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SEPTEMBER 2016
PERSECU ION Off With Their
Heads The Orlando shooting released a river of hatred directed at Christians by a coalition of haters. Unpacking this insanity gives shocking insight into the persecution we see growing in American culture.
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INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN
Volunteers
Becoming the Bridge to the Persecuted Church
Spreading the Word
SPECIAL PROJECTS TEAM
AWARENESS TEAM
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n July of 2016, International Christian Concern hosted its first annual conference on the persecuted Church: “The Bridge.” As this was the first event of its kind, ICC was relying on the providence of God in order to pull off this event successfully. Many of these prayers for provision were fulfilled through ICC’s wonderful team of volunteers. In planning a conference of this nature, there are a lot of logistics and daily operations that require many hands willing to help out. Members of ICC’s volunteer program, college students, and pastors from around the country volunteered their time and effort in order to make this event a success. ICC’s Director of Church Relations stated, “It was such a blessing to see so many of our wonderful volunteers helping out at the Bridge. We honestly couldn’t have done it without their hard work and dedication to the persecuted Church.” From helping with set-up to easing the process of registration to assisting with a literature drop on Capitol Hill, these volunteers were always willing to lend a hand to help with whatever was needed. Not only did they help during the conference itself, they came early and stayed late in order to ensure that set-up went smoothly
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and everything was organized at the end of the night. ICC’s Volunteer Coordinator said, “This event would not have been possible without the support of all those who lent their time to help. Seeing so many people working together to bring awareness to Christian persecution was such an encouragement.” One of the greatest blessings about this event was seeing so many people come together for the common cause of helping the persecuted. Volunteers were able to meet face to face and, by doing so, were able to provide one another with encouragement, exchange helpful tips, and make new friends. To those who were involved with making the Bridge a success, we cannot express our gratitude to you enough. Thank you for everything.
“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for Me.” – MATTHEW 25:40 (NIV)
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n order to effectively assist the persecuted Church, it is vitally important to make the public aware of the grave situation facing its Christian brothers and sisters. This is the main purpose of ICC’s Awareness volunteer team. By going out into the community and spreading the news about persecution, these volunteers are able to further the ministry of ICC and, most importantly, bring encouragement to those facing persecution with the fact that their stories are being told. Members of ICC’s Awareness team put their talents to good use in a variety of ways. Just a handful of activities that these volunteers are involved in include speaking in churches, distributing promotional materials (pictured), spreading awareness through social media, getting involved with radio ministries, leading Sunday school classes, and translating informational materials. Those who are a part of ICC’s volunteer program are able to serve according to their own schedules and through methods that cater to their own strengths and interests. These types of activities open many doors to conversation that can help raise awareness about persecution and other obstacles facing religious minorities around the world. SEPTEMBER 2016
Looking for a Way to Make a Difference in the World? Join Our Team of Volunteers! For those hoping to make difference on behalf of the persecuted Church, many are not sure how to get started. However, volunteers all over the world are making a difference within their own communities as members of ICC’s five volunteer teams: Advocacy, Awareness, Office, Prayer, and Special Projects. By standing up for the persecuted in countless different ways, ICC’s volunteers have played a crucial role in connecting the global Church by bridging the gap between the persecuted and the Western Church. It only takes one person to make a difference – are you willing to take the call?
United for Justice
Serving Those in Need
One of the most important, yet often unseen, ways to combat persecution is through advocacy. ICC’s advocacy department works with partners in Congress, the White House, and the State Department in order to effect change in favor of religious freedom worldwide. ICC’s Advocacy volunteer team helps support these efforts in a number of ways including promoting petitions, making calls to their government representatives, and reaching out to international embassies. This work that takes place behind the scenes leaves a lasting impact that affects communities of persecuted Christians around the world.
A powerful way for ICC volunteers to get their whole church involved in the persecution ministry is through fundraisers. Numerous ICC volunteers have contributed their time and talents to raise funds that are then given back to the global persecuted Church. This is a tangible way of connecting the Western Church to its persecuted brothers and sisters around the world. Volunteers have planned events ranging from benefit concerts to book sales to walking campaigns. This is a great option for volunteers wishing to engage their community as a whole and the options are endless.
Volunteer Teams 1 Advocacy: Fight for justice for the persecuted through petitions, Congress calls, and more.
