David Griffey at Daffey Thoughts explains why the treatment of believing Christians in this country deserves the term persecution:
Without the need for Gulags or Gas Chambers. Pope Francis says so over here. All too often, when Christians object to the clear and obvious assault on the right to not be liberal, advocates of the new tyranny resort to denial if not downright mockery.
Stop whining, we’re told. There is no persecution. I’ve always wondered what their standard for persecution happens to be. This is a movement, after all, that used to declare Fascism! and McCarthyism! when a record store wouldn’t carry a Madonna song. So I’m not sure how they reconcile Christians saying they don’t want to be forced by the government to take part in a ceremony against their religious convictions as whining.
After all, as far as I know, the various cases that have arisen where a photographer here, or a bakery there, have been legally assaulted have had to do with actual gay marriage ceremonies. It’s not that the businesses in question refused to serve gay people. At least two of the owners I’ve seen interviewed said they don’t mind serving anyone. They just don’t want to be part of something that specifically cuts against the exercise of their religious conscience.
And yet, against that, all hell has broken lose. And when Christians have objected to being financially punished, to being hit with exorbitant financial penalties because of this, advocates of the Left simply shrug, wink, giggle, and act as if Christians have no reason to complain. Why not? Again, go back to the 70s and 80s and see what liberals said when religious groups tried to get a show pulled from television or a radio station wouldn’t play The Rolling Stones. It was nothing less than Big Brother all the way!
That includes Catholics and other Christians, BTW. Not just those who have embraced the gospel of liberalism, but others who want to come off as voices of reason. Perhaps afraid of looking too conservative, or afraid of being laughed at by those who want to do the persecuting, they often step forward and say, “Now let’s not be hasty. There’s really no persecution. We don’t even know what that means. Look at Syria or Iraq.” Sure. Those are cases of one extreme form of persecution. Often, it’s the final stage of persecution.
But as Pope Francis says, there are other stages, and we’re seeing those play out now. I wish he would speak more bluntly as to just who and what is behind this. When it comes to things like the historic sins of the Western Democracies or Capitalism, he has no problem dropping names. I wish he would drop names here. That would leave no wiggle room. It would leave no doubt as to just who he’s talking about. It would also keep people from trying to twist it around and say he’s really talking about those traditionalists who want to impose their values on others by committing the mortal sin of failing to embrace the true religion of the Left.
By the way, speaking of principalities and powers. The battles we fight are ultimately spiritual battles beyond the visible. But in keeping with the usual Satanic promises, have you noticed the essence of this entire religious liberty battle? The fight is over businesses who don’t mind serving anyone, gay or otherwise. They just don’t want to be forced to take part in a religious observance that is against their fundamental beliefs. Like making a Kosher deli cater a pig roast for Easter services. They aren’t even attacking gays. They simply say, in this particular case, they would prefer not to be part of the event. And yet it’s nothing less than Nazi flavored hatred and bigotry.
And how do those who want to impose their values on these business owners fight back? Why, with nuclear retribution. They come in and punish entire states. They do things that could hurt everyone in the state, allies and opponents alike. They pull out and hurt the entire flock of people: gay, straight, religious, non-religious, LGBTQ supporters, gay marriage opponents, friend, foe. They essentially carpet bomb the opposition, hurting anyone and everyone in the process.
An observation of warning. We’ve come to believe that a Christian business owner, willing to serve anyone, but asking not to be forced to take part in a morally pronounced religious ceremony fundamentally opposed to their own beliefs, is the essence of hate and intolerance. And those institutions and organizations and individuals who wield tremendous power and have billions at their disposal, who are willing to do nothing less than extortion in order to mandate conformity, and do so by harming anyone in their target range – friend and foe alike – are the champions of tolerance and inclusion. How we got there has to be a tale of unprecedented dumb. But given our cultural and educational standards over the last few decades, I’m not shocked. Not in the least.
Go here to comment. Forcing Christians to participate in gay marriage celebrations, compelling female Christians to share bathrooms with transgendered “women”, indoctrinating Christian children in tax supported schools with leftist propaganda, requiring Christian business owners to supply contraceptive coverage, hounding Christians from jobs if they step out of a politically correct line, this, and much more, is all persecution. These type of outrages make a mockery of freedom of religion and the claim that Americans are a free people. Christians of course have only themselves to blame for this state of affairs. Too many Christians think this is all wonderful, and too many others who realize what is going on do nothing about it except whine and whimper, and would sooner eat ground glass than become politically involved. Time to stand and fight back.
Engage in the public square.
Coming up in two weeks is a coordinated rally in many of the sidewalks in front of Worse than Murder Inc. aka, PP.
Eric, agian, is leading the way.
