Support Sweet Cakes by Melissa!

In terms of numbers the persecution that American Christians face is nowhere near that faced by their brothers and sisters in Christ in other countries. But the relatively small numbers (so far!) does not make the persecution any less evil. The horrifying injustice suffered by Aaron and Melissa Klein at the hands of a corrupt judicial system in Oregon is yet another example of what all American Christians may have to face one day.

Key quote:

Aaron and Melissa Klein ran a small bakery called “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” for seven years in Gresham, Oregon, but had to shut down their store in 2013 after Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman filed a civil rights complaint against them. Administrative judge Alan McCullough ruled Friday that the funds will go to Cryer and Bowman for “emotional, mental, and physical suffering.”

Samaritan’s Purse is raising funds to help the Kleins pay their fine and meet other expenses. “They have taken a stand for the Word of God, and they should not have to stand alone,” Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham said. “I believe that Christians across our nation will rally around Aaron and Melissa and their five children.

Please pray for Aaron and Melissa Klein, and for other Christians being persecuted for their faith.

Laws protect some...

..but not others. That is the only conclusion that a reasonable person can reach concerning the recent decisions by the state of Colorado forcing Christian bakers to provide services for gay/lesbian weddings while allowing other bakers to refuse service to someone who wants Bible verses put on cakes:

In a bizarre new twist on the religious liberty front, Colorado officials have determined that bakeries must cater to proponents of gay marriage but are not legally obliged to decorate cakes with Bible verses.

Christian activist Bill Jack has denounced a decision by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Regulatory Agencies, which found Azucar Bakery in Denver not guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake adorned with Bible quotes condemning sodomy.

It should perhaps not be surprising that a government bureaucracy with a windy, Orwellian-sounding name like "Civil Rights Division of the Department of Regulatory Agencies" should reach an Orwellian decision like this one. Compare that decision with previous decisions handed down by the state of Colorado:

Colorado prosecuted Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop for bringing his Christian faith to bear in his decision not to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, yet business owners who decide to refuse service to a Christian wanting Bible verses on cakes are exonerated by the state.

In 2012, a homosexual couple sued Phillips after he refused to make a cake to celebrate their marriage. An administrative law judge ruled against him, and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission agreed.

In December, 2013, Judge Robert N. Spencer handed down his decision that the “undisputed facts” show that Phillips “discriminated against complainants because of their sexual orientation by refusing to sell them a wedding cake for their same-sex marriage.”

The idea of "equality before the law", which was once a cornerstone of the modern progressive movement, seems to be gone, since there doesn't appear to be any consistent application of so-called anti-discrimination laws in these cases. Instead, we are faced with a situation where one group has both the muscle and the will to force its religious views on everyone else. Political leaders and journalists who should be resisting this drift into fascism are either silent or openly complicit (witness the recent hysteria about Indiana's now-gutted religious freedom law and the ugly campaign against a small Indiana pizza place whose owners dared to express a politically incorrect opinion).

There is an old saying that when all you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail. Many modern secular progressives rely heavily on their numerical superiority in the media and academia to force compliance on a larger population that does not necessarily want or need change. They view secular progressivism as right (which is not really the problem here), but they also believe all other points of view are so morally and intellectually defective that they are worthy of punishment rather than debate (which is the problem). Because of this stark black/white worldview many secular progressives see coercion rather that persuasion as the only way to engage others politically. Why take the long, hard road of actually winning debates against those who are obviously wrong when you can haul "homophobes" and "racists" into court and charge them with thoughtcrime? Why allow opposing points of view to flourish and possibly "contaminate" others when they can be blocked and punished? It is ironic that many secular progressives have become what they claim Christians are: narrow-minded and intolerant bigots afraid of dissent and willing to use the powers of government to enforce belief in a state-approved religion.

What are Christians to make of all of this? Sadly, some will approve of this bullying and favoritism since they prize "social justice" above all else. They see government abuse of power as a tool in achieving a just society, although how a society can be made more just by using injustice remains unexplained. Tolerance and religious pluralism are out the window, and the only thing that matters is political victory.

