Throwing Believers to the Lions, 21st Century-StyleBill Muehlenberg<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
In the old days things were much simpler, and much more direct. In the early days of the Christian faith, pagan rulers could say, 'Hey, I hate you Christians', and throw them to the lions. Today our pagan elites (in academia, the media, and especially the courts) don't tell Christians how much they hate them (that would be seen to be intolerant – a really big no no in contemporary culture). Instead they pass all sorts of nefarious and mischievous legislation, such as vilification bills, and hate crime acts. These do the job just about as well as the lions used to do.
Indeed, they are much more insidious. In the old days you pretty well knew where you stood in a pagan society. To be a believer was a life and death proposition, and you were either in or out of the Christian camp. There was no place for sitting on the fence – too much was at stake.
But today it seems that being a believer is not so costly, and direct persecution does not appear to be happening. But there is plenty of indirect persecution taking place, in the form of discrimination laws, equal opportunity legislation, and those wretched hate crime laws. And one never quite knows where one stands in relation to these laws, especially the religious vilification laws.
These laws are notoriously vague and arbitrary, so that one can in good faith be doing one's Christian thing, and the next moment be dragged off to some tribunal for offending someone or vilifying somebody. No one is safe under such draconian and malicious legislation.
Let me give you a pretend example. Let's say you are concerned about the well-being of children, and are tired of so-called artists taking liberties with children (as happened in Sydney recently), and being allowed to live above the law in this regard. So you might preach a sermon one Sunday on such activities, and denounce the sin of child abuse and paedophilia.
The next thing you know you are dragged off hand-cuffed to some equal opportunity commission, forced to account for the way you vilified and offended some poor paedophile. After all, our laws are quite clear about messing with someone's sexual orientation. And as more and more of our amoral intelligentsia are proclaiming that paedophilia is just another sexual orientation which people are born with, they have a right not to be offended or made to look silly.
OK, you say this is all a bit far-fetched. It may be – for the time being. But the exact same thing is now happening concerning homosexuality; another "sexual orientation" that people are supposed to be born with.
Consider a recent court case in Canada where a Christian pastor was accused of a hate crime because he warned about the homosexual agenda. The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal found evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson guilty of hate speech, and ordered him to stop expressing his biblical perspective of homosexuality.  He was ordered to pay $5,000 for "damages for pain and suffering" as well as apologize to the activist who complained of being hurt.
The pastor was effectively told to renounce his Christian faith. It is on the par with a court ordering a greenie to no longer speak out on the sin of global warming, because that could be considered to be hate speech to a corporate polluter. We must tolerate these environmental vandals, the court would say, and not vilify them or make fun of them. So by all means, continue your green activism, but simply never say another word about global warming or carbon footprints again.
Of course our leftist judiciary would never do such a thing, but that is the equivalent of what they are doing to the Christian church. They are saying, 'Hey, feel free to practice your faith – just don't let us ever catch you expressing your faith in the public arena again. You can make moral judgements, but keep them to yourself (until, that is, we decide to fully ban all politically incorrect thoughts, as well as words and deeds)'.
Our secular courts and Christophobic elites are telling the church that it can exist, but only on their terms, not on the Church's terms. 'You can nominally exist, but make darn sure you never let your faith affect any area of real life – just bottle it all up and be content with that.'
The full story of the Canadian case can be read in the link below. But believers in other parts of the Western world had better wake up, because what is happening in Canada is coming to a church near you, real soon.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=66704
Bill MuehlenbergCultureWatchhttp://www.billmuehlenberg.com