{"id":36881,"date":"2013-06-03T22:39:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T04:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/03\/the-persecution-of-christian-americans-or-not.html"},"modified":"2013-06-04T19:13:44","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T01:13:44","slug":"the-persecution-of-christian-americans-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/03\/the-persecution-of-christian-americans-or-not.html","title":{"rendered":"The Persecution of Christian Americans (or … not)"},"content":{"rendered":"
As a Christian-American myself, let me say:<\/p>\n

1. Welcome to the club. Non-Christian Americans have been (and still are) railed against, insulted, mocked, threatened, suspected, denigrated, looked askance at, considered un-American, poked fun at, greeted with obscenities, shunned, misrepresented, accused, and otherwise mistreated since before the founding of the Republic (note: that's included such "non-Christians" as Baptists, Quakers, and Catholics at various times). \u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Counting the reaction to your video on YouTube as specific persecution (a) betrays a woeful naivete about the cess pit which is YouTube comments, and (b) betrays a woeful naivete about what the word "persecution" means.<\/p>\n

3. "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." — Matthew 5:11-12<\/p>\n

4. "You have heard that it was said, \u2018Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.\u2019 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well." — Matthew 5:37-41<\/p>\n

5. "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;\u00a0if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you." — Proverbs 25:21-22<\/p>\n

In other words, quitcherbitchin. \u00a0If you think that people are treating you unfairly, point out their error with charity, not militant outrage. \u00a0If you want to demonstrate the love of neighbor and the redemptive embrace of Christ, then live by His word, not through complaint. Jesus didn't complain about being treated unfairly, or about the mean things that people said, or about how not everyone treated him with deference. \u00a0As a Christian, shouldn't we be at least<\/i> as humble in our faith?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given that a significant majority (in the 70-80% range) of people in the US identify as Christian, the wailing and gnashing of teeth about "persecution" strikes me as not only silly, but a form of self-aggrandizing martyrdom ("Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!"), and taking offense at folks who don't treat us as the privileged purveyors of truth and light and goodness. \u00a0In other words, it's being a sulky six-year-old who wants everyone to pay attention to them and to obey their whims.<\/p>\n

There is persecution of Christians in the world. \u00a0There are countries where to profess Christianity is to be an outsider at best, an enemy of the state at worst — and to try and convert someone to your beliefs can lead to prison or worse.<\/p>\n

The United States is not one of those countries. Not by a long shot.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

Christian kids have been persecuted long enough and they’re fighting back.<\/a>
\n Pity the Christians in this country. It’s really tough for them these days what with all the persecution they go through despite being the dominant religion in the United States. Being called bigot…\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a Christian-American myself, let me say: 1. Welcome to the club. Non-Christian Americans have been (and still are) railed against, insulted, mocked, threatened, suspected, denigrated, looked askance at, considered un-American, poked fun at, greeted with obscenities, shunned, misrepresented, accused, and otherwise mistreated since before the founding of the Republic (note: that's included such "non-Christians" … Continue reading “The Persecution of Christian Americans (or … not)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,109,350,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-church-state","category-civil-liberties","category-religious-zanies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":135655,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/13\/tragedy-persecution-american-christians.html","url_meta":{"origin":36881,"position":0},"title":"The tragedy of the persecution of American Christians","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-Dec-17 7:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The tragedy is that it doesn't exist, but some Christians in the US are convinced it does. Speaking as both an American and a Christian, here's what I see. Christians do still hold tremendous power in this country. They hold positions of influence. They have tremendous privilege. The national holidays,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/roy-moore-for-senate.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":50975,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/11\/the-christian-right-catches-up-with-modern-history.html","url_meta":{"origin":36881,"position":1},"title":"The Christian Right catches up with modern history","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 11-May-15 4:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Christians are being persecuted horribly. Eek! They're taking away our Years!A.D. vs. C.E.: Silent Christian bashing: http:\/\/www.wnd.com\/2015\/05\/a-d-vs-c-e-silent-christian-bashing\/At issue is a continuing shift in the academic community, and now beyond, to replace the use of A.D. and B.C. in dates with C.E. and _B.C.E. (usually rendered as \"Common Era,\" sometimes \"Current\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/shutterstock_251014447-1050x5905B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/shutterstock_251014447-1050x5905B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/shutterstock_251014447-1050x5905B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":136366,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/10\/a-look-at-mike-pence-and-exiled-american-evangelicals.html","url_meta":{"origin":36881,"position":2},"title":"A look at Mike Pence and “Exiled” American Evangelicals","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-May-18 7:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"A fascinating article in Harpers about the focus by many in the US Evangelical Christian community on the Babylonian Exile of the Jews as a metaphor for what they see as their own marginalization by American secular \/ multi-cultural society. This is important in how that focus drives the Vice\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/pence-exiled.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":40150,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/20\/the-martyrs-who-cried-wolf-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":36881,"position":3},"title":"The Martyrs Who Cried Wolf","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 20-Dec-13 12:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes. This. A hundred times this.\"Being persecuted for our faith is different than being persecuted because we\u2019re acting like jerks.\"\ufeff Real vs. Fake Christian Persecution: how you can spot the difference One of my biggest pet peeves in this world, is when folks in my tribe play the \"persecution\" card.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128253,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/06\/christians-must-arm-themselves-just-like-jesus-told-us-to-amirite.html","url_meta":{"origin":36881,"position":4},"title":"Christians must arm themselves, just like Jesus told us to, amirite?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Oct-15 10:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"You know, I'm talking about He-Man Jesus, not that namby-pamby liberal pacifist Jesus the wishy-washy hippy Christians and Episcopalians are so fond of. I mean, he was right there, telling his followers to cut down anyone who came to harm them (Luke 22:49-51, Matt. 26:47-53), to strike back at persecutors\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51036,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/12\/americas-religious-face-is-changing-like-it-or-not.html","url_meta":{"origin":36881,"position":5},"title":"America's religious face is changing, like it or not","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-May-15 10:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"Pew Research Center's most recent major survey of religion in America has some remarkable results. In just the last several years, Christianity as a whole in the US has declined as a percent of the population. Most of that loss has been among Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, who now\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37243,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36881\/revisions\/37243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}