Christian culture talks a great deal about being "under attack." God is under attack, truth is under attack, the gospel is under attack, one-man-one-woman marriage is under attack, the right to life is under attack, the right to worship is under attack. This is interesting because it's laid out pretty clearly in the Bible that truth will constantly be under attack until the day of Christ's return. It says there will be no letting up.
Some Christians even protest the separation of church and state and say that this part of the American constitution is an attack on those who believe in God by limiting their expression of their beliefs.
The Apostle Paul said that Christ's followers are blessed for being persecuted. However, you might not know it from the way some Christians protest being attacked. If being attacked is a given, and something you are even commanded to give thanks for, does talking about it in this way make it seem you really believe that?
16 comments:
One little niggle, "separation of Church and State" is definitely not "part of the Constitution" in the sense that phrase is generally rendered. After all, the entire basis for our independence was that "man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights." and the back side of The Great Seal for the United States bears the inscription "He (God) has blessed our undertakings."
That being said, in a very general sense "God" is under attack...but the manifestations of that we see are really just the symptoms of less visible battle that has been going on in the hearts of humanity for a long time...the creeping idea that there is no God...or at least that if there is there is no good to be had in serving the Almighty. That is really the battle that is being "lost" in some regard.
However, the idea that modern, Western Protestantism (of all people) are the ones that are decrying this battle is the biggest irony.
The concrete ideas under attack [e.g., definition of marriage, abortion debate, etc.] are easy rallying points, but far more authentic points of contention are peace, justice (in the sense of removing oppression, not in the sense the word is commonly used today), and caring for our neighbor would be better choices...yet the conservative church historically is not in a particularly good position to label themselves stalwart defenders of those causes.
Yes, and Christmas, that highly-commodified commemoration of America's spending power—I mean the birth of Jesus—that's also under attack. Just ask Bill-O
If you just pretend you're in Midieval times, Christian lingo suddenly makes sense.
"Our kingdom is under attack! Put on the armor of God and protect yourselves from the enemy's daggers! We must put up a hedge of protection! The King of Kings shall defend our land and expand our territory once more!"
Aside from what Stephy said about the Bible saying that being under attack is required, the fear itself shows so little faith in God's plan. If everything is in God's plan, then they need to just worry about themselves and leave the rest of us heathens free from their God. Jesus suffered on the cross, supposedly, and they can't handle not being allowed to enforce prayer in schools? Boo-forking-hoo. Pray at home and leave my kids out of it. No-one is trying to stop that. Seriously! No-one is doing that!
One little niggle, "separation of Church and State" is definitely not "part of the Constitution" in the sense that phrase is generally rendered.
True. However, the phrase ("a wall of...") does come up in Jefferson's "Letter to the Danbury Baptists" from 1803. He was explaining the First Amendment to them--especially the bit about Congress not making any laws establishing an official religion, or prohibiting people from worshiping how they chose. He was saying that, by disallowing Congress to establish an official religion, or to restrict peoples' religious freedom, it created "a wall of separation between Church and State".
To me, most Christians aren't really "persecuted" per se. 99.9% of the time, they're just being called out on their crap, or they're whining because they can't have it their way for everyone.
Wow...Tony Perkins of 'Focus on the Family' ('s bank account) draws over $200k per year and I have never, never, ever seen or read any secular news reports "attacking" him over how much moolah one can take by heading up a national Pro-Life money-maker!
Unfortunately the Abrahamic religions all have persecution complexes, and they are one major source of the ongoing conflicts between them. The notion that one's faith is being attacked allows one in turn to attack the attackers--and the cycle continues.
And atheists also have this persecution complex as well--they feel "attacked" by the predominant religious culture, just as that religious culture feels "attacked" by atheism/secularism/etc.
Pagans are always under attack as well, mostly by Christians, but there's also psychic attack. *L* Oh, will the persecution ever end? ;)
I am so glad I came across this blog. I love it! I'm compiling my list of popular Pagan culture and there are actually a few similarities.
Uncanny...I just got some magazine from my mother in law, the cover says "The War on Family" The magazine is the Philadelphia Trumpet. It's scary how easy it is to make Christians afraid with messages like these. "oooh, the whole world is after me and my beliefs" seems to lead people to purposely separate themselves which widens the gap with the rest of the world even further. Why's it got to be an "us vs. them" thing anyway? What happened to the whole love each other and it's the sick who need healing themes? Where did Christians go so wrong?
whether you are a christian or not everyone is under attack and the attack on christianity is no more important than any other attacks, personal or corporate.
and you are right when you say there will be no letting of attacks in life.
"Unfortunately the Abrahamic religions all have persecution complexes, and they are one major source of the ongoing conflicts between them. The notion that one's faith is being attacked allows one in turn to attack the attackers--and the cycle continues."
yeah, except for with the jews it is a complex based on thousands of years of REAL persecution, i.e. ghettos, pogroms, crusades, shoah, etc.
Yeah, saying they have "persecution complexes" is like saying the African American population in 19th century North America has "persecution problems."
But, the simple fact is that Christians were also persecuted for years. In fact, we get our word "martyr" from this persecution. The term comes from a Greek word that originally simply meant "witness" or "testimony." And it came to mean more when people were so certain of Christ's resurrection that they would testify to it even under pain of torture.
Christianists are nothing without their little drama queen ravings about being under attack or outright playing the victim.
Never mind that it's the Christianists making life unberable for the rest of us, forcing everyone else to push back.
I was just minding my own business- it's the Christianists shoving their cr*p dpown everyone's throat.
the real fear is the spread of influence of christianity is severely limited by growing culture that says religion only gets in the way of things. well, if the church providing food and clothing to hurricane victims is considered counter-culture then maybe there is a lot to fear. the fear stems from the state of society encroaching on their rights and beliefs and not from a lack of faith.
the separation of church and state was not designed to attack a religion's freedom of expression, but to ensure the government does not endorse 1 religion over another and create the lack of freedoms that many that came to the colonies to escape. christians are no exclusion to that rule, but by that same extension why should non-religious people use it as a tool to inhibit and oppress christians? if you're allowed to vote on your conscience on a hotly debated law, what is preventing christians from doing the same?
btw, this is about the comments, not the post: i have not met a christian who forces anything on any agnostic or atheist, but i have met atheists who will go out of their way to provoke and mistreat christians. while that observation hardly counts for a lack of faith, the idea that its the otherway around is what concerns christians.
Perhaps Christians believe they are under attack precisely because the Bible tells them they are. Maybe they are not worked up despite Paul's injunctions, but as a direct result.
Lovie, the united states identifies as 75% Christian too....really, if anyone is under 'attack' it'd be the *actual* minorities :P
Post a Comment