Who Will Stand Up For The Christians? 

In the 1^st century AD, Christians were savaged by wild beasts in the Roman arenas under the form of capital punishment known as Damnatio ad Bestias. Today, as evidenced by the treatment of Kate Forbes, they get mauled in the public arena, by the press and social media.

The mainstream media immediately highlighted Forbes’ religious beliefs as a reason why she was unsuitable to be leader of the SNP. During the campaign, The Independent ran the following headline, “Search begins for new SNP leader as evangelical Christian narrowly leads race for top job.” Before one even reads the article, Kate Forbes’ Christianity is made into an issue. The article, itself, then says she has been criticised for making anti-abortion comments and wanting to delay the Gender Recognition act. The other candidates are named without any mention of their beliefs and without any criticism of any kind. The Guardian also chose to highlight her religious belief in their headline, “Kate Forbes’ religious beliefs could stall her bid to beat Sturgeon.”

So, why no mention of Hamza Yusuf’s religious beliefs, for example? Forbes is a practising Christian who attends church. Yusuf is a practising Muslim who attends his mosque. The antipathy to Forbes seems to relate to her opposition to gay marriage. The Bible believes marriage should be between a man and a woman and therefore a Christian, like Forbes, is seen as bigoted and a threat to the diversity and inclusion world we now live in. The fact that Islam also views homosexuality as a sin and says it should be punishable by death doesn’t seem to be a problem for the mainstream media though. It is only Christians that are not suitable for positions of power.

However, this anti-Christian bias is much more pernicious than merely suggesting Christians shouldn’t be allowed near the levers of power. It can, and does, descend into outright hatred as this anti-Christian, venomous, diatribe from a site called Open Democracy shows. The author, a self-proclaimed ‘transwoman’ called Chrissy Stroop, claims that Kate Forbes’ plea for ‘religious freedom’ and ‘tolerance,’ is actually ‘Christian Privilege’ and ‘Christian Supremacy’. Apparently, this leads to depriving certain other religious groups from a ‘seat at the table.’ Ironically, the author completely fails to realise that calling for Forbes to be disqualified from being the leader of the SNP for her Christian views is doing exactly that. The author then goes on to say that “Christian privilege functions in much the same way as white, male, cisgender and straight privilege function: subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) conveying advantages to those who belong to society’s de facto normative category and corollary disadvantages to those who fall outside that category?”

You may dismiss this as the mere rantings of a left-wing extremist, but the problem with extremists is that they tend to advocate for extreme action against those they despise. On March 27^th a transgender student, Audrey/Adrian Hale, walked into a Christian school in Nashville and murdered three students and three teachers. No motive has yet been established although there are rumours that the killer was having problems with their school and family failing to accept them as identifying as transgender. Whatever the truth may be, Christians are viewing it as a direct attack on them because the media has painted their views on topics such as drag shows for kids as bigoted and hateful and for the general contempt the media shows for Christian values. The mainstream media, not wanting to offend the trans community, issued apologies for using the wrong pronouns when describing the killer.

Amazon have had to remove an advert for a t-shirt which said, “Trans rights” followed by drawings of assault rifles, and the words “or else” below them. As Christians would traditionally be opposed to the idea there are anything other then the two sexes God assigned to us, they may well have cause for concern, particularly as there are now transactivists on social media calling for Christians to be beheaded and Christian babies to be tossed into garbage cans.

Christians have always been subject to violence and hatred and it clearly persists to this day. In Nigeria in 2021, 3462 Christians were murdered by Islamic fundamentalists and 300 churches attacked. Last year a Christian student was stoned and set on fire by Muslim extremists for allegedly insulting the prophet. Other African countries, particularly ones where Islamic militants have influence, such as Somalia, Sudan, Mali, Eritrea, Algeria, Libya, Ethiopia and Morocco also have high levels of Christian persecution. In a U.K. Parliamentary briefing document it states that an estimated 360 million Christians are persecuted worldwide.