If you don’t see a city near you jump in and get your hands wet.
http://protestpp.com/locations
Pro-Life Action League.
The focus is on the abuse of justice in David Daleiden case. California’s AG is just one of the bought and paid for thugs owning to Worse than Murder Inc.
Facebook. http://facebook.com/prolifeaction
Stand up is right.
Forcing Christians to participate in gay marriage celebrations, compelling female Christians to share bathrooms with transgendered “women”. . .
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Hmm, I wonder if Muslim celery will have to do gay weddings (I suspect not), and if Muslim women and Muslim public school children will have to share public bathrooms with Trans folk?
“Christians of course have only themselves to blame for this state of affairs”. Well said. Christianity makes unique claims. Of all people, its adherents should know this. When Christians lack the courage to defend their unique, superior moral beliefs, the natural state of affairs is such that no one else is going to do so. I mean, if not for Christianity, and its forefather Judaism, the world is simply a place where might makes right. I guess the light came into the world but the world really did prefer the darkness.
Orwellian progressives (the OP): Coercion is inclusion. Censorship is multiculturalism.
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A Christian baker must sell and write on a wedding cake “Steve Loves Steve,” or it is persecuted.
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A Kosher or Muslim butcher legally refuses to sell pork chops. Anyone except a Supreme Court Justice and a bloody idiot can see that’s unequal protection under the law.
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The latest: you are worse than Hitler if you oppose a 43 year-old-nut-job-in-a-dress’s human right to take a dump in the stall next to your eight-year-old daughter.
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There is no law except God’s. Time to practice middle class anarchy.
Bend the knees before the Almighty God in the Blessed Sacrament. It is giving our God all due respect. I have read that PF doesn’t give our Lord this small sign of love and respect.
If true…I wonder of PF’s time in prayer, especially in Adoration.
Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen;
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/584948
This pontificate can not, nor will not look at these open-minded absurdities and counter the attack. Instead his choice is to widen the expansion of indifference negating the Truths found in the written Word of God.
So it is up to all of us to stand firm on the street corner shoulder to shoulder with other like minded Christians. It’s refreshing to be fighting this fight with Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist and other Protestant believers, because they too see the writing on the wall and will not sit this one out.
We are one at these public gatherings.
United in love of God and neighbor.
If you haven’t stood up in protests to these absurdities in public, will you when they outlaw the celebration of the Holy Mass? Or when they gather up your neighbor because he has broken the law by having a Bible in his possession?
Get your game face on now. Join us a week from Saturday. Let’s NOT give the empty headed open-minded liberal zombies a chance to erode our most precious freedoms. Look around. The political landscape is Orwellian.
The Pope’s comments on freedom for Christians brings to mind his occasional references to the book “Lord of the World” and all of this was reinforced when on April 12 he actually used the expression “great apostasy” to descrbe our times. This brings to mind a very specific prophesy in the Bible that refers to the topic that is raised and the vision that comes from the Bible itself. I do not know if the Bible’s solution merits the description of an age of the Holy Spirit, but it certainly stresses the role of the Holy Spirit in the future life of the Church and in overcoming the problems of the present age. The passage I am referring to regards a “coming” of Christ which is spoken of by St. Paul that is clearly not his final coming (i.e. the last judgment). Nevertheless, given the content of the prophesy, it is an event of enormous significance in world history. This one is basically ignored even in the liturgical readings (the passage is not in the lectionary). Just after calming his readers about any need to worry that the “day of the Lord is at hand” (2 Thess 2:2), St. Paul helpfully goes on to give the signs to know when this event is at hand. None of this is included in the reading (31st Sunday of Ordinary Time in year c). In fact, in the Bible reading, the signs are rather detailed. It speaks first of all an “apostasy” (apostasia in the original Greek) and the revelation of the “lawless one” who “opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object of worship … claiming that he is a god [the rise of contemporary atheism and nihilism].” “And now you know what is restraining [the papacy], that he may be revealed … whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth [i.e. the Holy Spirit] by the manifestation of his coming” (2 Thess 2: 3-8). The problem sounds very much like that described in the book, but the solution sounds very much like the Fatima prophesy [Russia will be converted and my Immaculate Heart will triumph and a time of peace will be given to the world, etc.]. Interestingly, 2017 will be the first centenary of the Fatima apparitions and Pope Francis has declared that it was his desire that his pontificate be particularly under the patronage of Our Lady of Fatima. Could the Pope himself see this connection? How could God grant a time of peace to the world without a special action of the Holy Spirit or “another Pentecost” as Pope John XXIII prayed for at the time of the Council?
gabriel
Some wonder if Isaiah 65:17-25…the New Heaven and new Earth passage deals with Our Lady’s statement at Fatima. The thousand years of peace.
