I don't like writing this kind of post, but I feel I must if for no other reason than to personally work through the ever-escalating anti-Christian sentiments and developments taking place in the West.
Alphabet people in the UK have effectively barred Franklin Graham, the son of the Billy Graham, from speaking anywhere in Great Britain. Their reason for pressuring the venues to drop Graham was succinct, simple, and straightforward - Frank Graham preaches hate. Yes, that's right. Franklin Graham's adherence to and promulgation of Christian morality amounts to hate in the contemporary UK. Full stop. End of story.
This sort of anti-Christian action is nothing new, but as Dr. Bruce Charlton plainly points out in a post from yesterday, what makes the Franklin Graham barring particularly unsettling is its directness, explicitness, and magnitude:
This feels like another threshold crossed in the UK - because now the attacks on Christianity have become explicit and specific; there is now a high profile precedent for suppression of all public Christian meetings of any kind and size.
Up until now; the specificity of preventing Christians from gathering and evangelising has been indirect; masquerading as political (not religion) suppression - as being about the promotion of the sexual revolution agenda.
I agree with Dr. Charlton's assessment - a threshold certainly has been crossed. Anti-Christianity has been on the official agenda for a long time, but rarely has it been this unqualified - this clear-cut and obvious. Up until now, attacks on Christianity were usually supported by some justifiable leftist pretext - gay rights, human rights, cultural sensitivity, etc. - but this no longer appears to be the case.
Now wait a minute, you might say, Franklin Graham was barred because he does not endorse homosexuality; hence, he is anti-gay. In this sense, the pretext is still there. But is it? If it is, why is this same excuse not applied to other organized religions in Western countries? Dr. Charlton writes:
But this is undeniably specifically Christian; because while Christian evangelism is crushed to uniform approval from The Establishment and its mouthpieces; other religious that advocate (from the secular perspective) exactly the same sexual morality - Judaism, Islam, Sikhism etc - are by contrast publicly celebrated, government/ charity/ educational institution subsidised.
There are many officially propagandised and paid-for mass celebrations, festivals and consciousness-raising events in favour of these other religions.
Dr. Charlton has drawn attention to a valid point. While Christianity is being attacked left, right, and center (political intimations associated with the prior three words fully intended) for its sexual morality, other religions in the West that essentially espouse similar sexual moralities, sometimes in a far stricter manner, are not only spared, but are outright lauded and celebrated by the same forces laying siege to Christianity.
My answer to this is the following - the Establishment is associating Christianity with everything it believes is wrong about the West; it has not done the same with most other religions. The Establishment attacks Christianity because they, correctly, view it as the spirit of the West. They have made great gains in dulling the light of this spirit in most of the West. And by the West I am referring specifically to Europe and the Anglo-West (America, Canada, Australia, etc.) Kill the spirit, the Establishment muses, and you kill the West. Kill the West, and the Establishment is one step closer to its coveted one-word totalitarian government.
The Establishment in the West support, endorse, and tolerate other religions primarily because they believe these religions can help erode Christianity in the West, but they won't hesitate to turn on them if Christianity is driven into the shadows. In the meantime, it is becoming expressly clear that the Establishment wants Christianity to be viewed as a religion of hatred.
On top of that, the Establishment no longer feels obligated to obfuscate or justify its anti-Christianity. It has reached a point when it can be openly, candidly, and specifically anti-Christian because it has successfully convinced a great many people in the West that Christianity, at its most fundamental level, is a religion of hatred. A religion of exclusion. A religion of oppression. A religion that essentially is/was the poison fuel that made/makes the West a civilization of hatred, exclusion, and oppression. Remove Christianity, and the West can throw off its shackles and become a place of love, inclusiveness, and freedom.
