The Shifting Definition of Religious Freedom: Why We Can't Bow to the New Established Religion
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BY ERIC METAXAS , CHRISTIAN POST CONTRIBUTOR
April 15, 2015|7:17 am
It's almost become a part of the weekly news cycle: American citizens publicly tarred and feathered for professing their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Just this month, we watched a family-owned pizzeria close its doors after its owners received hate mail and death threats from around the country. Their offense? Giving the wrong answer to a question about whether they'd cater a gay wedding. Keep in mind that the restaurant had never actually turned down a gay customer. They were hammered for holding the wrong beliefs about a hypothetical scenario!
- image: http://images.christianpost.com/full/76466/eric-metaxas.jpg?w=262(Photo: The Christian Post/Sonny Hong)Eric Metaxas speaking at the In Defense of Christians Inaugural Summit, Washington, D.C, Sept. 11, 2014.
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Major corporations are getting into the bullying act, as well. At least two state governments have now backed down or modified religious freedom legislation in response to pressure from companies like Walmart and Salesforce. Keep that in mind next time you think about shopping at Walmart.
And this culture-wide search-and-destroy mission is only accelerating. As Princeton's Robby George writes in First Things, activists for the new sexual orthodoxy are "giddy with success and urged on by a compliant and even gleeful media."
The message is clear: not only should Christians remain silent about gay marriage if we know what's good for us, but we must be made to agree with and even celebrate what Scripture calls sin. As Ana Marie Coxrecently said of Christians on MSNBC, "you're going to have to force [them] to do things they don't want to do."
But gay columnist Frank Bruni recently took it to the next level in the New York Times, writing that it's time Christians get with the program and "take homosexuality off the sin list." The lived experience of same-sex couples ought to trump what he calls the "scattered passages of ancient texts" condemning his lifestyle. Wow.
As for freedom of religion, Bruni suggests a new definition: "freeing . . . religious people from prejudices that they . . . can indeed jettison, much as they've jettisoned other aspects of their faith's history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity."
Yes, he actually wrote "rightly bowing."
I'm reminded of a scene from C. S. Lewis' "The Last Battle," in which Shift the Ape explains to the poor creatures of Narnia why they're being shipped off to the Calormene salt mines.
"You think freedom means doing what you like," says Shift. "Well, you're wrong. That isn't true freedom. True freedom means doing what I tell you."
Writing at National Review, Yuval Levin says what we're witnessing isn't so much the suppression of free exercise of religion as it is the establishment of a new national religion; the religion of secular liberalism. And dissenters must be forced to worship at its altar and affirm its creed of anything-goes sexuality.
Given the likely outcome of this summer's Supreme Court case on same-sex marriage, Rod Dreher asks what will it be like to be a Christian in our brave, new society—and what will become of orthodox Christianity now that the price of professing it could be our credibility and livelihoods.
The answer, Dreher says, will depend a great deal on us. Will we hold fast to biblical teaching and refuse, in a manner of speaking, to burn incense to Caesar?
Friends, the fight for religious liberty is far from over. And as John Stonestreet and I have been saying again and again, it's time for the Church to wake up, to pray, and to publicly defend our religious rights and our brothers and sisters under assault for their beliefs.
Please come to BreakPoint.org, click on this commentary, and I'll link you to these important articles by Robert George, Rod Dreher, and Yuval Levin. Please read them and share them!
From BreakPoint. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. "BreakPoint®" and "Prison Fellowship Ministries®" are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship
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FOLLOW
MUTE
1:52 PM on April 17, 2015
When you belong to the cult of moral relativism you can come to no other conclusion then that good cheated and evil is the victim of good.
3 FOLLOWERS
MUTE
image: http://graphic.christianpost.com/images/common/comment_open.gif
9:12 AM on April 16, 2015
America reminds me of a bedfast ninety year old. You don't know exactly when it will be over, but you know it can't be long.
4 FOLLOWERS
MUTE
3:01 PM on April 16, 2015
Gary Bryson - Good analogy. For Christians it is plainly over. When someone is elected to a second term that is so dishonest and untrustworthy , that speaks volumes. However, there are things we can do. First pray. Second, perhaps it is time to re evaluate our giving? I am not saying to give less but give to ...more
1 FOLLOWER
MUTE
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8:40 AM on April 16, 2015
But WHY is there a shifting definition in the first place? Could it have something to do with the late 18th-century founders replacing the First Commandment (found intact in some of the 17th-century Colonial Constitutions) with the First Amendment's First Commandment-violating, polytheism-enabling Free Exercise ...more
netprophet (Moderator)
6 FOLLOWERS
MUTE
2:50 PM on April 16, 2015
Ted R. Weiland - Thanks for sharing. Very informative.
FOLLOW
MUTE
5:21 PM on April 17, 2015
Ted R. Weiland - Remember that in those times homosexuality was considered a deviation. So using the Constitution to justify the "right" of homosexual is completely inappropriate and dishonest.
5 FOLLOWERS
MUTE
8:10 AM on April 16, 2015
Thanks forever to the Biblical America for abolishing racism on Planet Earth for all mankind, but don't use now the racial equality for the purpose of spreading Sodomy. That is the real sick racism. Being colored is not sin, but practicing Sodomy is sin. Beloved America, don't make Americans' civil obedience morally wrong and disgrace your forefathers by becoming a Sodom.
5 FOLLOWERS
MUTE
8:06 AM on April 16, 2015
Other reasons America is losing religious freedom: #2 Secular Western nations and their mimickers started hating what is good and noble, especially Christianity, because they got fed immorality and Satanism too much and want to continue various immorality. Secularism ignores the existence of God, and as the result ...more
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