdered while holding a prayer meeting, and the United Methodist minister who was fatally beaten and burned in a remote part of Chattanooga, Tennessee? Or the street preacher in Pennsylvania arrested and charged for standing on a public street with a sign?

Meanwhile, back in the school yard...

Public school students at Excelsior Elementary School in Byron, Calif. pretend to be Muslims, wear robes, simulate jihads via a dice game, learn the Five Pillars of Faith and memorize verses from the Koran in classroom exercises as part of a World History and Geography class that's being taught to seventh-graders all over the state. The class is included in the state's curriculum standards required by the state board of education. These standards outline what subjects should be taught and will be included in state assessment tests, but don't mandate how they're to be taught.

The Islam simulations at Excelsior are outlined in the state-adopted textbook "Across the Centuries," published by Houghton Mifflin, which prompts students to imagine they are Islamic soldiers and Muslims on a Mecca pilgrimage. Students are encouraged to use such phrases in their speech as "Allah Akbar," which is Arabic for "God is great," and are required to fast during lunch period to simulate fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"While public schools prohibit Christian students from reading the Bible, praying, displaying the Ten Commandments, and even mentioning the word 'God,' students in California are being indoctrinated into the religion of Islam," said Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center. "Public schools would never tolerate teaching Christianity in this way. Just imagine the ACLU's outcry if students were told that they had to pray the Lord's Prayer, memorize the Ten Commandments, use such phrases as 'Jesus is the Messiah,' and fast during Lent," he added.

Elizabeth Christina Lemings, a teacher in the Byron School District, says "We can't even mention the name of Jesus in the public schools," Lemings laments, "but ... they teach Islam as the true religion, and students are taught about Islam and how to pray to Allah. Can you imagine the barrage of lawsuits and problems we would have from the ACLU if Christianity were taught in the public schools, and if we tried to teach about the contributions of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the Apostle Paul? But when it comes to furthering the Islamic religion in the public schools, there is not one word from the ACLU, People for the American Way or anybody else. This is hypocrisy." She was unaware of the program until her seventh grade son brought home the handouts for the course. "This is not just a class of history of examining culture," she said. "This course is entirely too specific. It is more about indoctrination."

In October of last year, school officials at the University of New Orleans denied Michelle Beadle permission to hand out an evangelistic tract that encourages Jewish people to embrace Jesus Christ as the true Messiah. The university told Beadle, a Messianic Jew who works as a missionary for Christian Jew Foundation Ministries, that the content of the literature may be offensive to some people.

However, Stuart Roth of the American Center for Law and Justice (aclj.org), says numerous court cases have upheld an individual's right to distribute such material.

"The government can't censor speech in this particular scenario just because they might disagree with the message, or because a government official finds the material offensive. The First Amendment protects different viewpoints ... that's what our Constitution is all about," he says.

Roth, who is Beadle's attorney in the case, says the school's policy violates both the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. He suggests that it also violates the principles behind academic freedom in a liberal educational environment.

"Here we have a public university -- the bastion of free speech, as they love to claim -- where they allow just about anything and everything to be taught and said. But when it comes to evangelism, they have different standards. I think ... this literature was denied purely because of its evangelistic nature," the attorney says.

A public high school in Virginia has been hit with a federal lawsuit for censoring a graduation ceremony song because of its religious content.

The Rutherford Institute (rutherford.org) filed the suit on behalf of former high school student Anna Ashby, who was, along with a friend, denied permission to sing "The Prayer," a song recorded by pop artist Celine Dion. Officials at Windsor High School argued that because the song referred to God, it violated the so-called "separation of church and state." But Ashby's attorney, John Whitehead, says the school trampled on his client's free-speech rights.

The attorney is arguing that the school, in asking for volunteers to participate in the commencement activities, opened a public forum. "Once you do that, the Supreme Court says you can't discriminate against a religious viewpoint, which Windsor High School is doing here," he says.

The Oscar-nominated song "The Prayer," written by songwriters Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster, was featured in a 1998 animated film and expresses what many would consider to be universal sentiments. The lyrics contain only one direct reference to God: "Help us find a place, guide us with your grace / Give us faith so we'll be safe / A world where pain and sorrow will be ended / And every heart that's broken will be mended / And we'll remember we are all God's children / Reaching out to touch you."

