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The existence of Christianophobia should not be surprising. Jesus Himself predicted the world’s hatred for Christians: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18–19). Christians are called not to conform to the world but to be transformed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29; 12:1–2). The unbelieving world hates what it does not understand and, therefore, will hate those who follow Christ. Few would admit an actual emotional hatred for Christians. And, admittedly, the hatred that Christians endure in 'most' of the world is 'relatively' mild. But the Christianophobia in the world today is simply a foretaste of what is to come. As the world increasingly turns away from God, the hatred of God’s people will increase exponentially. Examples of Christianophobia in the world today: (1) In much of the Muslim world, Christians are subject to extreme persecution. In many instances, the choice is to convert to Islam, flee, or die. (2) In much of the Western world, Christians are looked down upon, mocked or ridiculed, and marginalized. (3) It is becoming clear that Christians who desire to live by their convictions will be ineligible for certain careers, and government officials are being fined and even jailed for attempting to live by biblical convictions. (4) Christian beliefs are being presented in an extremely biased manner. Christianophobia is real, it is increasing, and, according to the Bible, it will get much worse. America has always been a place where Christians were free to worship and live according to their consciences. In fact, our country was built upon the principles of religious tolerance, individual liberty and the right to dissent. In our founding documents, the source of these rights and freedoms is clearly acknowledged as God, not the government. Yet the drastic changes we have experienced in the past half-century have so turned our culture on its head that to exercise those rights and freedoms means a Christian often risks marginalization, repression and even outright persecution. As I’ve written in Is This the End? there are five distinct stages of religious oppression now occurring in our nation that when fully formed, ultimately result in Christian persecution. All of them emerge from a growing Christophobia exhibited by certain members of government in our country. Stage 1: Stereotyping Today, Christians are often stereotyped as ignorant, uneducated, backward, inhibited, hateful and intolerant. Even the president joined in when, in 2008, he said of workers who vote according to their values, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion … .” Sometimes the media even features Christians as evil antagonists, holier-than-thou bigots who sit on their high horse and judge others harshly, like the prison warden in the movie The Shawshank Redemption who recites the Bible but abuses inmates. While it’s true that some Christians represent the faith poorly, these stereotypes grow out of a rising prejudice in our culture. Not to mention, they are a denial of the indispensable role Christianity has played in the development of American culture and the American ideal, from higher education to the free market to health care to equal rights to the rule of law. Stage 2: Marginalizing What many secularists want is for Christianity to be displaced from the center of American life. If the church must be allowed to exist, they want it confined to the realm of personal privacy and denied any effect on public life. You'll notice this sentiment when politicians and pundits carefully choose the phrase "freedom to worship" over "freedom of religion." The first is meant to confine us, and the second is meant to free us. They'd rather us marginalized as MSNBC personality Chris Matthews once tweeted, "If you're a politician and believe in God first, that's all good. Just don't run for government office, run for church office." Matthews' rule would have disqualified almost everyone who founded this country. Stage 3: Threatening Marginalizing religious expression from academic, institutional, corporate or public arenas is not enough for those who are Christophobic. They are determined to make Christians pay a price even when privately performing their activities. For example, an intern at one California university was terminated and threatened with expulsion from a graduate program for simply discussing her faith with co-workers, even though she did it only in her off hours. There are countless other examples, including many examples of high school students who have been denied the opportunity to start Bible clubs and practice their religion openly in government-funded schools. Then, in 2014, the chief executive of a top internet company was forced to resign when it was discovered he had contributed $1,000 to support a California bill which was deemed "bigoted" by secularists. The bill, by the way, passed overwhelming (making most californians bigots?). Then, it was overturned by the Supreme Court. That bill defined "marriage" as a religious term used to define a union with a man and a woman, which was also a position Barack Obama held to during the 2008 presidential election as it was the position of every Democratic president before him. Were they once bigots too? Stage 4: Intimidating If the first three stages do not silence us, then elected officials begin to exercise overreach and outright intimidation, and sometimes they use their positions to sanction such intimidation. Such was on egregious display just last month when the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman, Martin R. Castro, stated in a letter to the president that "religious liberty" and "religious freedom" are "code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia [and] Christian supremacy ... ." He didn't write that letter just to the president. His memo was meant for us, Bible-believing Christians whom he aimed to intimidate. He is clearly Christophobic, and we're not intimidated by it. Stage 5: Litigation A growing number of Christians and Christian organizations are being taken to court for refusing to compromise their deeply held religious convictions. In 2013 a Catholic hospital was sued because it did not offer abortion services to a client. The case was an attempt to force all Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. As the editors of National Review noted, "The issue is not whether those who wish to avail themselves of certain services will be able to, but that those who object to them must be forced to participate." Unfortunately, there are far too many other examples to mention them all here, and plenty of recent ones. But unless there is a major turnaround, we can expect lawsuits and court judgments against Christians who practice their faith to escalate. This is especially true since the outgoing administration is responsible for replacing more than 300 judges across the country. While I do think America is a long way from the kind of persecution we typically think of when we use that word, I never dreamed that Christians would be stereotyped, marginalized, threatened, intimidated and litigated against as they are today. It's far more serious than we realize. GEORGE YANCEY
