© 2000 Discerning
the Times Digest and NewsBytes
A little 7 year old girl enters
second grade with innocent anticipation. Her
initiation into the public school system after 2 years
of Christian school will be a rude awakening. Although
the teacher is visibly annoyed upon learning that her
new student is a pastor’s child, it isn’t until
October that major problems begin to unfold. The
student is forced to draw witches and ghosts against
the parents’ expressed wishes, and the teacher
insists on reading horror stories that are a constant
source of nightmares. After learning that their
daughter has been routinely humiliated in front of her
classmates, the parents remove her from the school
only to discover that all of her schoolwork has been
mysteriously "lost". The year was 1992, and
the little girl was mine. That was our first taste of
the persecution that many more would soon come to
know.
Since that time, Christian
discrimination and persecution have had many faces. We
hear heart-wrenching stories from overseas about
families who are severely tortured for their faith in
Christ. According to Voice of the Martyrs
"More Christians have been killed for their
faith in the 20th century than have been martyred in
the total history of Christianity." That
should be a wake up call for the sleeping Christians
in America who have taken their freedom for granted
for too long. A 10-year-old Filipino girl was beaten
to death by her father after she professed Christ.
Before she died, she held the bloody dress she was
wearing when she was beaten and told the missionary,
"I just want Jesus to know that I was willing to
bleed for him." In another recent case a
missionary family in the Middle East was forced to
watch as the father was brutally murdered in front of
them; the young daughter was kidnaped as a mistress
for the soldiers; and the mother was raped, beaten,
and left in the forest—after cutting off both her
breasts so that her baby would starve to death.
Few of us in America have faced the
types of suffering that Christians in other countries
have endured. When persecution happens on the other
side of the world, we tend to close our eyes and make
it magically go away. But what about when it begins to
happen closer to home?
"Yes, I believe in God."
These were the last words of Columbine student, Cassie
Bernall, before she was shot and killed during a
murderous rampage in which several other Christian
students were stalked and executed by fellow
classmates. In another incident that received very
little media coverage, 150 teenagers were attending a
youth prayer rally at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort
Worth, Texas, when a gunman burst in and began firing
into the crowd. Witnesses say he was loudly ridiculing
their religious beliefs. Seven people were killed, and
seven more injured before he turned the gun on
himself.
The tide is turning against
Christians—spurred on by the media, politicians, and
even our school systems. As our religious rights are
being eroded deeper and faster than ever before,
Christians are being portrayed as hate-filled menaces
to society; the cause of the world’s problems rather
than the solution.
The homosexual rights issue appears
to be the weapon of choice to demonize Christians and
deny them of their fundamental rights to practice
their beliefs. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA)
organization has been especially hard hit. The Supreme
Court is now considering Dale vs. BSA, in which former
leader James Dale claims that his rights were violated
when his membership was revoked after it became known
that he was a homosexual. Though the media has turned
this into a homosexual rights case, the real issue on
trial is the constitutional right of private groups to
express their religious freedom as they choose.
Tufts University stripped the Tufts
Christian Fellowship of their official "student
organization" status after being charged with
violating the school’s anti-discrimination policy by
refusing a leadership position to an avowed
homosexual. The group’s funding and status were
finally restored on May 16, but only after the issue
received national press. In a similar case now before
the Canadian Supreme Court, Trinity Western University
in British Columbia (TWU) was denied accreditation
because it will not allow homosexuality on its campus.
The school’s policy is that enrolling students must
sign a "community standards statement"
thereby agreeing to abstain from premarital sex,
adultery, homosexual behavior, porn, alcohol, tobacco
and drugs. This puts the college in direct conflict
with Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms which
protects homosexuality as a fundamental human right.
Since TWU infringes on that right, the school may no
longer certify government teachers, according to a
decision passed down by the British Columbia College
of Teachers.
Christianity in America is under
attack. Satan has us in the cross-hairs, and we are
walking blindly toward the lion’s den. We, like the
prophet Daniel, need to be firmly rooted in a
relationship with the Lord in order to withstand the
coming assault. "Then you will be handed over
to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be
hated by all nations because of me....but he who
stands firm to the end will be saved."
Matthew 24:9,13 V
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