The Establishment has begun openly referring to Christianity as a religion of hatred without feeling the need to justify it in any way, shape, or form. Start getting used to this because this looks to be the new 'norm'. This pretty much falls in line with the Establishment's denunciation of Western civilization in general - a denunciation that has more or less been accepted as fact by most Westerners who are endlessly indoctrinated into believing that their civilization is reprehensible. This indictment against the West not only pushes everything negative to the forefront while simultaneously pushing everything positive into the background, but also involves a complete inversion of negative and positive until even the good Western civilization has done is considered evil.
The same has been applied to Christianity, for the past two centuries at least, but with the exception of the French Revolution, it has rarely been as expressly clear and obvious as it is now. Simply put, in the Establishment's view, there is nothing good about Christianity. Nothing good at all. Not only is it outdated and oppressive, but it has become in-accommodable. In other words, it has no place in the contemporary world. Anyone who continues to adhere to Christianity - real Christianity, not the watered pablum the Establishment has hijacked and endorsed - will be immediately suspect and likely regarded as someone consumed by a hateful ideology.
If this sounds hyperbolic and overwrought, consider the carefully chosen words of a prominent UK political commentator who recently had the following to say about Viktor Orbán's defense of Christianity and Christian Europe:
Race and power are entwined. When the right talks of “Christian Europe” or “Christian traditions”, it does not include black pentecostal churches in the inner cities. Christianity has become a synonym for “white”. When Orbán talks of defending “Christian Europe”, he is not defending religious dogma – only 15% of Hungarians go to church each week. He is advocating a modern version of the fascist conspiracy theory instead.
Christianity is now code for fascism and white-supremacy. Some leftist politicians have spouted similar rhetoric in Hungary when they referred to Christian families as 'scary formations' comprising the seedbed from which white supremacism and racism sprout. Those who deplatformed Franklin Graham in the UK were quick to point out Graham's support for US President Donald Trump. Man, what could more hateful than that?
Christian persecution will intensify in the West. Count on it. Prepare for it. Above all, spiritually.
Note added: Of course the real reason the Establishment hates Christianity is this - the Establishment's overarching goal is mass damnation. The System they control is geared toward that purpose. Christianity presents a real, viable, and direct threat to that goal; hence, it must be done away with. Once and for all.
Alphabet people in the UK have effectively barred Franklin Graham, the son of the Billy Graham, from speaking anywhere in Great Britain. Their reason for pressuring the venues to drop Graham was succinct, simple, and straightforward - Frank Graham preaches hate. Yes, that's right. Franklin Graham's adherence to and promulgation of Christian morality amounts to hate in the contemporary UK. Full stop. End of story.
This sort of anti-Christian action is nothing new, but as Dr. Bruce Charlton plainly points out in a post from yesterday, what makes the Franklin Graham barring particularly unsettling is its directness, explicitness, and magnitude:
This feels like another threshold crossed in the UK - because now the attacks on Christianity have become explicit and specific; there is now a high profile precedent for suppression of all public Christian meetings of any kind and size.
Up until now; the specificity of preventing Christians from gathering and evangelising has been indirect; masquerading as political (not religion) suppression - as being about the promotion of the sexual revolution agenda.
I agree with Dr. Charlton's assessment - a threshold certainly has been crossed. Anti-Christianity has been on the official agenda for a long time, but rarely has it been this unqualified - this clear-cut and obvious. Up until now, attacks on Christianity were usually supported by some justifiable leftist pretext - gay rights, human rights, cultural sensitivity, etc. - but this no longer appears to be the case.
Now wait a minute, you might say, Franklin Graham was barred because he does not endorse homosexuality; hence, he is anti-gay. In this sense, the pretext is still there. But is it? If it is, why is this same excuse not applied to other organized religions in Western countries? Dr. Charlton writes:
But this is undeniably specifically Christian; because while Christian evangelism is crushed to uniform approval from The Establishment and its mouthpieces; other religious that advocate (from the secular perspective) exactly the same sexual morality - Judaism, Islam, Sikhism etc - are by contrast publicly celebrated, government/ charity/ educational institution subsidised.
There are many officially propagandised and paid-for mass celebrations, festivals and consciousness-raising events in favour of these other religions.