2 Awareness: Raise your voice through speaking in churches, writing, and social media.
3 Office: Lighten the load of ICC’s staff by helping with administrative assignments. 4 Prayer: Intercede for our brothers and sisters in Christ both individually and as a Church.
5 Special Projects: Volunteer on your own schedule through one-time projects.
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Interested in Serving? Apply online at: http://www.persecution.org/how-youcan-help/volunteer/ Or contact: volunteer@persecution.org Or call for more information: (301) 585-5915
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American Christianity
Under Siege Anti-Christian Headlines Seen After the Orlando Pulse Attack Expose the Hatred Toward Christianity and Help to Define the Church’s Predicament.
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By Jeff King, ICC President, and Chad Higgenbottom
une 11, 2016—a night the Orlando emergency response service will never forget. 911 operators were barraged with seemingly endless calls coming from victims of yet another mass shooting. On one line a caller had been shot in the stomach, another was hit in the chest, yet another dropped the phone after connecting, leaving the dispatcher to listen to their dying moans. “Please help…” came the repeated pleas of dying victims at Pulse Night Club. Innocent men and women were targeted because of their sexual orientation. At 2:35 a.m., one 911 dispatcher spoke with a voice far more ominous than the rest. “I wanna let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings. My name is ‘I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State,’” said Omar Mateen. The next morning, Sunday, the horrors of the previous night’s mass shooting in Orlando were unveiled to the world. Many Christian leaders publicly expressed sympathy and Christian organizations and businesses such as Chick-fil-A immediately set up stands to offer free food to volunteers waiting to donate blood. Trained
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chaplains from the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team also arrived in Orlando the next day to comfort victims of the attack. The killer plainly avowed his allegiance to ISIS and said he carried out the attack in obedience to their call, their vision, and their hatred of homosexuals. Nevertheless, the headlines the next few days were filled with expressions of hatred towards Christians, as they were repeatedly blamed for the hateful attack (see the various headlines we’ve captured in pictures throughout this article).
A Steady Diet of Hate
Who in their right mind would give ISIS a pass and pin the blame for this attack on Christians? Unpacking this question will expose the source of anti-Christian hate in our culture and help place these attacks into a broader context and give Christians a framework to understand and respond to them. This is far from the first time the Church has been falsely charged with guilt for some terrible event or major ill in our society or in history. The early church apologist Tertullian even remarked on this dynamic in the 2nd century, touching on how Christians were blamed for everything in Roman society. “If the Tiber has overflowed its banks, if the Nile
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“I consider the government of the US as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.” – THOMAS JEFFERSON
Anti-Christian Post Attack Quotes “We don’t want your hypocritical prayers. You led the fight against LGBT people. You promote this every day.” – Lesbian author Victoria Brownworth, responding to Mike Huckabee who expressed sympathy for the Orlando victims “The Christian right has introduced 200 Anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people (are) blaming Islam for this. No.” – ACLU post Orlando shooting
has remained in its bed…your cry immediately is, ‘This is the fault of the Christians!’” These cultural attacks leave most Christians perplexed and confused. They are unable to place them into any larger context. Each new attack is absorbed as a distinct event rather than seen as part of a long-term, growing, antiChristian trend in our society, or as part and parcel of being Christian in a non-Christian culture. Our culture has been fed a steady diet of anti-Christian hate for 30 years from a coalition made up of Hollywood, cultural elites, the press, the LGBTQ community, and the extreme left (see August 2010 and February 2015 editions of Persecution magazine). In a hyper politically correct society, we are seemingly the last culturally acceptable group to spew hate on.
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The Straw Man The press regularly creates a Christian straw man when they repeatedly quote fake “Christian” leaders like the notorious Westboro Baptist Church who said, “God sent the shooter (to Orlando)” or Roger Jimenez of Sacramento: “The tragedy is that more of them (homosexuals in Orlando) didn’t die.” These people have nothing to do with any Christianity that you are familiar with or that you have been exposed to. They are beyond fringe and have no connection with biblical Christianity. Yet, since their comments are incendiary and match the worldview of a hostile press, they are frequently quoted. Repeated studies and polls of the press show them to be overwhelmingly secular, leftist, and hostile towards Christianity. Is it any wonder then that the press uses the Westboro group on a regular basis as the voice of Christianity? As a result of this and other anti-Christian
“Hey right wing Christians desperately trying to point out that right wing Muslims are more anti-gay than you are: your guilt is showing!” – CNN anchor and lesbian activist “Always fascinating to watch conservatives who won’t support basic non-discrimination laws bash Islamic fundamentalists for being anti-gay.” – MSNBC’s Sally Kohn “How many people have been driven to hate and act violently towards the LGBT community by ‘conservative Christian’ ideology?” – Wisconsin State Representative Mandela Barnes
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Feature Article
propaganda in the media, much of the culture has been slowly trained to view Christianity through the lens of Westboro and their ilk.
