A Russian Orthodox priest friend of mine believes that there’s a war on Christianity being waged in the United States. This war is not only happening in the United States — but internationally as well.
A quick Google search on the topic reveals many reports of increased hostility towards Christianity, especially in the United States. Many of these news items report calls for the destruction of religious statues, most notably of Junipero Serra, the Spanish missionary Philadelphia essayist Agnes Repplier described as “Spain’s gift to America,” a gift that was one “of disinterested benevolence.”
In 2020, a statue of St. Junipero Serra near San Francisco was defaced and pulled down on California’s Indigenous People’s Day. Masked leftist rioters sprayed red paint in the statue’s face before they toppled it.
In Denver of the same year, a statue of St. Jude was beheaded. This was followed by an image of Our Lady of Guadeloupe being toppled in Upland, California.
A parallel attack on religious statues occurred when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) openly condemned St. Damien of Molokai, a Hawaiian hero who devoted a decade of his life to the care of lepers. AOC said that Fr. Damien’s statue in the U.S. Capitol was a part of “colonialism, patriarchy and white supremacist culture.”
In a tweet on August 4, Cortez tried to walk back her words:
“At no point did I say Fr. Damien was a bad figure – in fact, I explicitly stated that my observations weren’t about litigating his or any individual statue. It’s about the fact that a huge supermajority of statues in the Capitol are white men. Barely any women…”
When hearings were conducted back in 2018 for attorney Brian Buescher, a devout Catholic and Knights of Columbus member nominated for the US District Court for the District of Nebraska, Senator Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and then-Senator Kamala Harris, D-California, mercilessly drilled Buescher on his Knights of Columbus membership, asking him about possible conflicts of interest, as if the organization had a game plan similar to that of the KKK. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights also opposed his confirmation.
Worldwide, Reuters reported that 9,488 churches and church buildings were attacked in 2019. Lela Gilbert, Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom, writes that, in India, Christian churches are regularly attacked by the Hindu national movement and that in Pakistan as of May 2019, 200 Christians were executed on charges of “insulting Islam or Mohammad.”
In China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has worked overtime tearing down Christian crosses. When the CCP instituted new legislation in late 2019 stating that “religious organizations must adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” that all but took the soul and substance out of “official” Christianity in that country.
In June 2020, Christianity Today conducted a poll among Catholics to find out what they thought were the most pressing issues facing the Church today. The results were surprising. The most pressing issue for Catholics was human trafficking, followed by poverty, climate change, and the refugee crisis. The persecution of Christians came in last.
The word “persecution” suggests the burning of churches, the arrests of clergy, and the forbidding of church services. But it must be stressed that the beginning stages of persecution are often so subtle that they may not be noticed.
George Yancey, a writer for Belief.net, wrote:
“By a clinical definition of persecution, yes, Christians are persecuted in the US. But I discourage Churches in the US from saying that we are persecuted since what we face today isn’t what most people envision when they think of persecution.”
Yancey goes on to say that while Christians aren’t exactly being beheaded in the USA as they sometimes are in the Middle East, the more openly devout Christians here face growing intolerance, lawsuits, jobs lost, and public disdain. As for being a Christian on the campus of most universities, forget it. Christians are regarded as, at best, uncool, and at worst, hateful and bigoted.
But arguably more concerning than the war on Christianity is the war within Christianity itself. When Christian churches change many of their own traditional dogmas to suit the secular culture, they contribute to their own collapse from within.
Generally, the kind of Christianity being promoted today is a milquetoast Christianity that does not challenge the mores and beliefs of the progressive secular culture – but seeks to blend with it so as not to cause offense. It is the Christianity of liberal Benedictine nuns like feminist social activist Joan Chittster of Erie, Pennsylvania, and scores of others who see Christianity as a kind of United Nations of the soul where the latest social justice cause becomes a tenet of Christian orthodoxy.
This new form of Christianity is changing many Churches and denominations, including Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.
In Eastern Orthodoxy, a prime example of the infiltration of secular values into the Church can be measured by the actions of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center (OCSC) at the Jesuit-run Fordham University. The OCSC bills itself as a forum for “divisive perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity,” including, for example, edgy topics like children who may identify as non-binary or transgender.
Orthodox “leaders” such as the always-sassy Sister Vassa of Vienna, host of the cultish “Coffee with Sister Vassa” podcast, might as well be a theological tentacle of the James Martin School of New Theology. Sister Vassa, for instance, loves posing for photographs of herself without her nun’s veil, so that viewers can see that there’s really a flesh-and-blood woman beneath all that Russian Orthodox garb.
The refugee crisis response on the aforementioned Christianity Today poll is a perfect example of how U.S. Catholics are drinking the political Kool-Aid of the Democrat Party. It is also indicative of how the Catholic Church in the United States may be on its way to Milquetoast-ville.
Consider how the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference has issued statement after statement condemning current US policy on the deportation of illegal aliens, supporting sanctuary cities, and condemnations of the infamous southern wall during the Trump administration.
In 2019, millions of dollars from the annual Catholic Peter’s Pence collection were handed over to leftist billionaire financier George Soros’ funding agencies — where they were given to illegal immigrant caravans as they headed towards the Mexican-USA border in 2019.
