Christian Persecution Coming

                                                                                                                                                   Vol. XXIII, No. 1, January 2010

Just a few weeks ago Congress considered and the House passed a bill which extends hate crimes protection to homosexuals and transgendered individuals. On the surface, it may have seemed innocuous, but in reality it is the stuff out of which comes severe restrictions on religious liberty. In Canada preachers have already been imprisoned for preaching against sodomy and homosexuality. This U.S. legislation could well follow that same pattern. It only takes a wildly liberal judge to rule that a preacher speaking from a pulpit, or even reading what the Bible has to say about sodomy and homosexuality, is guilty of hate crime. This is what happened in Canada. When the law was first passed, supporters poopooed the complaint and fear of Christians, but one judge changed it all. Here in the U.S. if one judge rules the same way, then to ever get it changed back to commonsense, the procedure would require climbing the legal ladder, likely all the way to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the liberal judge’s ruling would stand until a higher court ruled against it.

Members of the House of Representatives and leaders of Evangelical Christian organizations, including Southern Baptists, warned about the bill’s impact. The measure would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the current classes – which include race, religion, and national origin – protected from hate crimes. “Sexual orientation” includes homosexuality, while “gender identity” takes in transsexuals and cross-dressers.

Barrett Duke, vice-president for public policy and research of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, had this to say, “While we should never condone acts of violence against anyone, including whether or not that person is a homosexual, this bill proposes to prosecute someone based on their belief about homosexuality and therefore makes religious belief a germane issue in this debate.”

If that legislation actually becomes law, one action would kill it. If on a given Sunday, 50,000 preachers and Sunday School teachers would announce publicly that they are willing to go to jail for simply preaching, teaching what they believe the Bible to declare, government, high or low, would be completely nonplussed.

But we can be sure that the radically liberal homosexuals and their supporters will do all in their power to work that kind of legislation into law. Persecution is coming!

[Reprinted from the December 2009 issue of The Watchman. Owens Ministries, Inc.; P.O. Box 2066; Gastonia, N.C. 28053.]