Christianity: Responsible for All of Society’s Ills? It turns out that Christianity is responsible for far more than just the Orlando shooting. Did you know that the Church is also responsible for racism, sexism, crime, climate change, a weak US economy, the strife in the Middle East, and a host of other societal evils?! For example, Elicka Peterson Sparks, a confused criminology professor and author at Appalachian State, has discovered that Christians are to blame for America’s high crime rates! She writes in “The Devil You Know, the Surprising Link Between Conservative Christianity and Crime” that Christians are to blame for America’s high crime rates because, as she claims, the Bible gives God’s “blessing” to violence. She may have been biased by her sexual orientation or perhaps she just missed the stunning connection between homosexuality and violence that has been seen in studies for decades. This isn’t violence perpetrated on them by straights, but gay-on-gay violence acted out within relationships. Gay couples are two to three times more likely to perpetrate violence on one another compared to straight couples and a stunning 23% of males report being raped or stalked by partners while 83% of all homosexuals report suffering emotional abuse from their partners. The New York Times, in writing about the suppression of this information in an article in 2000, quoted a gay clinic coordinator. “People feel, ‘Why should we air our dirty laundry? People feel so negatively about us already, the last thing we should do is contribute to negative stereotypes of us.” At the most recent White Privilege Conference held annually in Philadelphia, Christianity was blamed for nearly everything wrong in the world by Paul Kivel in his keynote address. Sexism, racism, climate change, a weak economy, the strife in the Middle East, and other evils are indeed the sinister plots of “Christian hegemony.” His viewpoint, while ridiculous, is held by many on the extreme left. He and they are not alone in holding these extreme and hateful views.
Hatred Studied, Dissected Two sociology professors, David Williamson and George Yancey, did exten-
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Sociologists George Yancey (above) and David Williamson, in an extensive, national, and ground-breaking study, dissected the hatred of Christians within 1/3 of American society. The study led to their book, “So Many Christians, So Few Lions, Is There Christianophobia in the United States?”
Quotes from George Yancey and “So Many Christians, So Few Lions” 2 Quotes from Those Surveyed
“(Christians) pollute good air…. Their only purpose is to damage and inflict their fundamentalist virus onto everyone they come in contact with,” said a man with a Masters. “They should be eradicated without hesitation or remorse. I want them all to die in a fire,” said a young man with a Ph.D.
Quotes from George Yancey
“Because religion is vital to a free and well-ordered society, our goal is to expose and document this growing hostility to help Americans confront and reverse it. The hostility is growing in the public arena, government, workplace, schoolhouse from K-12 to higher academia. It is growing in churches & ministries where one might expect it to be safest and it is growing in the military. The growth of hostility is undeniable and it is dangerous.” “My research suggests a certain willingness of Americans to dehumanize conservative Christians. Yet many of these individuals also espouse a desire for religious neutrality.” “(Anti-Christian bigots were) white, male, wealthy, highly educated, politically ‘progressive’ and nonreligious.” “(Some) of those with anti-Christian animosity, clearly supported laws to regulate the actions, especially the political actions of Christians.” “Usually those who don’t like blacks or Muslims admit that they are intolerant but simply try to justify their intolerance. Those with Christianophobia tend to deny that they are intolerant but rather that they are fairly interpreting social reality. Envisioning themselves as fair and free of intolerance allows them to blame those they detest.”