But for other Christians, I think there is the opposite temptation to despair or (worse) engage in retaliation. It is important to remember Jesus' words that His Kingdom is not of this world. We can only proclaim the coming of the Kingdom, not bring it about ourselves, and especially not by by using the unjust tactics of our adversaries. This will require faith that God is in control, and that in the end He will triumph. Jesus never promised that we would have easy lives, only that He would never abandon us.

Now would be a good time to pray for our country.

Support Memories Pizza

I am sure many of you know about what happened to the O'Connor family, the owners of Memories Pizza. Read more about what happened to them here and the horrible conduct of the media which chose to persecute them for their Christian faith.

I will have more to say about this after Easter, but for now I urge my Christian brothers and sisters to support the O'Connor family at GoFundMe. The link to their page is here.

Please pray for persecuted Christians everywhere. Come quickly Lord Jesus!

The incredible shrinking church

Over at The Federalist Alexander Griswold has a good article about the decline of Christian denominations which have discarded the clear teaching of Scripture to embrace much of the homosexual agenda.

Opening part from the article:

By now, we’ve all heard the refrain that U.S. churches need liberalize their teachings on sexuality and homosexuality or rapidly decline. The logic behind the argument is simple: more and more Americans are embracing homosexuality and same-sex marriage, including growing numbers of religious Millennials. So long as churches remain the face of opposition to gay marriage, those churches will shrink into irrelevancy when gay marriage (inevitably, we are told) becomes a settled political issue.

These arguments often see church acceptance of homosexuality as a carrot as well as a stick. It isn’t so much that denouncing homosexuality will drive people away from church, but that embracing it will also lead people into church. LGBT individuals and their supporters, many of whom hold a dim view of religion after a decades-long culture war, will reconsider church if denominations remove their restrictions on gay marriage and ordination.

But a number of Christian denominations have already taken significant steps towards liberalizing their stances on homosexuality and marriage, and the evidence so far seems to indicate that affirming homosexuality is hardly a cure for membership woes. On the contrary, every major American church that has taken steps towards liberalization of sexual issues has seen a steep decline in membership.

Griswold goes on to describe the declining fortunes of the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the United Church of Christ (UCC), and the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA). My wife and I are former members of the ELCA who chose to leave after the disastrous 2009 decision to ordain non-celibate homosexual clergy and to bless homosexual unions, so this news strikes home in a significant way. Griswold's article well worth reading, especially for its detailed information about the rate of decline of each denomination.

However, I have one problem with the article. Griswold seems to suggest that the effort to change the church's stance on homosexuality is primarily to recruit new members and arrest overall decline of Christianity. In fairness to those who succeeded in changing the ELCA's position in 2009, I do not think this is necessarily so. Increasing the ELCA's membership was one stated reason for pushing for the change, but in my opinion it was not the primary one.

Instead, the proponents of the 2009 changes seemed to make three basic arguments:

Scripture is not being properly translated/applied. Regarding homosexuality as a sin is nothing more than a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Bible really says.

Lack of proper scientific understanding. The Bible was written in an era before modern psychology, so the early writers lacked a true understanding of homosexuality.

Social justice. Any religion which regards homosexuality as a sin is false and must be changed. The old attitudes towards homosexuality are on the same moral level as racism and sexism, and need to be ended.

There was some inconsistency in the reasons that proponents gave for the 2009 changes. How (for example) is it possible for Scripture to be both misinterpreted and wrong? How can the Bible actually permit homosexual behavior and be the flawed product of writers who were ignorant of modern science and how it relates to homosexuality? The argument made by the proponents of the 2009 changes could be quite murky at times.

Of all the reasons used to support changing the ELCA's stance towards homosexuality in 2009, only one - the social justice argument - seemed to me to be the primary motivation. Even before the disastrous decision to discard Scripture in favor of secular wisdom the ELCA had shown an obsession with political activism masquerading as Christianity. The Gospel continually took a back seat to political pronouncements and lobbying elected leaders.

And here is where the seeds of destruction were sown. The Bible clearly regards the homosexual lifestyle as sinful and contrary to God's plan for His creation. But the powerful homosexual lobby decried this attitude as homophobic. So the false teachers and prophets of the ELCA rejected the Gospel in favor of secular political activism and goals. They have rejected the true God, and are working on making another god in their own politically correct image. It is no wonder the ELCA is hemorrhaging members.

