The religious war: against Christians, among Christians
If you had asked me twenty years ago what the 21st century would hold in store, “religious wars” probably wouldn’t have been tops on my list.
But it should have been.
There are many forms of it. The most obvious one until now has been between radical Islam and everybody else. Yes, radical Muslims are somewhat of a minority, but they’re a huge, activist, vocal, violent, determined, and ruthless minority, and they’ve been fighting the fight for the better part of a century (centuries, that is) and have really stepped it up since their victory in Iran in 1979. During the Obama administration the threat has grown both in numbers, in strength, and in barbarity.
I wrote that it’s a war “between radical Islam and everybody else.” The war against the Jews has been going on for a long time, with Israel/Palestine as the epicenter (that war isn’t just a religious one, but it certainly is a religious one as well as a political one). The war against the Hindus also is of great antiquity. The ancient war against Christians took a breather after the Siege of Vienna. In recent years, however, radical Islam’s revived war against Christians has reached a new violent fever pitch.
The West could fight that war and win it, if it chose to do so. But radical Islam is aware of, and takes advantage of, another war—an internal one within Christianity that weakens the response immeasurably. Christians are divided into two camps, one of which is what for want of a better term I would call leftist Christianity (revisionist Christianity? non-traditional Christianity?), which rests on social justice warrioring, embrace of same-sex marriage and related causes, and intense devotion to third-world problems. This is the “bleeding-heart liberal” wing of Christianity, and its numbers are strong.
Traditional, or fundamentalist, or socially conservative Christianity is opposed. The recent SCOTUS decision in Obergefell on same-sex marriage pits that group against the latest trends in the law. The same is true of orthodox Jews and Muslims, of course, but somehow I don’t think the left will make them their next target—they’ll begin with legal attacks on dissenting Christians because they are seen as weakest and most numerous. And they are weakest because of the fact that their fellow-Christians have abandoned them, and because there has been a campaign for a long long time to stir up hatred against them.
I’ve seen this myself among many liberals I know. I’m not talking about leftists, who tend to hate religion in general (unless they’re members of one of the aforementioned leftist-oriented churches, or unless the religion is Islam). For decades I’ve heard casual comments about how awful fundamentalist Christians are, and this is from liberal Christians themselves, or at least liberals who were born Christian. Conservative Christians now equal hatemongers in many people’s eyes, and so whatever is done against them legally will not, I predict, ruffle many feathers.
I’m not a Christian. I’m not even especially socially conservative. But it will ruffle my feathers if it happens, and I believe it will happen.
Perilous times.
Timely – see this post by Anthony Sacramone —
“Perhaps it’s also time for Christian websites (and those sympathetic to their concerns) to begin offering a new rating for films such as Kingsman – something like ‘Rated E for eliminationist.’
http://strangeherring.com/2015/06/27/on-refusing-to-watch-kingsman-the-secret-service/
— which further references this review by Maggie Gallagher of Yancey & Williamson’s book, “So Many Christians, So Few Lions: is There Christianophobia in the United States.”
Her review has this excerpt of educated ‘Progressive’ thinking:
“I want them all to die in a fire,” said one man with a doctorate. “I would be in favor of establishing a state for them. . . . If not then sterilize them so they can’t breed more,” said a middle aged man with a master’s degree. “The only good Christian is a dead Christian,” said another under-45-year-old man with a doctorate. “I abhor them and I wish we could do away with them,” said a middle-aged woman with a master’s degree. “A tortuous death would be too good for them,” said a college-educated man between the ages of 36 and 45. “They should be eradicated without hesitation or remorse,” said an elderly woman with a master’s degree.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/414149/god-hatred-hollywood-and-government-discrimination-maggie-gallagher
One great reform by a Pope in the 70s was to prohibit any priest from holding elective office. Jesuit Bob Drinan from MA was in the House and he had to resign.
