Although more than 79 percent of people in the United States identify themselves as Christians, there’s a growing body of evidence that the media and the government, including the military, are doing their best to turn Americans against Christianity.
TV comedians and shows like The Simpsons regularly mock Christians, and Saturday Night Live even aired a “comedy” skit recently that depicted Jesus attacking Romans with a machine gun and slicing a man’s head in half. Can you imagine what would have happened if the skit had showed Mohammed instead of Jesus? Remember the bloody riots in September 2012 over a YouTube video about Mohammed? Yet no one objects when the media, and even our own government, disrespect Christian religious figures, as well as anyone who upholds Christian principles.
Sing Oldham, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “It’s open season on those who profess personal faith in Jesus Christ and pattern their lives by biblical morality. Evangelical Christians are treated with contempt and targeted for ridicule.” Even Ira Glass, an atheist and secular Jew, recently mentioned that Christians are portrayed as, “doctrinaire crazy hothead people.” He went on to talk about the Christians he knows personally and how they are nothing like the way they’re portrayed in the media; indicating that Christians are unfairly treated. If you need additional proof, look no further than NFL quarterback Tim Tebow. Critics couldn’t wait for him to fail, not because of his football skills, but because they felt uncomfortable with his open displays of religious faith.
There were disturbing reports this summer about the U.S. military turning against Christian groups that support traditional family values. An Army training instructor gave a presentation to a Pennsylvania reserve unit about extremist groups like Al Queda and the Ku Klux Klan, but he also listed Catholics and Evangelical Christians as dangerous extremists. This list was apparently taken from the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has ties to the radical left. The same list was referenced in an email sent by a lieutenant colonel at Fort Campbell, Kentucky to his subordinates, warning them to watch out for “hate groups,” including some well-respected Christian groups like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association.
At Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a 2011 memo declared that, “No religious items (i.e., Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit” to injured service members. The policy was changed after a Republican lawmaker denounced it in Congress, but what kind of thinking would deny a wounded warrior the comfort of a Bible, a prayer book or a rosary?
This administration has gone from “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to the complete opposite end of the spectrum. In July of this year, the White House opposed an amendment to a National Defense Authorization Act that would have protected religious “actions and speech” in the military because it might limit commanders’ ability to discipline service members accused of discriminating against homosexuals. Franklin Graham of Billy Graham’s organization recently wrote, “If we hold up God’s standards, we are accused of being intolerant. ‘Tolerance’ is one of today’s hot buttons, but in reality the true and fast-growing ‘intolerance’ is for Christianity—anything that stands for Jesus Christ.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) pointed out, “There is a war on Christianity, not just from liberal elites here at home, but worldwide. It angers me to see my tax dollars supporting regimes that put Christians to death for blasphemy against Islam, countries that put to death Muslims who convert to Christianity and countries who imprison anyone who marries outside their religion.”
I urge you all to pay attention to what’s going on in this country. The media has a valuable role in this society and if they abuse that role to target a group of people because they don’t agree with their views, that is discrimination and needs to be stopped. It’s a disease and we have the power to end it.
If you see Christians ridiculed in the media, or politicians allowing anti-Christian measures to be passed, speak up! Our country, founded on Judeo-Christian values, became the greatest country in the world. The erosion and mockery of these values, left un-checked, will surely result in the fall of our great nation.
By Whose Authority?
For more information on my Commentary and to see some of the backup research, or if you wonder why I take the position I take, go to www.LyleBrennan.com.
Shane Mayfield says
I could not agree more wholeheartedly with this editorial. Over the last decade, the media, Hollywood, academia and the professional left have stealthly turned the word “tolerance” on its head. In order to be tolerant of an idea or value, one must necessarily disagree with that idea or value to begin with–not embrace it. Otherwise, what is there to “tolerate?” However, these aforementioned groups have such disdain for Christians, and label them as “intolerant,” simply because many Christians do not “embrace” their secular ideas or values. And Christians punishment for doing so is they are openly mocked and sneer at by these groups. Now you tell me who is “intolerant?”