I don’t know. I love the idea of this time period yet doesn’t also state that after the thousand years are at an end Satan has one last shot at human souls? Then the second coming?
It’s all very interesting and the coming of the second Pentecost, the Holy Spirit renewal, is inspiring to say the least.
Prayer is key for all the earth’s inhabitants.
Pope Francis is getting his request filled; pray for me. We are. I would hope his zeal for souls outweigh his zeal for earth. Eventually the earth will pass away, but the eternal soul has only one home. Heaven or Hell.
Thank you for your comment Philip. Prophesy, of course, is difficult to interpret. Not even the Apostles understood that the Messiah and the Suffering Servant of Isiaiah were the same person until after it happened. Certainly the world needs a radical renewal if we are not to destroy ourselves. One other thing I would remark on: as far as I know, the number 1000 takes its meaning as a cubic expression of ten (which is already an expression of completeness), which as a cubic number means a very perfect number rather than an exact mathamatical number. It is interesting (given that God is triune) that the book of Revelation uses this concept to express perfection.
“An expression of completeness.”
Thank gabriel.
I’m reviewing the Profession of Faith pgs. 193 thru195, in the Catechism prompted by your use of the word completeness.
I came upon this; #732 “On that day, the Holy Trinity is fully revealed. Since that day, the Kingdom announced by Christ has been open to those who believe in him: in the humility of the flesh and in faith, they already share in the communion of the Holy Trinity. By his coming, which never ceases, the Holy Spirit causes the world to enter into the ” last days,” the time of the Church, the Kingdom already inherited though not yet consummated.”
These last days of course is from the founding of Holy Church, Pentecost Sunday, to present time. An expression of completeness is living in the abundance of the Holy Spirit. So the perfection of Pentecost is today, and the reign of peace, ( in the end my Immaculate Heart will Triumph ) is attainable and manifests within each of us as we pray to be empty of ourselves and like Mary profess our willingness to surrender to God, trusting completely that we too can be Christ bearer’s.
Maybe this is the great Triumph spoken of by our Lady. As our personal Fiat ascends to Our Father, the Holy Spirit overshadows us, creating the living Tabernacle within us as each worthy reception of Jesus in the Eucharist sanctifies us and prepares us to help in the sanctification of neighbor. I said help and it’s worth repeating, because he is power.
As one of my favorite Venerable’s has said; “God condescends to use or powers if we don’t spoil His plans with ours.” -Fr.Solanus Casey OFM Cap. (d. 1958)
In the end my Immaculate Heart will Triumph.
Maybe that’s yours and others that are consecrated to the two hearts. Mary’s Immaculate Heart and Jesus’ Sacred Heart.
Maybe our hearts enveloping the whole world is this Triumph. Maybe this IS the second Pentecost.
Thank you for your comments Philip on the importance of the consecration to the Immaculate Heart which the Virgin Mary urged us to make at Fatima. Certainly this explicit acceptance of the gift of Mary that Jesus made to us on the cross is an important part of God’s salvific plan, but as the Pope pointed out, we are still in the “great apostasy” and much work remains that is urgent for the salvation of many souls.
For those who wonder why these people have such an animas toward the Church, I would offer a simple explanation found in most reputable psychology textbooks. These people know, by virtue of conscience, that what they do is immoral. However, they feel that if they can require the rest of society to act with approval, then their actions are no longer wrong. Evil must have companionship to survive and this is the direction that deviants take.
CS Lewis, the great writer and prophet, saw much of this fifty years ago, when in The Last Battle he had the ape Shift (Obama) betray Narnia (the US) to the Calormenes (Islam/Iran) and in That Hideous Strength he accurately described the desecration done to Christianity and Christian symbols by the evil people at NICE.
So, yes, we are being persecuted by both NICE and Calormen on a daily, if not hourly basis via the pulsing snake of lies known as the internet.
The only solution is the tell the truth all the time: God made men and women in his image, and he instructed men to cling to their wives and become oneflesh. This is extremely simple-minded and even a five year old can understand and explain it but university liberals with advanced degrees cannot.
Fight back in this war against the truth by telling it.
God made women for men and men for women. There is no other arrangement that is not, as CS Lewis described it, “bent”. In truth there are no “gays” or “lesbians”, there are just delusional, sexually-traumatized liberals being led around by Satan’s lies. We need to stop referring to them as a special interest group when they are possessed and in need of exorcisms.
Islam is a false religion, Muhammed is a false prophet, the Koran is a compilation of the thoughts of an insane monomaniac, murderer, pedolphile and liar. We need to stop acting as if those billion fools who follow that nonsense are somehow on the same level as we are. They are not. Their “god” is a satanic moon demon. Our GOD is GOD.