The upshot of it really was (at least on the ground in Omaha and at Creighton) was a direct depolitization of religion. Sure the Jesuits were very liberal but they had to get out of the direct political business. Everything had to be based on the Gospel. And also keeping electoral politics out of religion it allowed the priests to focus on religion. First things first, but not always successful.
So I entered Creighton University from Creighton Prep and I was fairly liberal and became more so. But experience and the critical thinking the Jesuits taught me flipped me to being a neocon.
And that’s why I was so shocked and disappointed that the Jesuit Pope threw in with the Left on the political issue of global warming. Giant mistake. If the Catholic Church is just a wing of the Dem party, it is doomed. For that same reason I was also distressed when about one or two years ago many Catholic Church leaders called for amnesty; including CU president Tim Lannon, S.J. A nation’s borders is purely political and religious leaders need to stay out of it or risk losing conservative members.
“[T]hey’ll begin with legal attacks on dissenting Christians because they are seen as weakest and most numerous.”
And Christians are commanded to turn the other cheek. Not that Christians obey every and any command of the Master Christian, but it’s a factor nonetheless. At the risk of overgeneralizing, I’ll suggest Jews are fed up with being punching-bag sheep, and muslims are — well, *muslims* (you-all know, or ought to know, the rest).
“I come to bring, not peace, but a Sword.” — Jesus.
“Traditional” Christians are the ones who take the Son of God at his word.
“Liberal Christians” are those who are Unitarians, basically: i.e., “let’s just change anything in the New Testament that makes us uncomfortable or keeps us from getting invited to the best parties/jobs.”
The Bible is a very demanding tome, whether you’re a Jew or a Christian. If you take it all seriously, there are Consequences.
M J R: Please see my post above this one on the topic of turning the other cheek.
We the people, in America, living under the social contract, have been, in great part, libertarians. If the State had passed a law against buggery, the law was a reflection of we the people’s views on the matter, from inclination to conviction. It was, however, never a matter that called for we the people to insinuate ourselves in the lives of others even on to the living arrangements of homosexual couples. No one was tattling on that couple up the street and their felonies. It had always been live and let live, so far as that couple up the street adhered to the contract and made no demands other than being left alone, and treated with personal respect, everything was copasetic. I recall reading of this common cause some time ago. The piece was written by Florence King, whose personal, I’ll call them quirks, would not have recommended her for a column in National Review, you’d think, but there she was, and you’d be wrong. Ms King wrote of first hand experience growing up in the bible belt South and observing that even small towns would as surely have a peculiar couple as well as a town drunk. And all got along just fine. Ms King further observed that it was the ‘squares’ who’d made traditional society one that would countenance the unconventional elements in it — such as herself. This dynamic… I believe they called it civilization, if I recall correctly, was made so by civilized people, who in turn were civilizing influences.
I take it that the neo-Marxist’s and their Marcusian (Herbert Marcuse) points of leverage (factions), drafted to undermine traditional society under the rubric ‘cultural Marxism’, are QED, anti-civilizational — no less so than Islam. That Christianity, the churches, are a part of it is no surprise. The long march through the institutions (eat your heart out Mao… or spin in your grave) did not make the churches off limits. It made them the high ground any force seeks before a battle. They have it now.The traditionalist’s have yet to give any indication they’re up to or even interested in knocking them off. But it’ll come, it will come. First they must rid themselves of the luke warm, the mealy-mouthed, the ecumenical, all those who have it in them that its better to be red than dead.
I place a lot of the blame on our entertainment and news media as they have been actively portraying Christians badly for decades, at best, closed-minded and judgmental, at worst, secretly evil/corrupt/murderous. It’s brainwashed the public into thinking this is how all Christians behave. The next time someone slams, say, Evangelicals ask them if they actually know any, and if not, where this belief comes from.
Seriously, try to remember the last time you saw a Christian character portrayed positively in a movie or tv show – and it has to be a traditional Christian, not a progressive one who bucks his/her church’s doctrine and is in essence, a Lefty.
