Kneel or Perish
Secularists
steamroll over cultural landscape, threaten Christian dissent
By
Ed Vitagliano
(American Family Association Journal)
In
a letter to the editor of the News-Leader newspaper in Springfield, Missouri,
Jane Pitt wrote that she was a Christian and planned to vote for Mitt Romney in
November. They were comments that initially attracted very little
attention.
Pitt
cited Romney's pro-life views and said he shares her "conviction
concerning homosexuality." The letter stated that President Barack Obama
"is a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same sex
marriage."
That's
when the roof blew off the house. It was made public that Jane Pitt is the
mother of popular actor Brad Pitt, and a storm struck with all the angry contempt
that has come to identify the intolerant left.
There
were the usual news media stories accusing Jane Pitt of being
"anti-gay," but the worst sort of vitriol assaulted her via Twitter.
Crude sexual epithets were used to describe Pitt, she was told to partake in
sexual acts in the most vulgar of ways, and outright death threats were hurled
at her.
Jane
Pitt has since refused to comment any further on the episode, becoming yet
another voice silenced by those on the secular left who hate Christianity.
Mission accomplished.
Cultural totalitarianism
All
in a day's work, as the old expression goes. But what happened to Jane Pitt is
not the result of recent work but that of a decades-long assault against the
Christian foundations of our nation.
It
is not simply an effort to carve out a niche for atheists and other secular
rebels who exist within the otherwise religious landscape, according to Peter
Hitchens, conservative author of The
Rage Against God and the brother of the late, outspoken atheist
Christopher Hitchens.
Instead,
he said, this secular offensive is "a dogmatic tyranny in the
making."
Peter
Hitchens is British, and since the U.K. and the rest of Europe are down the
secular road just ahead of the U.S., it is worth heeding the warnings of
Christians who are already experiencing the beginning stages of this tyranny.
Elizabeth
Kendal, an international religious liberty analyst and advocate in the U.K.,
said in a recent blog that Christians in the U.K. and the U.S. are on the verge
of seeing the triumph of a cultural totalitarianism that will drive believers
to the fringes of a once free society. Already, she said, Christians are being
vilified, fired and "dragged through the courts" for resisting the
new ideology.
"These
British and American Christians are not being dismissed, expelled, sued, fined,
struck off and closed down because of anything they have done," Kendal
insisted. "Rather, it is because of what they could not do: generally they
could not affirm
that all cultures, beliefs or lifestyle choices are equally good." (Emphasis in original.)
It
is an all-hands-on-deck rebellion against Almighty God in an attempt to replace
His laws with a man-centered, morally relativistic ideology that demands that
all rivals kneel or perish.
Hostility toward faith
Hitchens
and Kendal are not "the-sky-is-falling" alarmists. Christians are
under fire in the U.S., although legal battles are still being fought and all
is not lost.
For
example, in 2010 Jennifer Keeton, a Christian enrolled in a graduate counseling
program at Augusta State University in Georgia, objected to counseling gay and
lesbian clients in a manner that affirmed the homosexual lifestyle.
School
officials threatened her with expulsion if she didn't change her views. In
order to remain in the graduate program, Keeton was told she could go on
probation and embark on a "remediation" plan that included attending
gay pride events and sensitivity training.
When
she refused, Keeton was expelled. She sued ASU, but this summer a federal
district judge ruled in favor of the university.
A
similar case involving Eastern Michigan University also wound up in court.
Julea Ward, a graduate student in that school's counseling program, encountered
problems when she was assigned a potential client who wanted help regarding a
same sex relationship.
Ward,
a Christian, said her religious convictions would not allow her to affirm such
relationships, but that she was willing to refer the client to a counselor who
could.
The
client complained, and EMU officials gave Ward an ultimatum: She could remain
in the graduate program only if she changed her religious beliefs.
Ward
sued, and initially a federal district judge ruled in favor of EMU. However, in
January the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals reversed that ruling and ordered a trial
to commence.
The
appellate court stated, "A reasonable jury could conclude that Ward‚'
professors ejected her from the counseling program because of hostility toward
her speech and faith."
Government interests
Even
those Christians who own their own businesses are finding themselves squeezed
by an oppressive ideology that permits no dissent.