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SEPTEMBER 2016
sive research on the topic of Christianophobia that led to their book, “So Many Christians, So Few Lions: Is There Christianophobia in the United States?” Their findings after an extensive national polling of 3500+ respondents, while disturbing, won’t be surprising to most Christians. • Religious groups experience more hatred than racial groups. • Nearly a third of the country hates, mistrusts, and/or fears conservative Christians to an extensive degree. • This hatred is directed at conservative Christians. • Those that hate Christians (Christianity) are highly educated, white, wealthy, and not highly religious. • They identify as progressives (liberals) who believe that morality is determined by what the individual decides is best for themselves. They despise Christians for intolerance and homophobia. • They show a personal mistrust of conservative Christians and consider them evil. • They fear Christians will take over society and think of them as mindless sheep led by manipulative leaders. • They see Christians as ignorant, intolerant and stupid individuals who are unable to think for themselves. • They see Christians as backward, non-critical thinking, childlike people who dislike science and want to interfere with the lives of everyone else.
• They think Christians are trying to set up a theocracy to force everybody to accept their Christian beliefs. • They see Christians as a powerful, evil force that blocks society from achieving its progressive paradise. • The haters rely on stereotypes every bit as potent as those based on race, ethnicity, sex, or sexual preference. • Their dehumanization of Christians spreads hate and they push societal rules (controls) on conservative Christians. • Those that hate Christians have a disproportionate level of social power.
Oh, the Irony!
The potent irony for a Christian who has experienced this bigotry is that this extreme hate comes from people who define themselves by their tolerance yet are guilty of the worst bigotry. I personally have been told that Christians are dangerous and should be controlled. This is the thinking of Nazis and yet is a core belief of these Christian-haters. Hatred of Christians has led many (the extreme left, Hollywood, radical atheists, and the LGBTQ community) to consider us as persona-non-grata and a threat that must be silenced. These haters have spread their hate into the culture. They have fed the culture a diet of anti-Christian propaganda via movies, newspapers, and books for decades and their hatred has metastasized through the culture. As a result, in spite of living in the birthplace of religious freedom, we are continually
ICC’s Five Stages of Persecution
#1 Religious group (usually a minority religion) is identified as possessing various “evil” characteristics, is viewed as an undesirable foreign intrusion, or portrayed as “backwards.” Group is gradually defamed, typically over a long period of time, until negative stereotypes become deeply entrenched in society.
#2 Negative stereotypes, if left unchecked, lead to acts of discrimination and social ostracizing. Political or religious leaders may use targeted group as a scapegoat for social and economic issues.
#3 Hate speech towards the minority religious group becomes routine and socially acceptable. Individuals may be directly or indirectly encouraged to target symbols or members of the religious group. Blatant acts of persecution begin to take place.
#4 Persecution becomes institutionalized. The State overlooks illegal acts of persecution, fails to prosecute perpetrators, and eventually begins to adopt discriminatory policies and laws.
#5 All-out efforts to suppress or eradicate the religious group begin. In the most extreme cases, such as the Islamic State or North Korea, members of the religious group are stripped of practically all rights, imprisoned, or executed.
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told by those that hate us to get out of the public square and get into the public corner. We are told over and over again to sit down and shut up and most Christians are too willing to comply and dutifully accept the blame for whatever is pinned on us. We line up to go through the public paddle wheel with an appropriately obsequious public face. In 2007, responding to a letter entitled “A Common Word” from Muslim clerics, numerous high-profile Christian leaders signed onto an apology letter to the Muslim community for such “transgressions” as the Crusades. The Crusades are certainly not something Christians should be proud of, but most people have no idea that they were a military response to hundreds of years of Muslim jihad that ultimately left millions dead and is still killing thousands today. A more recent example is the “I’m Sorry” campaign by the Marin Foundation, which, despite its praiseworthy motive to promote greater understanding between the Church and the LGBTQ community, apologizes profusely for the Christian Church’s missteps towards the community without offering any truth (the Gospel) for ultimate healing.
