Thursday, June 07, 2018

Religious Exemption: How Homosexuality Is Transforming U.S. Christianity into a Ghetto


Religious Exemption: How Homosexuality Is Transforming U.S. Christianity into a Ghetto

By Julio Severo
U.S. conservatives have hailed the victory of Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who exercised his right not to make a wedding cake to a homosexual couple, because a homosexual “wedding” is an affront to God, biological sex and natural family. He was sued by the insolent predatory homosexual couple, but he won in a long legal battle.
In a free and democratic society, there would be no long or short legal battle because you are free to offer services to anyone you want and clients are free to reject you and find another provider. But freedom is becoming a rare commodity in the U.S. market and any petty issue of personal freedom becomes a big problem to be solved by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is utter shame that the highest court in America was necessary to solve so a small issue.
Homosexual activists began their campaign against traditional family and biological sexuality decades ago. They were on the defensive, but eventually they turned the tables. A radical minority put the non-radical majority on the defensive, and today their assault against the non-radical majority has been so atrocious that even when Christians have a success stand on a petty issue as a cake, it is hailed as a big victory — while they lost the major battle: marriage.
In the 1980s, U.S. conservative evangelicals fought against sodomy. Next, against gay “marriage” in the late 1990s and 2000s. Now they just fight for religious exemption. Next, will they be living in a ghetto or in jail? Is this what do they interpret as “victory”?
Free speech or religious freedom has become the last stand of the non-radical majority suffering systematic assault from the radical minority. And what is such strategy producing? Reduction of U.S. Christianity. Protestants, who were 98% of the U.S. population in the foundation of the U.S. Republic, now comprise less than 50%.
The fight for free speech is not helping U.S. Christianity. In fact, it is creating a hybrid Christian creature, as I have showed in my article “’Free Speech,’ The Ultimate False Gospel in America.”
While the suffering Christianity, which had no religious exemption and freedom, kept expanding in the Roman Empire and the Soviet Union, in the U.S. is happening just the contrary. It is being constricted by the radical minority.
The fact is, as recognized by U.S. conservatives, “acceptance of homosexuality is growing even among ‘conservatives.’
When “conservatives” accept homosexuality or even embrace the impossible — “conservative” homosexuals —, the end is near. Last year, pedophilia advocacy knocked down the most prominent “conservative” gay in the U.S. More to come among “conservatives”? Yes, more has come. This year, CPAC, the top U.S. conservative conference, banned a pro-family Christian group and approved homosexualist group.
Yet, the signs were already coming and conservatives did not protest. In the Republican National Convention endorsing Donald Trump in 2016, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who was one of the main speakers at this convention, shamelessly announced, “I’m a proud gay man.” Instead of being repudiated for his proud and impudent homosexuality, Thiel was hailed. Trump was also hailed for holding a homosexual flag during his campaign.
More recently, State Department Secretary Mike Pompeo recognized June as LGBTI Pride Month. Pompeo, who is one of the most important officials of Trump, is considered a very devout evangelical Christian. While conservatives are celebrating a slice of the cake — the Jack Phillips case —, homosexual activists are celebrating homosexual “marriage” as the law of the land and a very devout evangelical Christian leading the State Department in the celebration of sodomy. Most of the cake belongs to them. There is no doubt that homosexual activists are achieving the biggest victories and celebrations.
While homosexual activists will keep fighting for big game, conservatives will be fighting for cookies and crumbs. They will be fighting for exemptions — the right to enter and stay in the closet. Homosexual activists went out, and conservatives are going in.
Homosexual activists demand — and are granted — more and more rights to impose on everything and everyone, including the indoctrination of children. Conservative Christians are fighting just for the right to remain “protected” in their Christian closets.
The worse is the bad example. If America is, with her power and her State Department, leading nations around the world to celebrate homosexuality, what kind of example U.S. conservative evangelicals are giving to conservative evangelicals around the world regarding homosexuality? Compromise and shameful concession.
So U.S. Christians won on a cake issue, but they are losing all other major battles involving homosexuality. And because evangelicals were Trump’s main voting block in 2016, if evangelical numbers keep being reduced, genuine conservative candidates will not be elected anymore, and “conservative” candidates will have to look like more like liberals, including by supporting homosexuality. This is already happening. Trump has taken no measure against homosexual “marriage” and similar advances made by Obama.
Probably, no American conservative has seen this issue better than Matthew Trewhella, in his article “Religious Liberty and the Ghettoization of Christianity in America.” He said,
Most of the conservative, pro-family, and Christian groups have made ‘religious liberty’ their rallying cry over the last two years. The matter comes to an apex [with] the case about a Colorado baker, Jack Phillips…
I do not share the enthusiasm of many over this matter of ‘religious liberty,’ however. Let us step back and look at the larger picture.
The cry for religious liberty began after the Supreme Court issued their depraved opinion on homosexual marriage in 2015. Religious liberty became the latest retreat of the GOP and the conservatives. Religious liberty became the latest retreat of the pro-family and Christian groups.
First they stood against sodomy itself. Then they accommodated themselves to sodomy and retreated to opposing homosexual marriage. Now they have accommodated themselves to homosexual marriage and have retreated to defending religious liberty.
But here is the rub — If the Supreme Court rules in Jack Phillips favor, the result will be Christians do not have to participate in homosexual marriages, but homosexual marriage remains entrenched in the land.
And this is what religious liberty accomplishes in this matter – it assures the evil will continue in the land and it accommodates the continued ghettoization of Christianity in America.
Evil should be stopped, not accommodated. When the government enacts evil in the land, but they make an accommodation for Christians to not participate in it, they are marginalizing Christianity in the land; they are putting Christianity in the ghetto.
Christians love religious liberty not because it acts as a bulwark against evil in the land, but because it allows them to continue to sit and sip their lattes while there is evil in the land.
It allows Christians to continue to be “Christians,” while they continue to remain indifferent towards the evil in the land.
It also prevents them from suffering for their faith.
For decades now, when certain immoral laws have been passed, there is a religious exemption added. These laws seem good to the average self-absorbed, Pietistic Christian, but in reality they serve to belittle and depreciate Christianity and Christians within the culture. And this is what the pro-family and Christian groups are appealing to SCOTUS to do.
With hat in hand, they are pleading with the tyrant — the Supreme Court which has trampled state laws outlawing sodomy and trampled state constitutions declaring marriage between only a man and a woman — and asking the tyrant for a dispensation. This is whoredom.
Laws or policies that protect Christians from being personally affected by evil laws – but which allow the evil to continue in the nation – are themselves evil laws or policies.
Why should Christians be allowed to bypass the evil while the rest of the culture has to imbibe upon it and become further debauched? If you allow the evil of sodomy to fester in the land, the effects of such filth will be felt by all – believer and unbeliever.
Let me make clear: Jack Phillips is one of those rare Christians that actually loves Christ and neighbor. The vast majority of Christians in America wouldn’t give a passing thought to standing true to Christ if it meant missing out on making a buck (or saving a buck). So for his sake, I hope he wins…
Christians need to understand that they must demonstrate vigilance against tyranny. They must give up what most Americans pursue — wealth and ease. They must give some time and effort to good governance, and not continue to ignore the magistrates.
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