During the 2019 U.S. Catholic Bishops Annual Assembly, 69 out of 212 bishops voted against language identifying abortion as the pre-imminent issue facing the Church today. Some critics cite this vote as further proof that the American Catholic Church has aligned itself with Democrats.
As my priest friend commented, “They want Christianity to be a nice little charming thing you do at Christmas or Easter…but something never to be taken too seriously.”
This means that the milquetoast Christians and churches who conform their beliefs to those of the ever-changing secular culture gain cultural and political favor over the more openly devout, who become the targets for persecution.
The competing Christianities—real vs milquetoast—have created deep divisions among believers, and a house divided cannot stand.
By their “FRUITS?” Indeed!
Beginnings of the end times apostate church?
Don’t be fooled… the satanic catholic fake church is NOT Christian…
The satanic catholic fake church teaches their god is the fake god allah of satanic islam… a pagan god once called Baal…
And… the satanic quran teaches that allah does NOT have any Son’s for Salvation…
I suggest a read & study of Hosea, wherein he chronicles God’s wrath against the Ephraim/Israelites because they mixed pagan rituals & observations in with their worship of Him. Study Hosea here: https://www.facebook.com/1577717809109503/posts/3252273744987226/
Secondly, as a Christian I acknowledge the fact it is a false & gentile created religion, started by Roman Emperor Constantine in 354AD – all vestiges of Christs Hebraic heritage and His teaching only of the Torah & Prophets were erased. Wonder why Christian’s don’t celebrate Gods commanded 7 Feasts or observe the Sabbath on the 7th day of the week, or call Christ’s Passion easter after a Roman fertility goddess? Yes, I believe in Christ, but as He taught me, not the Roman Catholic Church & all it’s spin offs Protestant sects! In Matthew 5:17-20, Christ explicitly stated that He did not come to abolish Torah or the Prophets. It’s no wonder the so-called Christian church is in total chaos!
God bless all. Seek the truth.
First, the word “Easter” is of Anglo-Saxon origin derived from the word “eostre” meaning “sunrise” and has nothing to do with Ishtar whom the Saxons had never heard of. The early Romans Christians – before Constantine – called Easter the same thing that the Greek Christians did – “Pascha” meaning “Passover.”
Second, you didn’t finish the quote from Jesus: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” You left out the fulfil part. That is that Jesus – through his death and resurrection paid for our sins under the law, thus ending the old covenant between God and man and creating a new covenant of salvation through Jesus. Your sect of “Christianity” abandons the new covenant and reverts back to Judaism. You should stop reading the Old Testament and start reading the New. The Apostle Paul shot your line a reasoning down 2000 years ago. There really is nothing new under the sun.
Steve, well done!
You’ve actually met Christ and he taught you in person? You should have recorded this and put it on Youtube for all the world to see.
Hopefully the New Testament as it exists today, 2,000 years later, was never tampered with, right?
Huh? What a nut. What rabbit hole did you fall into? Better call the Ghost Busters. Just sayin’.
“And they exchanged the truth for a Lie”
“Straight and narrow is the way that leads to eternal life and few there be that find it.”
Since Adam the “people of God” have a revolving history of turning from God. Welcome to the end times, the time of tribulation and the mark of the beast. The devil loves nothing more than an influential Christian willing to embrace evil or woke policies. The best way to tell a fake Christian from a true Christian is true Christians speak out and publicly condemn the evil pedophile policies of democrats destroying the lives and bodies of children while the fake Christians remain silent.
The devil achieves apostasy by getting socialists, communists and pedophiles to join Christian Churches then work their way up the ladder of power within the Church or sect until they can change doctrine, dogma and culture to embrace evil.
Constitine, never a Christian, always an opportunist, changed the times and the seasons Gregory’s calender is a lie.
The Sunday laws in direct conflict with the 10 commandments was struck down but never destroyed, as the inquisition will soon be super charged; the Sunday Laws believed and followed will get you a mark on the forehead from the All Mighty. They also removed a thorny passage in the 10 commandments and then split one of them in two, you know, for nastalgia. The Slanderer’s fist romed 90% of the Christians in the near east.
Your statement reminds me of Milton Friedman’s maxim that you don’t find good people to do the right thing; you make it so the wrong people will have to do the right thing. (i.e. they’ll reflect the populace.)
Andrew Breitbart also put it well . . .
” politics runs downstream from culture.” Leftists know this, so they brainwash our kids starting from kindergarden.
“The competing Christianities—real vs milquetoast—have created deep divisions among believers, and a house divided cannot stand.”
Exactly. This is what led to the 300 years of the bloody wars and persecutions of the Reformation and Counter Reformation. Do you want to repeat that again?
Jesus has said “I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but
by me.” His sacrifice on the Cross paid for all sin and by turning to Him as Saviour and
Lord, you have access to the life with Christ and a personal relationship which precludes
a journey to outer darkness in death. Read the Bible and know it means what it says
and avoid those who say otherwise.