StEwPiD_MoNkEy says
No. Look at what you wrote as your definition of tolerance and then look at the christian stance.
Yes tolerance is about understanding that although an idea is not shared, a person has the right to that idea and to live their lives accordingly. this is NOT what christians in America do. Here they want to pass legislation denying civil liberties to others. They want to pass laws that keep Christians as the majority and hence the law makers of this country.
You an your ilk have the audacity to push your fairy tales on my children and tell them that they are nothing without your sky daddy. This is not acceptable. Tolerance, does not mean that you are above being the butt end of a joke. Tolerace does not mean that your beleifs cannot be questioned, automatically are correct especially when it comes in conflict with citizens rights.
So you can walk around (meaning christians) telling people that they are going to hell. That your religion is the true religion and theirs in nonsense, yet when we laugh at your bronze aged nonsense, your panties get in a knot? Grow up. You are not tolerant. Any christian that says they are persecuted in America is nothing more than a hypocrite
RogerW says
“They want to pass laws that keep Christians as the majority ..” …please. Enlighten us as to just what that ‘Christians keep the majority” law would be.
As far as ‘tolerance’ goes – your entire post proves atheists in general (and you in particular) are about the least ‘tolerant’ group of people on the planet. It’s not good enough that you “don’t believe.’ Everyone else has to ‘not believe,’ too. That’s the atheist mantra. Hypocrisy? Grab a mirror, Sparky. You’re one to talk.
StEwPiD_MoNkEy says
let’s start with marriage equality. Should we even go there? Don’t act obtuse.
I really don’t care if you or any theist believes or not. What I will not tolerate are theist trying to tell everyone else how to live.
Keep your comments in context. Yes there are intolerant people on both sides. But my post was directed to a particular comment.
Shannon Montgomery says
I could not disagree more wholeheartedly with this editorial. Christians still hold the positions of power, including on the Supreme Court; the president of the US is a Christian; there are few members of Congress who aren’t Christians.
What’s under fire is the special place of privilege that Christianity has held in the US. The population is increasingly religiously diverse. “Christians” are not under fire. Theocrats are. Fundamentalists are. Anybody who wants to encode a Christian version of Sharia law is under fire–appropriately so. Christians should not have a special dispensation from Hollywood and the media to *not* be mocked when every part of the culture is mocked mercilessly.
I’ve been a chaplain intern at a hospice and found out how difficult it is for staff, patients, and family when volunteer chaplains take someone’s deathbed as an opportunity for proselytizing. That is not the job. If that was happening at the VA–if soldiers were being harassed by misguided souls who badgered them in the name of Jesus–then the policy would be appropriate. Nobody is out to get Christians; find out and tell the full story of *why* that policy was enacted in the first place. Then you’ll be contributing to the collective discourse.
There are places on earth where real persecution happens. This isn’t among them, and it trivializes their very real dangers when American Christians claim persecution.
(For the record, I am a Christian).
StEwPiD_MoNkEy says
So your stance on equality only extends to Christian beliefs? As a “wounded warrior”, when I was laid up in Portsmouth Naval Hospital in VA, and as an atheist, why do you think I would want to hear about religion during my time in the hospital. Service members come in ethnicities and beliefs. Why should the Christian view be held above all others.
And why we would not label religious groups as extremeists? Are non christians being killed in America because of their lack of belief in the Christian God?
Yes.
Are christians picketing and yelling obscene remarks are the funerals of our soldiers?
Yes.
Is the Christian minority constantly fighting against the rights of homosexuals, women and any other belief that is not their own.
Yes.
You ask why? The evidence is stacked against you. Thank fully we do not live in a country that is a theocracy.
If we held up to your “Gods” standards, we’d still have slaves. Women would still have a dowry, etc.
If Christians stop going to other countries and telling them that their beliefs are wrong, they might stop getting their heads cut off.