RoyalTea

What do you think best represents the current "war on Christianity?"

stvn1974

Black churches being burned has nothing to do with religion. Racism pure and simple. I am however for burning down bakeries that refuse to serve LGBT people.

kefrank

Where's the option for "I'm a theologically-conservative Christian who doesn't believe there's a current war on Christianity"?

Bronkster

Whatever Option C would've been, probably ...

dave-o

There is a war on Christianity?

CRM114

The burning of churches is being done because they are "black churches" not because they are churches. So neither.

inri222

Navinabob

I think the battle on Hoth best represents the War on Christianity because they are both fictional.

Ky-Fi

The Islamic persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the virtual silence from the mainstream media or either political party. We may be on the way to the actual extinction of Christianity in the region. Just in Iraq, there were something like 1.3 million Christians at the start of the US invasion, now there are less than 500,000.

kvrdave

I don't see a war on Christianity in America.

inri222

War on Christianity = not having everything our way

CRM114

Because Christians killed no Muslims over there recently....

hanshotfirst1138

That's how a "war on" pretty much anything is defined these days.

Troy Stiffler

You have to factor in that we've killed hundreds of thousands (mostly non-combatants) in a country of 30M. The US doesn't care what religion you are when they're firing.

I would also question the financial mobility of those Christians. If you're a Christian in Iraq, I'd imagine you're more well-traveled and able to leave as soon as we started dropping the bombs. I'd imagine there's also more panic after we started this "us VS them" war. On one hand, you have people staying in their home and hoping to survive. On the other hand, you have people saying "screw this, I'm out of here".

Ky-Fi

Here's a good summation:

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer267/iraqi-christians-primer

eXcentris

Please don't take the bait.

dork

Your numbers are way off.

Ky-Fi

All right, this article will probably make many people here vomit with rage, but....


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-...b_2402644.html

dork

Oh my God, I just vomited with rage. Although it could also have been that unlabeled beef I just ate.

Ky-Fi

It's actually a Simpson's line:

"Every year we find one good Samaritan so deserving that not recognizing him would make Santa Claus himself vomit with rage." -Krusty

Supermallet

This would be an excellent argument for why there is no war on Christianity in the United States.

Ky-Fi

It depends on what you mean by "war", but obviously Christianity is a fundamental obstacle to many of the goals and values of progressivism and leftism. In hard-left communist countries, the war on Christianity was often literally that, where violence and legal repression was used against Christianity. In the softer-left countries of Western Europe, it was more of a political and ideological war, whereby Christianity effectively lost and was largely relegated out of the public sphere.

So yes, of course those same battles are going on here. I think the gay marriage debate is a pretty obvious example. Whichever side of the argument you're on, I think it's a fairly objective fact that Christians formed the bulk of the opposition. It seems fairly silly to argue that progressives don't have a goal of combatting and delegitimizing the ideology that is the foremost obstacle to their goals.

Supermallet

The only reason gay marriage was a "Christian" issue was because Christians decided to make it an issue. It affects them literally 0%.

Also I think you've created a false dichotomy with Christianity on one side and progressives on the other. Unless you're arguing that hardline Republicans represent the majority of Christians in this country.

Ky-Fi

Of course when there are millions of people engaged in the debate, the lines aren't hard and fast and you can always find exceptions. But I think it's reasonably accurate to say that the bulk of gay marriage opponents in the US are Christians, and virtually all progressives are on the other side.

Supermallet

But again, that's not a war on Christianity. That's a Christian war on gay people.

A war on Christianity would be attempts to legislate away the religious rights of Christians (and only Christians), or mobs roaming the streets looking for Christians to attack.

I don't see how letting gay people marry each other is a war on Christianity, except for the fact that Christians declared war on gay rights and ended up losing that battle.