But (the counter argument will go) what about gays and lesbians who felt alienated and unwelcome by the church's previous negative stance towards homosexuality? Should we not rejoice in the fact that at least some of them will now come to church and embrace Christ?

My response is this: are these new brothers and sisters in Christ being given the Bread of Life - or the spiritual junk food that the world offers and which can only harm them? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and we need a Redeemer to save us from the consequences of our sins and reconcile us to God. By discarding the clear teaching of the Bible the ELCA is telling us a hellish lie: we get to decide what is sinful and what is not. Put another way: we get to veto God's commandments and replace them with ones we find more suitable. Two thousand years ago Jesus warned us about leaders who would do such a thing:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. (Matthew 23:15 (NIV))

To my Christian brothers and sisters who are still in the ELCA, I beg you: do not let the false teachers and prophets of the ELCA succeed in dragging you into hell. I will not put myself in the place of God and tell you to leave your church - God will make it clear if He wants you to leave or not - but be aware that the false god the ELCA is creating for itself is a jealous god, and wants to separate you from the real God if it can. Your soul belongs to the One who loves you, and not the one who tells you to conform to the ways of the world.

A&E ducks

A&E has backed down. Duck Dynasty will return next spring - with the cast intact.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have never seen the show. I will probably not watch it in the future. But at least extremist groups like GLAAD appear to have lost.

Christians should continue to love and pray for our enemies. But loving our enemies does not mean we lie on their behalf. We are all sinners - and I speak as an experienced sinner. At some point they need to hear the truth that homosexuality is wrong - even if it means they will hate us.

Don't duck the issue

OK - that's a bad pun. Pretty much everyone has heard about Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson's comments about homosexuals not entering into the Kingdom of God, and the unhinged reaction to them from certain individuals and organizations that regard themselves as "tolerant". You can read the Robertson family's response here. (Disclaimer: I have never seen Duck Dynasty).

Frankly, this is just run-of-the-mill anti-Christian bigotry that is becoming more prevalent in the US secular media. As persecution goes, it does not match what many Christians face on a daily basis worldwide. However, I do have a few questions. I wonder how many of those who were angered by Robertson's comments believe in God, heaven and hell. If they do not, then why are they enraged that Robertson is saying that homosexuals will be condemned to a hell they do not think is real by a God they say is imaginary?

American Christian, be aware. Don't think the bigots won't come after you. Don't duck the issue. Pray without ceasing. Love those who hate you, but don't lie to them and say they are doing right when they are clearly not.

Looking for Josiah

The ELCA has elected its first gay bishop. Even though we all knew this sad day was inevitable, the wounds this ordination has inflicted on the Church are still painful.

Key quote:

Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin was ordained as a pastor in the ELCA two years ago. A press release by Lutherans Concerned/North America at the time stated “R. Guy Erwin, a teaching theologian at California Lutheran University (CLU), was ordained in the Samuelson Chapel of that institution at 10:00 a.m. on May 11, 2011. He is both gay and in a committed same-gender relationship. His ordination, the fulfillment of a lifetime desire, is made possible by the change in policy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that followed the decision of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly to allow ministers in committed, same-gender relationships to serve in the church.”

The above quote notes that Dr. Erwin was a pastor only two years prior to becoming bishop. Even by the troubling standards of affirmative action - which judges people solely by their skin color, gender, and sexual orientation instead of their ability and character - this is alarming.

Yet even now there is still time. Time for the leadership of the ELCA to rediscover the faith once delivered to the saints. Time to throw away the false god of political activism they have created only to please themselves. Time to repent and humble themselves before the one true God.

In case anyone thinks that this is impossible, they should consider the story of King Josiah (2 Kings 22: - 23:3 ) . Josiah led the people of Judah in a period of national repentance:

And [King Josiah] stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

2 Kings 23:3 (KJV)

Pray that God raises up in the ELCA someone with the faith and courage of King Josiah.

Decline and fall of the Episcopal Church

Walter Russell Mead has an interesting essay on the decline of the Episcopal Church (h/t: Instapundit).

