Christians With Persecution Complexes

[BeachOfEden]

Fundamental Christians With Persecution Complexes

 

COLUMN

Christians Are Not a Persecuted Minority

 

Jim Evans

01-18-06

 

"Nothing has become more tiresome in recent years than the incessant claim by many conservative Christians that they are being persecuted. Every time a church/state issue comes to the fore, a gaggle of Christian activists show up preening in front of television cameras and whining about the war on Christianity. It's a plot, they tell us, perpetrated by the ACLU and God-haters everywhere, to remove any sign of Christianity from culture."

 

BeachOfEden: The organization of Jehovah's Witnesses is also famous for this Persecution Complex

 

"But is that really true? Is [Fundamental]Christianity some persecuted minority that is under attack? With Christian leaders in high office everywhere, including the White House, is there any real danger that Christianity will somehow be erased from the American landscape?"

 

"The U. S. Constitution expressly prohibits government from endorsing a particular religion. It was the founders' intent to keep religion out of government. They had seen the effect of a close relationship between church and state in Europe and wanted no part of any religiously inspired conflict. But that's not persecution. In fact, Christianity has thrived in the freedom created by our legal system. That's why in most neighborhoods in America there is a church on nearly every corner. And if those churches are not a sufficient visible symbol of the viability of Christianity, then that's what Christian leaders need to worry about. That's not persecution, that's neglect."

 

"Of course, it's not really about being persecuted. It's about not being in control."

 

BeachOfEden: I could NOt have phrase it better myself. That IS PRECISELY what the REAL issue is about. This is also the REAL issue with the JW org...CONTROLL over others.

 

"For instance, NBC recently launched a new series called the "Book of Daniel." The show is about an Episcopal priest and his highly dysfunctional family. There is drug use by the priest, his wife and their children. There is profanity and considerable sexual references of both a hetero- and homosexual nature."

 

"According to Christian watchdog groups like the American Family Association and Focus on the Family, the NBC series as just another example of a liberal media elite picking on a helpless and defenseless Christian faith. They argue that Christians are regularly portrayed in movies and television programs as either incompetent or insidious. The unwillingness of Hollywood to portray Christians in a favorable light is proof of a sinister desire to undermine the faith."

 

BeachOfEden: Well, I think such negative models of what Christians are like are created by seculars rather than liberal Christians. With liberal and progressive churches memberships slipping in favor or more colorful and louder fundamental far right mega churches..why would liberal Christians paint 'themselves' as just a bunch of hyprocrites? Thus, I think it is non-theist and non-desist minded secularists creating such unflattering images of what 'they' think Christianity is like.

 

"Now, don't get me wrong, the "Book of Daniel" is not a very good television program, but not because of the way it presents Christianity. It's bad because the writing is bad. The acting is stiff, and even the negative portrayal of Daniel's family that the Christian right is so worried about hardly comes across as believable."

 

BeachOfEden: I disagree with this writter's point of view. I do NOT think the writting or acting of this show is stiff or bad and I DO think it IS the way Christianity is presneted in the show and the negative portrayal of Daniel's family. While people keeps pointing out how the Christian Right does not like the way The book of Daniel TV shows displays Christianity and Christians...the point is..this tv show is NOT about the Religious Right's version of Christianity aka Fundamental Evangelical Protestantism...Rather it IS about the Liberal or more Progressive version of Christianity in America, the Liberal Episcopalian Church.

 

Thus, since this tv is about the liberal version of christianity in America, rather than the fundamental right version..it would therefore, makes more snese that the Liberal branches of Christianity, SHOULD be the ones concerns with how their version of Christianity is being protrayed...as hyprocrities.

 

"But even more disturbing than the bad television the "Book of Daniel" represents, is the audacious assumption that network programming has some responsibility to represent Christians in a favorable way. Why should Hollywood producers do public relations for the church? And why would we want them to? Why do we think that make-believe Christians living happily in make-believe worlds can possibly make a difference in this very real world? Jesus said we would be known by our love, not by our Nielsen ratings."

 

BeachOfEden: Indeed, secular Hollywood is not responsible for how Christianity should be protrayed. But if a writter claims to be Christian, then, when a person makes such a claim, then he or she DOES becomes responsible and SHOULD be responsible for HOW he or she protrays Christianity in their shows. As far as I know..the creator of this Daniel show never proclaimed himself as a Christian. If he did..then he WOULd be responsible for how he protrayed Christians in this show. That's my 2 cents anyways.

 

 

 

"And while we are on the subject, did Jesus ever say anything about the powers that be in this world rolling out the red carpet for us? They didn't do it for him, so why should his followers expect to be treated any better? In the world, Jesus said, but not of it.Not that we don't need to be concerned about the negative way Christians appear on television, but I don't know how to make Pat Robertson stop."

 

BeachOfEden: I like that;) That's pretty funny:D

 

James L. Evans is pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala.

[October's Autumn]

BeachOfEden: Well, I think such negative models of what Christians are like are created by seculars rather than liberal Christians.

 

Actually, the images are created by fundamentalists/conservatives themselves. Consider what Pat Robetson says and does, what George Bush says and does, what Jerry Falwell says and does... the list goes on and on. When I was a teenager it was Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker!