According to a recent survey, about half of all Americans believe that evangelicals face discrimination. Some have even talked about them facing persecution. Others argue that Christians are merely mistaking their loss of privilege for persecution. We are clearly living in a post-Christian society where Christian faith is no longer automatically respected. But does a post-Christian world mean that Christians are subject to discrimination? Having studied Christianophobia—or the unreasonable hatred and fear of Christians—I can answer that question. First, I’ll look to see if Christianophobia exists to any meaningful degree. Then, I’ll examine the nature of Christianophobia to assess if it does represent unreasonable hatred of Christians. Finally, I’ll explore evidence of anti-Christian discrimination in one place in our society: academia. Anti-Christian AttitudesAre anti-Christian attitudes widespread, or are we talking about a couple of nutcases? In my book So Many Christians, So Few Lions, I document that about 32 percent of all Americans like conservative Christians significantly less than other social groups. In comparison, about 31 percent of all Americans like Muslims significantly less than other social groups. So it’s fair to say that if we’re concerned about anti-Muslim prejudice, then we should also be concerned about anti-Christian prejudice—at least prejudice against conservative Christians. It’s also worth noting who tends to have this type of animosity. My research indicates that those with anti-Christian attitudes are more likely to be white, male, wealthy, highly educated, politically progressive, and irreligious. Those first four markers indicate individuals who have quite a bit of per-capita social power. Mild Disgust or Irrational Hatred?On to the second question, about the nature of those who don’t like Christians. Do they merely feel mild disgust, or is it irrational hatred that can lead to discrimination? I sent a questionnaire with open-ended questions to a group of progressive activists who tended to be white, male, wealthy, educated, and irreligious. They were the type of people one would expect to exhibit Christianophobia. And they did. Here are just a few of the answers I received on my survey: Kill them all, let their god sort them out. A torturous death would be too good for them. I’d be a bit giddy, certainly grateful, if everyone who saw himself or herself in that category were snatched permanently from our societal peripheries, whether by holocaust or rapture or plague. I am only too well aware of their horrific attitudes and beliefs—and those are enough to make me see them as subhuman. Clearly we are seeing the type of hatred that is unreasonable and can lead to discrimination. It is the type of dehumanization one expects to precede unfair treatment. But does it? Is it possible that values of tolerance and fairness among secular progressives inhibit their willingness to mistreat Christians? Discrimination in America TodayTo examine that question I looked at academia, an area where one expects to find the type of highly educated progressive secularists likely to have anti-Christian animosity. I asked academics if they would be less willing to hire someone who is either a fundamentalist or an evangelical. I found that more than half would be less willing to hire a fundamentalist, and almost two in five would be less willing to hire an evangelical. The academics answering my survey explicitly stated they would discriminate against a job candidate who is a conservative Protestant. (You can read about this research in my book Compromising Scholarship.) There is other research indicating that conservative Christians face discrimination in academia. Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter find that academics with socially conservative perspectives wind up with lower-status academic positions even when controlling for their productivity. Albert Gunn and George Zenner show evidence of religious discrimination against Christian medical students. Some will argue that Christians still have advantages in America, such as political power. I don’t dispute that there are benefits to being a Christian in the United States. However, such advantages don’t negate the fact that among powerful individuals who tend to be politically progressive and irreligious, unfair treatment of Christians is possible, and perhaps even likely. For example, my recent book looks at the media. My co-author and I find evidence that media are less sympathetic to stories where Christians face hate speech or violence than identical stores where other groups are victimized. Social institutions such as academia, media, entertainment, and the arts are likely to be places where anti-Christian prejudice and discrimination take place. Those institutions greatly shape our cultural values, and thus those with anti-Christian attitudes are in a position to create and sustain anti-Christian perspectives. There is evidence that anti-Christian hate can lead to discrimination. Is it persecution? This is a complex question I recently struggled with. By a clinical definition of persecution, yes, Christians are persecuted in the United States. But I still discourage Christians in the United States from saying they are persecuted, since what we face today isn’t what most people envision when they think of persecution. However, as Christians we should be aware that anti-Christian discrimination is real. Further, those likely to engage in such discrimination have an ability to shape larger societal values. Thus, anti-Christian discrimination isn’t going away any time soon. How should we deal with this reality? How to Live in a Post-Christian WorldWe must work together to protect each other from discrimination. We no longer live in a society generally supportive of Christians. We’re going to have to support each other. An important way to do that is to develop our Christian communities. For example, support of Christian-owned businesses may be vital to help minimize the economic costs of anti-Christian discrimination. Working together to socialize our children is vital for allowing us to pass down our faith in a post-Christian culture. We can’t count on support from the larger society. But we can’t neglect working to influence the larger society. While those with anti-Christian perspectives have more power in cultural creation, we can still make our presence known. Our Christian colleges, media, and arts are going to be important, but we must also encourage talented Christians to work in mainstream academia, secular media, and the larger art community. We won’t immediately alter the anti-Christian attitudes in these institutions, but we can lessen some of the negative effects these institutions can have. Research on intergroup contact shows that it’s harder to hold onto negative stereotypes when we know members of the out-group. Of course, Christians must also engage in politics. But we should consider how to use politics to defend ourselves rather than to assert power. When Christians look like they want power for its own sake, we only feed into the negative images some have of us. Don’t get me wrong: some who hate us won’t change their mind no matter what we do. But many individuals neither love nor hate us. They can be persuaded to reject measures that engage in religious discrimination if we’re seen as fighting for our freedoms and not to “take over” the country. A smart brand of politics, rather than a scorched-earth culture-war attack, is needed in a post-Christian world. George Yancey is a sociologist and professor of sociology at Baylor University. He’s the author of Beyond Racial Gridlock: Embracing Mutual Responsibility (IVP, 2006), Hostile Environment: Understanding and Responding to Anti-Christian Bias (IVP, 2015), and Beyond Racial Division: A Unifying Alternative to Colorblindness and Antiracism (IVP, 2022), and coauthor of One Faith No Longer: The Transformation of Christianity in Red and Blue America (NYU Press, 2021). https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/anti-christian-discrimination-america/ Christianity is the most persecuted
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