Key quote:

It used to matter what the Episcopal Church thought of this or that social issue. Other mainline Protestant churches and many social and political leaders followed its theological and political debates. Now, basically, no one outside the dwindling flock in the pews really cares what The Episcopal Church says about anything at all. General Convention can pass a million resolutions, and nothing anywhere will change. No one is even really angry anymore at anything the Episcopal hierarchy does; at most, there is a sigh and a quiet rolling of the eyes. Soon, there will not even be that.

It’s an extraordinary decline in an institution that a generation ago was still one of the pillars of American life. At this point the disaster appears irretrievable; those running the church are determined to run it into the ground and it is hard to see how that can change.

This is what happens when a church (liberal or conservative) places political activism above obedience to God and His commandments. While I do not advocate Christians washing their hands of politics entirely, a bit of humility would not be a bad idea. We Christians cannot usher in God's kingdom through petitions, social statements, demonstrations, and marches on behalf of secular political causes. We can only proclaim its coming.

The deadly danger of ... a T-shirt?

William Swinimer will now be allowed to wear his Jesus T-shirt. In some parts the Western world, that is increasingly a major victory for religious freedom.

Key quote:

The T-shirt, which says Life is Wasted Without Jesus, is not the issue, said Nancy Pynch-Worthylake, superintendent of the South Shore regional school board. The issue is how to express one’s beliefs without offending others. “For us, it never really was about the one shirt,” Pynch-Worthylake said Friday.

Contrast that school board's near-hysterical reaction to a T-shirt with the name of Jesus on it to the bland acceptance of using school facilities to conduct Muslim prayers.

This is why I have a hard time taking the separation-of-church-and-state fundamentalists seriously. It is too easy to find examples where they ignore the use of schools for non-Christian activity (Muslim prayers), or actively promote religious beliefs (global warming cultism, evolution).

Bullies big and small

Yesterday, my son and wife went to McDonalds. At some McDonalds restaurants play equipment can be found. My son loves to play there, and to play with the other kids he meets.

But yesterday was a bad day for him. No - he was not physically hurt while playing. Instead, he was taunted by a little girl. The details are not clear, but he was deeply upset by what she said to him.

My son has reached the age where he realizes he is different from other kids. His autism interferes with both his communication and social skills, and that is what contributed to yesterday's incident. I now realize that I would gladly suffer the loss of one of my limbs - or even my life - if he could be spared the teasing that will only grow worse as he gets older. But that is a trade no parent can ever hope to make.

Teasing and taunting are not limited to children such as my little boy's tormentor, who was simply being a thoughtless brat and will probably outgrow it someday. Our culture not only allows attacks on Christians that it would never tolerate for (pick one or more of the following) Muslims, women, blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals, it rewards them. Fame and fortune await those who can make the cruelest and ugliest taunts aimed at Christians.

Jesus warned us that the world would hate us because it hated Him. Too many American Christians fail to realize that the relative tolerance they have enjoyed for most of America's history is actually a miracle, and that most Christians worldwide today live under the threat of some sort of oppression. This has been true throughout most of history. I believe that the present ugly smears and demonizing of Christians that characterize so much of American popular culture will someday give rise to actual repression. Are you prepared?

We don't do history no more

An interview with historian David McCullough confirms what I have seen during my time in education. Modern history textbooks have a political rather than an educational agenda. The end result has been to dumb-down students.

My wife is currently pursuing a BA degree in mathematics. Her American history courses consisted of little more that testimonials from "marginalized" voices (How can these voices be marginalized when they are the only ideas and opinions allowed in the classroom anymore?). As a result, she has practically no knowledge about the timeline of American history nor major events such as the Dred Scott decision, the New Deal, or the reasons why the Civil War was fought.

Key quote from the interview:

[M]any textbooks have become "so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence farther back"—such as, say, Thomas Edison—"are given very little space or none at all."

Indeed. These textbooks are also profoundly Christophobic to the point of outright distortion. Too many authors (and teachers) believe it is their duty to "raise the consciences" of those they consider to be intellectually and morally inferior to them - meaning just about everybody outside their little circle of friends.