“the left will … begin with legal attacks on dissenting Christians because they are seen as weakest and most numerous.” neo
The left will begin with legal attacks on dissenting Christians because they are seen as the greatest obstacle to their agenda. In doing so however, they will make Christianity stronger. Iron is tempered in the heat of the fire.
I would simply remind you of:
MARTIN NIEMé–LLER is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.”
antiquity. The ancient war against Christians took a breather after the Siege of Vienna.
Ah, so I see you’re not a Greek, or an Armenian, or a Lebanese, or from the former Yugoslavia.
Eradication will start with a petition.
Sheep have been known to get lost, simply while nibbling on the grass — and never looking up.
I’ve also been noticing with dismay how the vicious hatred towards traditional Christians has been ratcheted up in the last couple of years – encouraged by the portrayals of evangelical Christians in movies and in television. It really amounts to the most bigoted kind of libel, and the statements quoted in the Maggie Gallagher article are horrific.
There was a line from a post by Wretchard at Belmont Club quoted by one of the Chicagoboyz this week, about a young woman who was moved to convert to Islam by her oh-so-friendly and supportive on-line Islamic friends. Wretchard wrote of her, and of those like her: “They were purposely drained of God, country, family like chickens so they could be stuffed with the latest narrative of the progressive meme machine. The Gramscian idea was to produce a blank slate upon which the Marxist narrative could be written.”
Yes – a large portion of our fellow-citizens over the last few decades have been purposefully drained of God, pride in country, loyalty to family. This will absolutely not end well.
Yes — a large portion of our fellow-citizens over the last few decades have been purposefully drained of God, pride in country, loyalty to family. This will absolutely not end well:
Milwaukee Art Museum’s embrace of condom portrait of pope draws disgust.
When an L dies, the world becomes a brighter place, with less evil in it.
I rate the Leftist war mobilization at around 18%, between 15-20.
It takes time for the orders to be cut, the chain of command to be setup, logistics bases to be planned and implemented. Supply lines must be drawn and reinforced. Death and rape squads must be formed, orders must be cut. Mobilization of military strategic and tactical assets take time.
It all takes time. And the Left is nearing a mobilization high enough to get a certain Task done.
For people that think bad things only happened recently, they do not see the Left for what it is so they cannot see the gears in the Leftist alliance. They don’t know how it works, so they can’t tell how much of what they see is a sheet of ice and how much is hidden underneath the water like an iceberg.
Lizzy, You are absolutely correct.
There was a scene in The Changeling that was telling.As the police arrive at the home of the kidnapper of young boys, we see a desk with a lit candle , a rosary and an opened Bible.Obviously, the killer was using these things.A devout Christian was he? He was not and not even raised Catholic.The scene was pure fiction(I read the book that the movie was based on).Why?
Some “Christians” seem to like being punching bags.
Apparently it makes them feel better about themselves; less guilty about being alive and taking up space.
It seems they keep forgetting about the “your brother”, or the “go and sin no’ more provisos of many of the forgiveness injunctions.
When people won’t even take a stance that would protect their own kids, if they had any, won’t use the freedom a polity such as ours offers to Christians, while their enemies gleefully tear down the house, what good are they to God in testifying to the right, or as upright fellow citizens and political allies to anyone else?
Once again: Why should people who won’t defend themselves, be defended by others? Are not the potentially helpful others who would protect them, guilty of doing what the passive fideist, pietist, quietist, won’t do?
What do they get out of this anyway?
Oh yeah, the warped psychological pleasure of being victims. For instance, http://catholicinbrooklyn.blogspot.com/
There is a huge difference between worshiping God and seeking to know His will, and worshiping one’s pet causes and seeking to mold God or use Jesus out of context to justify one’s point of view. Most of those who use the name of Christ in attempting to further their socialistic or morally deconstructive upheavals of society are actually idol-worshipers at the altar of “Fairness.”
It seems their ambition is to remain bruised reeds and smoking flax, listening for quiet still voices while murmuring, “oh it hurts so good”.