WOKE FASCISM AND THE RISE OF ISLAMIC FASCISM
Quran (9:29) – “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the Jizya [the tax for being a Jew or Christian] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
THE MUSLIMS WILL DESTROY EUROPE….. but will we let them destroy america???
England No Longer a Christian Nation as Atheism and Islam Make Gains – Census
Less than half of people in England and Wales are Christian, the census has revealed, with both atheism and Islam making major gains.
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Buh-Bye! Ilhan Omar to be Removed from Foreign Affairs Cmte. for Anti-Semitism, ‘Likely’ Speaker McCarthy Says
All the mainline Protestant US churches are controlled by Progressives/ Radicals .
The UMC, Presbyterians , ELCA, UCC have been turning hard left for decades. Their seminaries are virtual ghost towns in addition to what are increasingly hostile congregational environments for heterosexual men of any color.
These denominations are in self inflicted death spirals. Glaringly the various “ leaderships” are actively and intentionally driving Conservatives- Scriptural Christians from the pews.
The term that the left test marketed “Christian Nationalism” tips their hand concerning their hatred for God & Christians in this great nation.
The reason the left never condemns islam is that they both share a foundational hatred for America. Simple as that.
A major omission, here, is the victimization of Catholics and other Christians in Apartheid Israel, starting from Day One of the re-creation of a Zionist Israel, including Occupation, Displacement, and Ethnic Cleansing. It’s called the NAKBA.
Interestingly, Palestinian Christians who suffered Ethnic Cleansing by Jews in Occupied Palestine found sanctuary in Lebanon, ironically in the same Refuge Camp where Christian Armenians earlier found sanctuary from the Turks during the Arminian Genocide.Jews and Turks have a lot in common when it comes to victimizing Christians. Just sayin’.
But Christians have never victimized Jews nor any one else right? Not REAL Christians anyway right? When a Christian persecutes any one in the name of Christ he’s not a real Christian right?
“As for the Lutherans, most had followed the lead of such figures as Pastor Adolf Stoecker; they had rejected capitalism as an evil, Jewish idea, incompatible with the spirit of Christianity….
Religious writers often claim that the cause of Nazism is the secularism or scientific spirit of the modern world. This evades the fact that the Germans of the time, especially in Prussia, were one of the most religious peoples in Western Europe; that the Weimar Republic was a hotbed of mystic cults, of which Nazism was one; and that Germany’s largest and most devout religious group, the Lutherans, counted themselves among Hitler’s staunchest followers .” – Leonard Peikoff, “The Ominous Parallels: The End Of Freedom In America”
Arguably, over time and place, Christians are probably responsible for the deaths of millions more Jews than Muslims. Ironically, six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis who at the end of the day were defeated by fellow Christians, including American Catholics and other Christians.
We mustn’t forget that Germany was among the most advanced European Nation at the time of the holocaust. But look at the Jews, who went on to victimize another innocent, vulnerable People, ie the Palestinian People, including Catholics and other Christians, immediately following their own victimization at the hands of the Nazis. Tens of thousands of holocaust survivors went on to Occupy the Palestinian Homeland, which they colonized through displacement and ethnic cleansing, gaining a Jewish majority at the expense of Palestinian Arabs. Many of these Jews went on to occupy Palestine as soon as they were liberated from the Death Camps, by our own Catholic and Christian sons, brothers, uncles, and next-door neighbors. Ironically, Jews today still engage in the narrative and agenda of Denial and Victim-blaming. Jews should know better. One has to say their promise of “Never Again”,is bare-faced lie,unless it applies to Jews aloine..Just sayin’.
Cancel culture seems to have been accepted by the White liberal community, and this reflects a generational change, from us Baby Boomers to our children. We even see the decline of Christianity in the UK, not so much from Muslims or immigration, but rather from the absence of the Millenials from the Church. The Church has to take some responsibility, here, given some unpopular policies,eg anti-abortion, the lesser role of women in the Catholic Church, and the perceived unwelcomeness of the LGBWT+ community.
This is a pity, as Christianity, along with Judaism, is head and shoulders above Islam in promoting Human, Women, and Child Rights. Hand-in-hand with the attacks on the Church we see attacks on the White community, generally, by the likes of BLM, as well as the Indigenous. While we need to acknowledge past crimes and sins, these communities fail to acknowledge White acknowledgment and progress in combating racism,etc.
Really, many are consumed by historical resentments when they should be focusing on their own communities. Just sayin’.
The Christianity and Judaism practiced today is not the Christianity and Judaism of centuries or millenia ago.
Think about that.
Today’s Christianity and Judaism are tamed, diluted, secularized, versions of what they were 300 years ago. Tamed, secularized, diluted, leashed by REASON. Think about that.
In other words, reason, rationality, logic, and science have had an enormous, beneficial, effect on both religions. They have tamed them, diluted them, made them more reasonable, more rational.
Islam has never been through a Renaissance (the REBIRTH of reason) or the Age of Enlightenment (the LIGHT of reason), it has never been tamed, diluted, or modified by reason. It has never been made more reasonable or rational. Islam has never been secularized by the influence of reason. Think about that.
So what is the crucial element that made the West great again after the Renaissance, the rebirth of reason? Blind religious faith or REASON? Think about that.