Violent attacks on Christians are not just limited to Africa. In Italy, last year, two elderly Coptic Christians were attacked by a group of Muslim men for smoking during Ramadan. In Granada, Spain, a group of Muslim men attacked Christians taking part in an Easter procession by hurling rocks at them. In 2021, Antifa supporters attacked people attending an open-air prayer meeting in Portland, resulting in the pastor being pepper-sprayed.

However, the Christian community do not just have to endure violence, they also suffer persecution from having restrictions imposed on them or from discrimination.  The bible is banned or heavily restricted in 52 countries throughout the world. In the Ukraine, Zelensky has banned the Orthodox Church. In Israel, a law has just been proposed that would make it illegal for anyone to preach the gospel or even talk to anyone about Jesus in public. Anyone in contravention of it could be facing a year in prison. In 2022, In Finland, a pastor and a member of parliament were charged with hate speech for publishing Bible passages stating that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Although they were found not guilty, the fact that the case was even brought to trial should send shudders through all Christians in that country and, indeed, all advocates of free speech everywhere.

Even in the so-called free, democratic Western countries, the assault on Christianity continues unabated. In the US, the charity arm of Amazon, Amazon Smile, has blacklisted some Christian organisations from fundraising because they have been designated hate groups. The Marxist, BLM, on the other hand are perfectly free to apply for funds.  A restaurant in Virginia banned a Christian group from their premises because they didn’t adhere to  the LGBT ideology. A Christian day care worker in Los Angeles was fired for refusing to read books that promoted gender ideology to young children. In a recent court case, the City of Boston was found guilty of violating the constitution by refusing to fly a Christian flag on their premises. In the previous 12 years, the city council approved 284 other flags and didn’t reject any.

It’s not just local groups and city councils that are discriminating against Christian groups, the Federal government are also targeting them. In 2021 a Texas Christian was refused charitable tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service because they were too political, as the IRS claimed, “Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican party and candidates.” This idea that anything related to Christianity is now somehow associated with right wing politics plummeted to new depths of absurdity when an author for the publication, ‘The Atlantic’ stated the rosary was linked to gun culture and far right religious extremism.

Hollywood also has a reputation for anti-Christian bias and even non-Christians in the industry have spoken out about it. Rainn Wilson, star of ‘The Office’ has recently commented on it and the Jewish film critic, Michael Medved, said back in 1989, “For many of the most powerful people in the entertainment business, hostility to traditional religion goes so deep and burns so intensely that they insist on expressing that hostility, even at the risk of commercial disaster.”

In the UK, Christians are also facing harassment and persecution for displaying their faith. A 71-year-old pastor was arrested in London, for a public order offence,  because we was quoting the Bible’s view on marriage but was later released. A retired chaplain was banned from volunteering at a hospice because he was wearing a cross.

The nadir for Christians, though, came when a Christian lady, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, was arrested for silently praying within a so-called ‘buffer zone” surrounding an abortion clinic. It was such an Orwellian abuse of human rights, that a Christian’s own thoughts were now to be made illegal, that the public should have been outraged. But then again, why should they when the Archbishop of Canterbury supports buffer zones and is against Christians praying within their boundaries.

That, unfortunately, is the problem for Christians in the United Kingdom. Where Muslim and Jewish leaders stand up for their people, the Christians’ own church stays silent because the Church of England is, in reality, no longer a Christian Institution. Rather than promoting the worship of God or Jesus it chooses to kneel at the altar of wokeness. It now promotes drag shows in its churches and supports the teaching of LGBT and gender-affirming ideology to young children. Traditional Christian views are no longer acceptable.

It could be that Christianity, itself, may soon no longer be acceptable. The idea of combining the Muslim and Christian faiths into one unified religion, Chrislam, has been around for some time. Some view the actions of the Vatican in recent years as a step towards this union, and with the pope co-signing the Human Fraternity document with the Grand Iman of Al-Azhar  bringing closer co-operation between Islam and Christianity, many Christians are worried about the future of their faith.

With Christians being harassed and persecuted at all levels, whilst the Church of England goes woke and the Vatican seeks closer ties to Islam, will there even be a Christian faith to defend? In the end, who will be left to stand up for the Christians?

Stephen McMurray is a member of the Free Speech Union and an ardent truth-seeker.

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