 

 

The "seculars" who have problems with fundamentalists/conservatives were usually exposed to highly negative "Christians" who did two things, one condemned people to hell, and two did not let those who belonged to their group know that there were other versions of Christianity out there. I think of my internet friend who's mom is a "born again" and he is gay. Of course he is going to hell (according to her and her church). What kind of impression does one *expect* him to have of Christianity? A positive one? I don't think so. Especialy not when you add that to what he sees in the real world. I think he has met two people who aren't areligious (me and one other person) who wholly embraced and don't believe he is evil and going to hell. From his stand point we are the rare exception!

 

 

I agreed with all your other comments, Beach! You echoed many of my own feelings (and said it better than I could have!)

 

As far as those who think they are persecuted? I say they go to a country where Christians are *really* persecuted and *then* they will know what persecution is!

[Beautiful_Dreamer]

As far as those who think they are persecuted?  I say they go to a country where Christians are *really* persecuted and *then* they will know what persecution is!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

My thoughts exactly! I too agree that it is about being pissy about not being able to run the show rather than actually being persecuted. I work on another forum and I hear this all the time. It makes me want to scream, frankly.

[TheMeekShall]

It's a scam to keep people in fear and polarized, so they don't talk rationally. People in fear don't think well. Hitler had his people so whipped up about the Jews and the Communists that he was able to convince them that he had to attack Poland preemtively. The Germans had tanks, the Poles only horses.

 

The Biology of The Big Lie:

Fear stimulates the adrenals, creating a fight or flight responce. Blood flows to the arms and legs. The higher brain, especially, requiring large amounts of oxygen, has its activities curtailed. Since being chased by a lion is a more urgent situation than healing the flu, the brain will shut down its immune system, digestion, and other nonurgent functions. Constant reinforcement convinces fundies what a grave threat outsiders are, so their bodies and brains, having been starved for years don't function rationally.

 

In America, Orange alerts have come when Bush didn't want Americans to think. A month before the invasion, I turned on the TV to hear "Al Queda is going to gas the East Coast, and North Korea will nuke the West Coast", just like Hitler talking about the Jewish and Communist threats to frighten people into attacking Poland.

 

What do these creeps really want to destroy?

 

The love and fellowship that come with Christmas. Let's look at what was in the news around Christmas:

 

2002 : Prepare for war with Iraq

2003 : Month long Orange Alert

2004, 2005: Fox "News": The liberals are stealing Christmas.

 

The best book I've ever read on science is The Biolgy of Belief, it's not written by some fruitcake. The author is a former member of Stanford's Medical faculty. A liberal arts major can understand the entire book with work, and enough of it can be understood with a diploma for it to be worth the price. He does cover the subject with enough rigor to be convincing. The only part he only partially covers is Quantum Mechanics, and, believe me, for those who don't have a background in scalar em, that's doing you a favor.

[flowperson]

Thanks for the learned tutorial Meek Shall.

 

As I said earlier on another thread, if Josef Goebbels could come back to see how effectively these people are utilizing negative propaganda with the able assistance of some corporate partners, he'd be doing continuous back flips.

 

flow....

[TheMeekShall]

Actually, the jokes on the neocons. Had 9/11 happened 40 years ago, we'd happily accepted a dictatorship within 3 years. Back then, the older generation grew up fighting Hitler, and the younger generation was enraged and screaming at the older generation [and there was no internet to refine & communicate these ideas].

 

Today the older generation has had 30+ years to rethink their poor communication. Two years ago, I saw a stooped over old man. His face said he thought he was a failure. As I was gathering the courage to cheer him up, a friend came over to me pointed to the old man, and said, "I'd like to introduce you to Mark Rudd. [in the 60s, he blew up ROTC buildings, and made all of us look like mad bombers.] I asked him if he'd learned anything and he said, "Our big mistake was we didn't make coalitions". Thanks to our mistakes, the last resort now is civil disobience, and there is a huge emhasis on learning how to communicate. The progressive community now has learned enough to successfully communicate to everyone how warmongering works. We will be aided by Bush's fiascos - their ideas make them look like idiots, look what's happened in the last year: A growing insurgency, Cindy Sheehan, Katrina, Rita, 26 tropical storms & hurricanes, 2 mining disasters. I'm sure I've fogotten some of the news, but it was all bad for the neocons, and rest assured it will continue until they can no longe keep stealing elections. www.blackboxvoting.org

 

Thanks for the comments on my intellegence, the same is within your grasp. Here's how it happened in my life, whatever ideas you can take for yourself PLEASE do:

 

I was born shy, so I had plenty of time to read. I was also shy around women, so I observed them from a distance. This gave me the huge blessing of empathy. I saw much pain in people that was caused by unclear thinking, so I learned how to say things as clearly as possible, and it made my own thinking clearer. For a year, I collected signatures on political petitions, taking to 3 people a minute, to improve my communication skills. Got a Math degree, later understood most problems can be solved by logic, or by quantifying - turning problems into numbers. Ran into some difficult problems solved one by relaxing and asking if there was an answer, what would it be - spent a good part of a month in a bathtub relaxing into the answer. Answered another by imaging myself as a cosmic antenna, you'd be amazed at what answers can come from the spirit world. Having a good education was a huge plus here, I've been able to tune in the wheat, tune out the chaff.

 

One problem I probably can't solve so I need your help:

I'm 49 and I know I won't reach my potential for another century, so those of you who are half my age, learn now so I don't have to take time to go back to work while I'm in heaven.