I see this in the graduate-level class I am presently enrolled in. The course is supposed to be about curriculum development, but is in fact nothing but a series of leftist political harangues. No wonder the education system is in trouble.

Ironically, if I engaged in the same behavior that my college instructor has, if I used my position as a mathematics teacher to proselytize for Christianity in the same way he has preached secularism and Marxism, I would be fired and probably sued. In the university settings I have found that free and open debate is something that is denied to Christians.

Right now, outside of a few sporadic incidents (some of which I have written about on this blog) there is no systematic discrimination against Christians in the US. I believe that is about to change, and that the same repression and terror that is the normal condition that other Christians face worldwide is about to come to America. This will catch a number of Christians off-guard, but it should not. Did not Jesus say,

"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me." (KJV - John 15:18-21)

Not a prayer - or maybe there is

A ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery banning the Medina Valley Independent School District (Texas) from using specific religious words in their high school graduation ceremony on Saturday has been lifted by a Federal appeals court.

Unreal.

Does Judge Biery seriously believe that Medina Valley High School valedictorian Angela Hildenbrand's desire to say a prayer during her commencement speech constitutes a dire threat to the Republic?

In my career as a teacher, I have heard a lot of speeches at school graduations. Some have been good, more have been bad, and the rest have been downright ugly. One or two of them were so boring they should have been classified as a menace to public health (just kidding).

Is this the sort of thing we want a Federal judge - or any judge, for that matter - to concern himself/herself with? There is such a thing as overreaction.

As for those who are offended by a valedictorian's prayer, I say: suck it up and get over it. Right now, in addition to teaching a college algebra class in the local prison, I am enrolled in a graduate level education course. The course is supposed to be about curriculum and instruction, but in reality it is nothing but a bunch of left-wing activist claptrap. Both the textbook's author and the course instructor are narrow-minded obnoxious bores. So what? Life sometimes dictates that we must listen to those whose ideas and opinions we do not value. In order to graduate with a masters degree in mathematics I have to have this course. There is no escape.

If I have to suffer through five weeks of politically-motivated crapola, then opponents of a valedictorian's prayer at a graduation ceremony can likewise suffer a few moments of indignity. Deal with it.

UPDATE (6:10 PM): In Little Rock, Arkansas, there is a controversy about a high school yearbook. It seems that the yearbook from Russellville Middle School lists the "5 worst people of all time." President George W. Bush and Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, are listed right after Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and Charles Manson.

I breathlessly await Judge Biery swooping in to save us from this terrible peril.

Desecration - or just dense?

There is something weird about the US government burning Bibles in Afghanistan, but requiring US military personnel to observe great care when handling the Koran. Apparently, US Army officials fretted that having such a dangerous book as the Bible in a Muslim-dominated country was too risky, and so it must be eliminated as soon as possible. Not even The Onion could come up with something so wacky.

Key quote from the article:

A new video at the website AnsweringMuslims.com expatiates on this contradiction:

1. “You don’t burn the Koran, because if you do, Muslims might go on a killing spree.”

2 “You do burn the Bible, because if you don’t, Muslims might go on a killing spree.”

Actually, the contradiction is only apparent. The reason it’s OK to burn Bibles while the Koran must be handled as if it were a “fragile piece of delicate art” is that Muslims and their sacred scriptures have priority over Jews and Christians and their scriptures. That’s what it says in the Koran, and that’s how the U.S. government is proceeding.

It extremely unlikely that the actions of the US Army in burning Bibles were a deliberate desecration of Christianity's most cherished book (although given the present secular-minded leadership in Washington I will stop short of saying it is flatly impossible). But it is an excellent illustration of near-complete isolation from reality much of our political and intellectual leadership lives in. It would be like the government and the media, in the midst of World War II, calling for Nuremberg-style racial laws and herding Jews into concentration camps so that Germans living in American and abroad would not be offended.

As I have said before, I don't think the sudden respect for Islam by the US government and the secular media represents a genuine tolerance of viewpoints that disagree with their own. Rather, many secular progressive (the one group that dominates both government and media) nurse a deep hatred for Christians and Jews, and see Islam as a convenient rival to those two groups. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is the principle at work here.