Yes, in case you have any doubt: I do think that many are simply masochists, sublimating through religion.
The “othering” is an old tactic. Once the Vietnamese were settled and “peaceful”, a million of them left. Their flight condemned the antiwar folks who labeled them the plutocrats fleeing their just punishments at the hands of the proles they’d oppressed for so long.
After Waco and Ruby Ridge, the feds knew they could count on the Semi Professionally Exceptionally Wonderful (SPEW) to “other” degrade, sneer at, condemn, ridicule the victims.
In the last make of Cape Fear, the perp is an evangelical pastor. Wasn’t in the book.
Yes.
But after Friday, word is getting around in our communities. We aren’t the Luddites of popular Leftist imagining. We know and use the Internet quite effectively, thank you.
A lot of people who weren’t paying attention, have started to pay very close attention indeed. They in turn, are wakening others to what has suddenly become a very real threat.
The Word, you might say, is getting around.
We actually know and live history.
2000 years after the Games, we haven’t forgotten the martyrs fates in the Coliseum.
We remember what happened to the Jews in WWII like it was yesterday. We still smell the stench that rose from the ovens.
We still fear and speak of what Russia did to the Church.
We know better than any what evil does to the innocent when demons walk freely.
(Actually, we’re pretty clear about what demons can appear as, period.)
(They look a lot like those people Judith mentions above …or like those ISIS tools of evil.)
(In the end though, they’re all one in the same: corporeal servants of the Fallen, evil walking in upright position as if they were Man.)
But just so …we are armed. We will fight.
And not merely with words. Not this time.
It will prove, I think, to have been a mistake to think we haven’t prepared for this.
We are the ones, after all, who actually do believe in ancient prophesy.
We even have a book – the Book – about it lol.
We were told how to recognize the signs, and how to prepare against the time, and were instructed to buy two swords a long, long time ago.
And so we have (or are, in some cases).
…and contrary to popular belief, the scriptural proscription is against murdering, not killing.
And, after all – and stated not in the least bit rhetorically …if perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek – we really do have G_d on our side.
You can’t believe what knowing that last bit does to your, umm, confidence.
There is an unholy alliance between Caesar and Catholics to marginalize and defeat Protestant Christians.
Ah, Massachusetts. I liked the place growing up, but I would never move back unless I inherited millions. It iis too expensive, too crowded, and full of nice bigots who haven’t a clue.
Re Christianity, these days the real growth is in Africa, China, and Korea. I think of it as China’s secret weapon. One may think Christianity a fable, but it does tend to produce superior civilizations. I think we will start to feel the lack thereof in the near future.
Nick:
You’re correct.
I’ll revise it to read: against Christians in the West (or perhaps Western Europe).
We were told how to recognize the signs, and how to prepare against the time, and were instructed to buy two swords a long, long time ago.
Davis check cheness dot com if you want some well priced quality swords.
No need to license yourself under the gov writ either for the US purchases.
http://www.chenessinc.com/wakizashiswords.htm
The Regime expands a little bit more. Hussein is the name. Fire is the method.
Lizzy @4:06,
You write: “Seriously, try to remember the last time you saw a Christian character portrayed positively in a movie or tv show — and it has to be a traditional Christian, not a progressive one who bucks his/her church’s doctrine and is in essence, a Lefty.”
My wife and I saw a good movie on Valentine’s Day of this year in one of the local theaters. It was called “Old Fashioned”. I think it fills the bill.
Another one we saw a few years back was “Loving the Bad Man”. The more accurate presentation of Christians is out there, although, admittedly, you have to look for them.
Waidmann
I first became really aware of the depth of anti-Christian feeling in the academy 25-30 years ago via the Internet precursor of the web, Usenet. Basically similar to Compuserve and some of those other services, but at the time the Internet was almost 100% universities and government. People talked freely and it was sometimes very revealing. This has been building for a long time. And when did the Christians-as-villains theme take hold in movies? Sometime in the ’80s? ’70s? Definitely not new, anyway.
