I struggle to ever apply the term "persecution" to the legal harassment and cultural discomfort sometimes experienced by Christians living in the United States. There's no question that wearing the name of Jesus, even if no longer entitles one to public esteem, does not engender the kind of enmity and hostility it does in many places around the globe.
When I think persecution, I think about:
- The Coptic Christians lined up on the beach in orange jumpsuits being executed for the cameras by members of ISIS.
- The hundreds of Nigerian Christians being slaughtered with regularity by militant Fulani herdsmen who rape, pillage, and destroy with impunity.
- The early church being scapegoated by Rome's Emperor Nero, who facilitated extreme torture and monstrous methods of execution for those who followed Jesus.
- The stones, large, jagged, and bone-crushing, pelting men like Paul, Silas, and Stephen in the first century.
In light of those horrors, I think it's reasonable why I (and many other believers) struggle to label the financial, punitive, and economic hardships that are becoming increasingly common to Christians in America - all for their allegiance to biblical convictions - true "persecution."
But word-quibbling aside, no dispassionate person, one unencumbered by a slavish devotion to radical LGBTetc politics, can look at the ongoing harassment of Colorado baker Jack Phillips and conclude that the expression of his Christian faith hasn't been the singular impetus behind a decades-long attempt to destroy his life and livelihood.
It's a pretty simple, straightforward, honest, and yes, completely constitutional position that Phillips has taken: he will serve any customer of any background, creed, religion, or sexual proclivity. Anyone can come in, regardless of their faith or fetish, and buy a cake at his shop. He will not, however, customize cakes to celebrate events or actions that offend the character of God.
After years of having to defend at great cost his obviously constitutional prerogative, the Supreme Court last year upheld his right to conscience. And now Not The Bee reports:
Let's look at what NBC said about the situation:
The baker won a case before the U.S. Supreme Court on a technicality in 2018 after having refused to make a gay couple's wedding cake.
I appreciated that the "Community Notes" corrected the biased reporter's misstatement that Phillips won his case on a "technicality." Only for Christians, apparently, is the right to conscience and freedom of expression a "technicality." But the mindset of the Associated Press, which wrote the story that NBC promoted on a section of their website solely dedicated to the promotion and propagation of this religious "out" theology, is what is worth noting:
Colorado's highest court said Tuesday it will now hear the case of a Christian baker who refused to make a cake celebrating a gender transition…
He was…sued by Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman, after Phillips and his suburban Denver bakery refused to make a pink cake with blue frosting for her birthday and to celebrate her gender transition. (emphasis added)
Notice the phrases I have emphasized in that story that the activists bringing these lawsuits and reporting on them aren't even trying to veil. The Supreme Court of the United States has already ruled that Phillips' right to conscience precludes him having to "celebrate" an act that he doesn't want to "celebrate."
If Mr. Scardina wanted to buy a cake for his personal celebration, he was more than able to do so. What he is not allowed to do - and what he should not be allowed to do - is harness the power of government to force someone else into involuntary servitude. You can't legally force someone to celebrate or promote something they don't want to celebrate or promote. And the fact that these individuals and activists continue bringing these cases, against this same man, indicate both a frightening personal vendetta, and demonstrate how well funded and committed they are to the proselytizing their faith by legal force.
If like me you don't care for the term persecution, call it harassment, call it legal stalking, call it whatever you want. The important thing is that it becomes exceedingly evident to everyone watching who the radicals are and who the radicals aren't.