There are many ironies here, but chief among them is the fact that in a battle between secular progressives with all of modern technology at their fingertips and primitive 7th century barbarians who shriek "Allah akhbar!" while lopping off the heads of infidels, it is the latter group that will win easily. Give the Islamofascist maniacs their due: they know they are in a war, and are willing to do whatever it takes to win it. Secular progressive, on the other hand, are well-credentialed and hold most of the levers of power in the US, but are a pretty dense lot. Perhaps never before in history have so many with so much power have squandered it so badly.

Worth considering

Railing against "anti-intellectualism" is a cottage industry these days. The secular media, so-called mainline denominations and academia love to denounce anyone who does not agree with their narrow-minded world view as "anti-intellectual".

Here is an excellent reminder of the real history of the 20th century and the murderous effect that those who fancied themselves our intellectual and moral betters had during that time. The key quote:

Part of the problem is that the American distrust of intellectualism is itself not the irrational thing that those sympathetic to intellectuals would like to think. Intellectuals killed by the millions in the 20th century, and it actually takes the sophisticated training of "education" to work yourself up into a state where you refuse to count that in the books. Intellectuals routinely declared things that aren't true; catastrophically wrong predictions about the economy, catastrophically wrong pronouncements about foreign policy, and just generally numerous times where they've been wrong. Again, it takes a lot of training to ignore this fact.

Read the whole thing. The author blames scientists for this attitude, and it is true that many are guilty of using their positions to advance loopy policies and ideas. However, I argue that the secular and leftist denominations share an equal amount of blame. The secular media and mainline churches tend to side with the most radical and intolerant extremists in academia if they advocate the totalitarian government policies these groups favor. Those who speak out against totalitarianism are demonized and dehumanized as "racists", "homophobes", etc.

Lord Jesus, come quickly! We have acted stupidly and have deliberately handed over control of our lives to those who hate us. It's no wonder more people were deliberately slaughtered in the 20th century than in any previous century.

(h/t: Instapundit)

A post-Christian age?

Luke Mbefo looks at Christainity in the Western World.

Blot out the Son by writing the word "darkness"

James Frey's literary career has resembled Thomas Hobbes' famous dictum about human life outside society's protection: nasty, brutish, and short. Frey's book A Million Pieces was panned by critics as being a fabrication. Oprah Winfrey dispatched him on national TV. If you god is the publishing industry and the chattering classes that comprise it, this is equivalent to being cast into the fires of Hell.

So Frey is doing what many "artists" have done in America and Europe to try to revive their sagging careers - attack Christianity.

Frey is releasing a new book called The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, which portrays Jesus' Second coming in the form of Ben Jones, a pot-smoking whore-chasing loser. The only thing missing in Frey's new book (as far as I know) is any reference to Jesus/Ben Jones becoming a Muslim. Although Frey knows if he attacks Islam the same way he attacks Christianity, then it will be a race to see who obliterates him first: the Islamic terrorists or the multicultural Left.

From the article linked above Frey all but tips his strategy to return to the Promised Land of the good graces of the New York Times Book Review:

Frey told us the book is "a theoretical third volume of the Bible -- there was the Old, there was the New, and this is the Final." He said, "I'm sure the religious right will go crazy because the story of Ben . . . is hardly the Messiah they have in mind. But I don't really care. I just did what I always do -- tried to write the best book I could."

Frey is counting on - frantically needs, in fact - some prominent Christian or Christian organization to criticize his book (my tiny blog probably does not count, but if he gets desperate enough...). This will create a palpable reaction in the secular media as newspapers and magazine editors and writers rush to Frey's defense against the dastardly Bible-thumpers. Even Oprah may offer absolution to the penitent Frey. When it comes to getting a reflex action, Pavlov's dog was not as well conditioned as the secular media is. Or so Frey hopes.

Unfortunately for Frey, there is no guarantee that this will work. The secular media is hip-deep in Christophobes. Mere Christian-bashing is insufficient for fame and fortune. Competition is too keen.

I find the timing of the release of Frey's book - Good Friday - oddly appropriate. Frey believes that he can obliterate Jesus by writing an "edgy" book. Yet as C.S. Lewis once noted, it is almost like trying to snuff out the sun by writing the word "darkness". The religious leaders of Jesus' time found out that killing Him did not work out as planned.