Dr. Charlton has drawn attention to a valid point. While Christianity is being attacked left, right, and center (political intimations associated with the prior three words fully intended) for its sexual morality, other religions in the West that essentially espouse similar sexual moralities, sometimes in a far stricter manner, are not only spared, but are outright lauded and celebrated by the same forces laying siege to Christianity.
My answer to this is the following - the Establishment is associating Christianity with everything it believes is wrong about the West; it has not done the same with most other religions. The Establishment attacks Christianity because they, correctly, view it as the spirit of the West. They have made great gains in dulling the light of this spirit in most of the West. And by the West I am referring specifically to Europe and the Anglo-West (America, Canada, Australia, etc.) Kill the spirit, the Establishment muses, and you kill the West. Kill the West, and the Establishment is one step closer to its coveted one-word totalitarian government.
The Establishment in the West support, endorse, and tolerate other religions primarily because they believe these religions can help erode Christianity in the West, but they won't hesitate to turn on them if Christianity is driven into the shadows. In the meantime, it is becoming expressly clear that the Establishment wants Christianity to be viewed as a religion of hatred.
On top of that, the Establishment no longer feels obligated to obfuscate or justify its anti-Christianity. It has reached a point when it can be openly, candidly, and specifically anti-Christian because it has successfully convinced a great many people in the West that Christianity, at its most fundamental level, is a religion of hatred. A religion of exclusion. A religion of oppression. A religion that essentially is/was the poison fuel that made/makes the West a civilization of hatred, exclusion, and oppression. Remove Christianity, and the West can throw off its shackles and become a place of love, inclusiveness, and freedom.
The Establishment has begun openly referring to Christianity as a religion of hatred without feeling the need to justify it in any way, shape, or form. Start getting used to this because this looks to be the new 'norm'. This pretty much falls in line with the Establishment's denunciation of Western civilization in general - a denunciation that has more or less been accepted as fact by most Westerners who are endlessly indoctrinated into believing that their civilization is reprehensible. This indictment against the West not only pushes everything negative to the forefront while simultaneously pushing everything positive into the background, but also involves a complete inversion of negative and positive until even the good Western civilization has done is considered evil.
The same has been applied to Christianity, for the past two centuries at least, but with the exception of the French Revolution, it has rarely been as expressly clear and obvious as it is now. Simply put, in the Establishment's view, there is nothing good about Christianity. Nothing good at all. Not only is it outdated and oppressive, but it has become in-accommodable. In other words, it has no place in the contemporary world. Anyone who continues to adhere to Christianity - real Christianity, not the watered pablum the Establishment has hijacked and endorsed - will be immediately suspect and likely regarded as someone consumed by a hateful ideology.
If this sounds hyperbolic and overwrought, consider the carefully chosen words of a prominent UK political commentator who recently had the following to say about Viktor Orbán's defense of Christianity and Christian Europe:
Race and power are entwined. When the right talks of “Christian Europe” or “Christian traditions”, it does not include black pentecostal churches in the inner cities. Christianity has become a synonym for “white”. When Orbán talks of defending “Christian Europe”, he is not defending religious dogma – only 15% of Hungarians go to church each week. He is advocating a modern version of the fascist conspiracy theory instead.
Christianity is now code for fascism and white-supremacy. Some leftist politicians have spouted similar rhetoric in Hungary when they referred to Christian families as 'scary formations' comprising the seedbed from which white supremacism and racism sprout. Those who deplatformed Franklin Graham in the UK were quick to point out Graham's support for US President Donald Trump. Man, what could more hateful than that?
Christian persecution will intensify in the West. Count on it. Prepare for it. Above all, spiritually.
Note added: Of course the real reason the Establishment hates Christianity is this - the Establishment's overarching goal is mass damnation. The System they control is geared toward that purpose. Christianity presents a real, viable, and direct threat to that goal; hence, it must be done away with. Once and for all.
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