In refusing to allow the song chosen by Ashby and her friend, Whitehead says the school did not accord the Christian teenagers the same rights other students had. "Other students sang alma mater songs and gave speeches and did other things," he says. "They're just not treating them equally with other students."

Whitehead says cases like this are all too common in the United States, and that the Institute is besieged every spring with cases from all over the country involving graduation prayer and any kind of mention of God. "It's very commonplace. Unfortunately, it seems that in a graduation ceremony you can say a lot of things that might offend a lot of people, but for some reason the word 'God' is taboo," the attorney says.

Concord High School in North Carolina recently suspended guidance counselor Beth Pinto with pay for sharing Bible verses with a student who was struggling with homosexuality. Although the student requested biblical advice, according to school officials Pinto's actions violated the so-called "separation of Church and State."

Pastor Flip Benham of "Operation Save America" says Pinto's case is a microcosm of what is taking place in America's schools. "Kids can ask for condoms, and a teacher is rewarded if he gives a condom but is punished if he gives a student a scripture that would provide light to what they're dealing with," the pastor says.

Benham contends that many public school administrators across the United States are employing the same strong-arm tactics that were used in the Concord case. "This is a battle that's not only in Concord High School; it is endemic with public schools and government schools all across this land, where Christian teachers are intimidated by administrations," he says.

The pro-family activist comments that it is a sad day when God has been expelled from America's schools and banished from its schoolyards, and His presence replaced by metal detectors, condoms, drugs and unprecedented violence.

"Bloodshed is really coursing down the corridors of our high schools," Benham says, "and we sit and look at each other with awkward amazement, [asking] 'Why are our kids killing each other?' Why are they committing suicide? Why are they losing themselves in drugs and in gangs?"

The Source of the Problem

In Eph 6:12 we read "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]." Manly P. Hall once wrote, "They are the invisible powers behind the thrones of earth, and men are but marionettes, dancing while the invisible ones pull the strings." For over 50 years now, these invisible powers have pulled the strings of unregenerate men and women in the US to erode and discredit Christian morality and standards and replace it with a purely humanistic/naturalistic philosophy.

Even a casual look at the facts reveals a growing isolation of Christians as a group, especially school age believers. Faculty and peer efforts to convince public school children that America was not founded on Christian ideals, and that our forefathers actually wanted a secular society, permeates public school interaction. Revisionists labor to eliminate any and all contradictory historical evidence from public school curriculum, and mockingly stereotype Christians as an unenlightened fringe.

A few years ago, Dr. Paul Vitz, professor of psychology at New York University, worked with a committee that examined sixty social studies and history textbooks used in public schools across the United States. The committee was amazed to find that almost every reference to the Christian influence of early America had been systematically removed. Their conclusion: the writers of the commonly used textbooks intentionally censored Christianity's positive role in American history.

Intolerant, Christ-hating censors of religious expression target the media and public school curriculum because this is the best place, outside of the churches and families, to indoctrinate children and thus manipulate the future political and cultural landscape. If one succeeds in separating Godly principles from public education and the media, they deny citizens the knowledge of good and keep them from embracing the laws of God.

Reap what you sow.

Censoring the Christian model and denigrating biblical values has resulted in a generation where every day in the United States:

* 437 children are arrested for drinking or drunk driving
* 211 children are arrested for drug abuse
* 1,629 children are in adult jails
* 30 children are wounded by guns
* 10 children are killed by guns
* 135,000 children bring a gun to school

Social scientists claim this generation's inability to define absolutes, and a growing pattern of anti-Christian behavior, may ultimately result in the collapse of the American superstructure, as situation ethics, AIDS and other forms of sexually transmitted diseases, the redefining of the family unit, and other abandonments of biblical standards of morality come to their dangerous and natural conclusion.

For the past five decades Americans have allowed the liberal Left to defend the use of public funds for pornography, explicit sex education, and anti-Christian curricula. The Hollywood elite have denigrated Christian values and mocked the virtues of purity. The highest courts in the land have ruled with contemptuous decree against God, against prayer, and against the free expression of religion. Is it any wonder we have become the most profane and violent society in the industrialized world?