In short, the problem for Frey (and the secular world in general) is the Sunday that follows Good Friday.

Persecution: Christmas 2010

It's not just Asia Bibi whose life is threatened by intolerant extremists. A growing number of leaders of Christian and post-Christian denominations are noticing this persecution - especially at the hands of Muslims.

The comments by Anglican leader Rowan Williams are especially significant. Williams, who made headlines in 2008 when he suggested that parts of Islamic sharia law are somehow compatible with British law and should be adopted to maintain social cohesion, specifically mentioned Asia Bibi by name.

Pope Benedict XVI had words of encouragement for Catholics in China and Iraq.

It's not just Christians who are targets of Muslim extremists. Thousands in Pakistan are facing starvation after a suicide bombing by the Taliban ended a food-relief program in parts of that country.

Recommended reading

Don Kriefall at Common Sense for a Senseless World has written one of the best posts I have ever read. Be sure to chack out his other posts.

Have you been denounced yet?

The Southern Poverty Law Center has released a new list of "hate groups" that includes many Christian organizations. Unfortunately, I did not make the list.

My failure to draw the SPLC's wrath is disturbing, and makes me wonder what I am doing wrong. What does a poor math teacher have to do to get on the SPLC's blacklist, anyway? Alas, for the time being I must continue to toil in utter obscurity*.

* - Unless one of my kind readers is willing to take pity on me and turn me in to the SPLC's Revolutionary Watch Committee to be lynched. It would make a swell Christmas present!

Respect for me, not for thee

That seems to be the attitude of many Western governments, journalists, and intellectuals that make up our self-anointed ruling class.

A recent editorial by the Calgary Herald expressed concern for this bizarre double standard. A key quote from the editorial:

When Florida pastor Terry Jones announced plans to burn the Qur'an on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, he was roundly, and rightfully, condemned. Christian groups worldwide were at the forefront of the protests, denouncing Jones and calling on him to respect the dignity of Islam. In 2005, allegations that U.S. military personnel had desecrated copies of the Qur'an at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp sparked an internal investigation to ensure no repeat.

The recent murder of Christian aid workers in Afghanistan, the deaths of 58 Christians in Iraq, the continuing persecution of Christians worldwide has sparked little outcry among the ruling class. But any hint of "Islamophobia" (real or imagined) seems to provoke endless hand-wringing.

The editorial goes on to say:

Not one of these incidents has garnered even a fraction of the attention the proposed Qu'ran burning caused. This begs the question: Why?

Perhaps it's because Christians rarely riot in difficult circumstances. They should not have to. In an enlightened world forever preaching equality and justice, no group should have to resort to death and destruction to get injustices remedied.

I think the editorial writers are wrong here. It is my opinion that the largely secular ruling class is not motivated by sympathy for Islam, let alone being secretly Muslim itself. It is highly unlikely (for example) that President Obama is a closet Muslim seeking to impose sharia law. Nor is it fear of attacks by Muslim extremists that are behind this new "tolerance" for Islam. Rather, I believe that the antipathy of the ruling class towards Christianity and Judaism is fueled by the claims of both that God's law is superior to man's laws, that humanity is sinful by nature and needs a Savior that is not a mortal President or Prime Minister. Such a view conflicts with the ruling class's messianic desire to remake society in its own image.

The ruling class's tolerance for the actions of Muslims - a tolerance they would not in a million years extend towards Christians and Jews - is nothing but an old political strategy: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Islam is seen as a rival to Christianity and Judaism, and thus benefits from the ruling class's desire to divide and conquer. If the ruling class ever came to believe that Islam could threaten their hold on the nation's government, universities, and media, they would attack Muslims just as savagely as they now go after Christians and Jews.

I think that it may come as a shock to many, but the secular ruling class tends to view Muslims the same way they view Christians and Jews - as a bunch of ignorant, reactionary Bible-thumpin' (or Koran-thumpin') bigots. But for now the ruling class seems to view Islam as a useful political weapon against those they hate, and therefore Muslims benefit accordingly.