As you pointed out, much of what we see happening today has already happened in the past. The scenario is always the same – God’s Word is declared unrighteous, immoral and the cause of all societal problems, for which it is despised and thus outlawed. Persecution of God followers then begins with fury. From the time of Christ we have seen this played out over and over again. From Nero who enjoyed turning christians into human candles or feeding them to lions to today in Sudan where it is believed that over 1.5 million christians have died at the hands of Sudan Islamisists since 1984. As for the rest of history, there are endless regimes that have done the same.

Of interest is that in each historical account of controlling God’s Truth, the controller outlaws proselytizing and the distribution of God’s Word, but not necessarily church like activities. Often the churches are allowed as long as they conform to state sanctioned activities and speech. In Egypt missionaries are welcome as long as they only do charitbile work and no proselytizing. In Nazi Germany, churches were openly welcomed, as long as they conformed. In China today they have the Three Self Patriotic Church which the state decides who can preach, what they can preach and even who can be a christian.

Is there any questions that the rumblings in America right now are only precursors to a loss of speech and then religion? We live in a society that gasps at the thought of child sacrifice yet defiantly and self righteously defends the “right” of a women to do just that. Many of our legislators (not all of course, thank God many see what is happening) scoff at those who do not believe public educators should be teaching our children that two men marrying each other is a normal and acceptable “lifestyle.”

In the face of such blatant anti-God sentiment many American christians either are unaware of the advancing seizure of their rights or simply slip into “grace mode.” Grace mode is not true grace, it simply alleviates one, for a time, from the burden of dispensing and standing for the Truth. It goes without saying that without Truth grace cannot exist - one needs something to be graced from… that is the Truth. However, in grace mode we tell ourselves and others to “just have grace” for those who oppose us. I agree fully with grace filled living, being slow to anger (notice slow not absent of) and all of the Christ like qualities we are to embody. But forget not that Christ was “Filled with zeal for His fathers house” when he cleansed the temple. Remember that it was Phinehas who had zeal for the unrighteousness in his time that turned God’s wrath away from Israel. If we are to truly love others we are to be dispensers of God’s Truth even unto death. The only other option is silence or denial of the faith.

In order to silence those in the body who go on proclaiming even in the face of opposition from state authority mechanisms are devised to do the silencing. These mechanisms cast evil as good and good as evil. They achieve this by legislating morality in reverse – they accuse God’s morality of “subverting government authority” or as being “socially destructive”. Thats a big theological area centering around the foundational christian beliefs in God’s sovereignty and His goodness but simply put it is man’s rebellion against God’s Word.

So here we are in an election year. Many states have already made it illegal to openly proselytize, to speak anything bad about the homosexual lifestyle, churches are being restricted in what they can say - what are we to do? I don’t believe it’s that difficult, we just need to speak truth, even if we are threatened with persecution. We must speak it in grace, this is true, but we must not not speak it for the sake of grace or we have lost truth. A societies moral consciousness is influenced so greatly by what our friends and neighbors speak and feel, their conscious. If the body of Christ does not speak, as His mouth, the loving truth of God’s word, then we should not expect an America that reflects the beauty of God’s thoughts.

This is a great post. I think we as Christians must take our great freedom in Christ and be very careful to use our freedom to “bring grace to the hearer” and to “speak the truth in love” and not become entangled with protesting for our rights. I do believe we should do as Paul urged by the Spirit in 1 Timothy 2:1-4 and pray for the men in governments everywhere so we can live a quiet and peaceable life in godliness and reverence. Something I intend to begin doing for German leaders now that I read what you wrote about Germany’s ban on homeschooling! I had no idea!

Thanks for bringing awareness to what’s up out there!

Sheila

Julie, well, I just ran out of dish soap this morning…does that mean I’d better stop the blogging? Maybe! (seeking wisdom, washing dishes…)

I need to get some!

http://www.runninggalinsights.blogspot.com

What’s going on is large-scale propaganda, and I find this to be much more insidious than any vile thing a person could say about a different group of people. So suddenly, you have people simply stating their moral beliefs about sexual behavior, and it’s considered “hate.” I could cite so many cases in which peaceful protesters have been arrested, be it a pro-life or a pro-traditional family advocacy group, because of this propaganda.

I was reading about Joseph Goebbels yesterday, Hitler’s propaganda minister who controlled all German radio, press, cinema, and theater. Here is a list of of Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda. Granted, propaganda always comes from both sides. Granted, people claim you’re being “reactionary” by citing anything to do with Hitler. However, we’re absolutely foolish to not learn from history, and it’s completely appropriate to make these connections when there are clear parallels. (By the way, the left likes to use this list, too, to show how supposedly the Bush administration has used propaganda in the war in Iraq–like I said, propaganda is no respecter of political party.)

Here is one of Goebbels’ principles of propaganda that I find relevant to the homosexual movement’s use of the phrase “hate.” Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans. The label is critical to their campaign. If everyone becomes convinced/brainwashed into thinking that holding a certain religious/moral view on sexuality is “hateful” then one’s actions, speech, thoughts, and finally very self become targets of hatred (by the very movement that claims that YOU are the hater) and it’s really easy at that point to begin a campaign of aggression against the so-called “hater.”

How about this one of Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda: Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.. Does fear of going to jail for “hate speech” create optimum anxiety? I think it fits quite nicely with the homosexual legislative agenda. Hmmm, have they studied Goebbles?

I need to mention one more bit of advice from Goebbels: Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred. So, you focus on a group, make them the enemy (they’re gay-bashers, bigots, haters, small-minded, intolerant, ignorant Bible believers who put their faith in fairy tales) and direct national hatred toward them (as Goebbles succeeded in doing with the Jews). Completely disregarding firmly held religious convictions, the stripping away of rights has begun, justified by the label of “hate.” Just who is doing the hating here?

Do we see conservative Christians, in general, on a crusade to shut down the free speech, and to jail if need be, people with opposing views, like atheists, homosexuals, Muslims, etc.?? NO. We don’t. People need to break out of the mass psychology and see what’s really happening here.

It’s becoming very clear that all the hard work on behalf of free speech done by liberals, Democrats, and the ACLU types over the past several decades, was never really about free speech, but about promoting their own moral agenda. If it was truly about free speech, those same folks would be defending conservative Christian free speech, but they are not. At least we can be thankful for all the groundwork they laid in setting legal precedent for free speech, which ironically now gets to be used to defend ourselves against THEM.

The divide will continue to spread as Americans grow in atheism and lawlessness. Politicians, especially the president, are supposed to unite us, but we can’t even agree on what freedom means anymore.

And one more thought, blogs are an expression of free speech, so I’m glad you are taking advantage of it. Keep up the good work!