Christianity: The Cultural Speed Limit Sign This hatred shouldn’t really be a surprise since a core standard of American culture is, “If it feels good, do it,” and this is in direct conflict with Christianity. Religious freedom, and more specifically, freedom of speech are eroding in the West. This is a clear trend that cannot be ignored, but most Christians fail to see the trend or understand the probable future trajectory. We seem to be the proverbial frog in the kettle. Our culture has gone down the slide of moral decay in the last thirty years at a dizzying pace. Some call this progress, but most Christians would see it as moral
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“There is a heady sense of manhood that comes from advancing from apathy to commitment, from timidity to courage, from passivity to aggressiveness. There is an intoxication that comes from standing up at last.” David T. Dellinger, From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter
“It is hard to talk about a middle ground for something that’s a fundamental right.” Teri Reynolds
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decay. Christianity and the Bible act as a cultural speed limit sign that is in conflict with this cultural juggernaut. That alone sets up Christianity as a target for much of the culture. This is a major part of the reason that Jesus said if we love Him, the world would hate us. Understanding this allows Christians to put attacks on the Church into context and helps us know how to respond to attacks and communicate the message that is the ultimate answer to our cultural ills (the Gospel). Bigots! Jesus told us that there will always be hatred of Christianity and, therefore, Christians. The only thing that will make us palatable to the world is to become like it and no longer lift up the truth. Unfortunately, that’s not an option. Those who resent Christianity and seek to stifle it via the use of political power in our country, whether the layperson, school administrator, judge, or President, are outrageously out of line. Many are attempting to limit our religious freedom into some small, delineated square carved out of the public square. In other words, they have turned religious freedom into freedom to worship. We are free to express ourselves and exercise our freedoms in church, but outside of this we can be harassed and are even starting to be prosecuted. Anyone with this thinking is a despot and should be called out as the worst enemy of democracy. Intolerance of Christians and their rights is intolerable and bigotry defined, even if those espousing anti-Christian hate can’t recognize their own bigotry and intolerance!
Fight!
As Christians, we must stand up to the Christianhaters who erroneously fault us with all the plagues of society and seek to take away our rights and freedoms given to us by the Constitution. We must stand up for the faith when it is attacked righteously and we must seek positions of leadership in society (education, the press) and government. We must also take to the streets and vigorously protest and confront unrighteous laws and judgements so that our rights don’t vanish. George Washington said, “If freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
A Tricky Balance
As we engage in this fight that we can’t escape, we must remember to love others, even if they are our enemies. We need to love a broken world (that means we love broken people) as opposed to just shouting back at them. A false and hidden message in Christian culture is that as Christians our only job is to be meek and gentle. In a word, we need to be nice above all else! This has left us conflicted and impotent in responding to the Christian-haters and we have become the only culturally accepted whipping boy for all of society’s ills because we won’t call out the haters. SEPTEMBER 2016
More Quotes
“Political parties are likely to become potent engines (that will) usurp the reins of government, Destroying the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” George Washington “Dare to do things worthy of imprisonment if you mean to be a consequence.” Juvenal “You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.” Malcolm X Meekness is one of the wonderful qualities of our Savior, but He was also the one who formed a whip and overturned the tables of the money lenders from the temple. He also aggressively confronted the hypocritical and corrupt cultural leaders of society. He called them out and shamed them. He’s also the one coming back to make war on a broken and captured world! Yes, as Christians we should be nice. We should also be bold in proclaiming the truth and vocal in confronting hatred! Holding these qualities in tension is too tricky a balance for most Christians. In the face of continual attacks, we are conflicted and paralyzed and always ready for a public beating or a turn in the stocks in the cultural town square.
Counter Cultural
Christians need to come to terms with the core of our faith. Christianity is a countercultural force by design. The core message of God and Christianity is that the world and all people are hopelessly broken and on a road to personal and eternal destruction. The Bible shows us that humanity is desperately lost and in need of rescue. Most don’t want to be rescued and that is fine. That
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means though that even though we love them, we cannot stop declaring the truth that they need to be rescued and that Jesus is here to rescue them. We cannot compromise biblical standards or truths to seek acceptance from the world. Christians who follow the Bible stand as a speed limit sign to part of the culture that is insanely careening down the cultural, moral slide towards an extremely painful national spanking from God. Those who wish to live without restraint will hate anything that threatens this desired life.
Warning!
Religious liberty in our country was NEVER to be confined to private worship or to only be exercised within the walls of a church building. It includes the right to speech, thought, assembly, and conscience and these rights were always designed to be exercised in the public square. If we fail to fight and protect our right to speak in the public square, our opportunity to glorify God through the practice of our faith and ministry may be decimated by leaders that hate Christianity and sadly, we may live out Washington’s warning and be led like sheep to the slaughter.
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” – Thomas Jefferson “[Political parties] are likely to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” – George Washington “The Founding Fathers passed the First Amendment to protect churches from government interference-they never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself.” – Ronald Reagan “In this land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws.” – George Washington “Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.” ~Chinese Proverb “Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.” – Martin Luther King, Jr., “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” – Martin Luther King Jr. “If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.” – Louis D. Brandeis “We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
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