The irony of the people who preached against demonizing the Other putting so much effort into demonizing Christians seems never to cross their minds at all. The self-righteousness remains impermeable.
This is what we’re up against, in part:
http://www.zombietime.com/up_your_alley_2008/
Just like Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, non?
I would describe myself not so much as a “conservative” Christian (or “fundamentalist” Christian) as an orthodox (small “o”) Christian. The historic understanding of what Christianity is, its doctrines and traditions, matters deeply to me. And living out my faith requires striving for the most careful balance between maintaining fidelity to what I take to be God’s immutable law (which includes moral codes) and treating everyone around me with the same grace that I hope to find in God.
While I understand how people feel about “fundamentalist” Christians, having escaped from a rabid form of it myself with my faith thankfully intact, I still believe it is possible to be orthodox without being a reincarnation of Jerry Falwell.
The challenge for someone like me in these “perilous times” is striving to strike a balance between being an uncharitable culture warrior (alla Jerry Falwell) and being a doormat. It’s not easy, but I know many fellow Christians who are striving for that very thing.
If you are one who prays, pray for us! If you’re not, we appreciate your thoughts and your support all the same.
Here’s what Jesus Christ said about marriage (Matthew 19, King James Version):
4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
I’ve also seen the hatred of the wicked rising and rising. We were warned about this. Jesus also said, in the Gospel according to John,
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.
21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.
23 He who hates me hates my Father as well.
24 If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.
25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’
@DNW: Thanks for the site. That was rather nauseating to read; some nice posts and good thoughts, but overall it says “Ms. Doormat Catholic. I shall pray for you. Be Nice!”
neo…
It was predicted in “Generations.”
Thought you’d want to know.
http://www.amazon.com/Generations-History-Americas-Future-1584/dp/0688119123
S & H thought that this religious earthquake would put all others into eclipse.
Uncanny.
A few thoughts.
1. Radical islamist is not a tiny minority. Percentages change from one country to another. But, for example, in US, you could consider 25% of muslims as radicals, since this is the percentage that supports the use of violence to punish aposthasy.
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/06/24/shock-poll-51-of-american-muslims-want-sharia-25-okay-with-violence-against-americans/
And US is not exactly a radical muslim country. You go to Pakistan and it will be far worse.
2. Muslims are usually labelled as “radical” or “moderate”. So, anyone who is not a radical should be a moderate.
This is not right. Muslims that support secularity, civil rights and the rule of law are put together in the same group with muslims that are not violent… but they feel muslim before anything else, and whether the should choose, they side with their muslim brothers. We could call both groups as “secular” vs “moderate” ones.
Secular muslims, according to statistics, use to be around the 10% of the muslim community.
In my opinion, radical muslims are dangerous right now in western world, but moderate ones will become eventually dangerous as the percentage of muslim population grows.
DNW Says:
June 29th, 2015 at 6:45 pm
Thanks for that link. I went through it in details …
It is sentimentalism.
The syrup is overwhelming even for me who was schooled in that stuff.
The ‘in this world but not of this world’ gone too far.
E. Scalia’s take on sentimentalism here.
If you choose to live in this world,- it is a choice -, then some things are unacceptable, some compromises impossible ….
Great strength of will is required to stand against the world.
Most humans are weak and thus they bend knee to any kind of external pressure or coercion. They don’t fight back. They are “moderates” in the sense that they are conquered by the fanatical, the true believers.
We are back to the nearly overt Paganism of the Roman Empire where Christians were persecuted in every way for not being good “citizens”.
That day is coming quickly.
The Liberal, nearly every one and almost every Democrat there is, is a vicious savage. Some go all the way, and others are more timid – but there is no liberal who is not a vicious savage.
Guaranteed they will go ISIS on us. ISIS and every liberal are the same species of animal, slightly different breeds is all.