One of the worst things you can be called today is “Homophobic,” often defined as “having an irrational fear and hatred of homosexuals.” However, while alleged homophobia (together with any opposition to homosexuality) is being aggressively intimidated out of existence by an ever-vigilant media and militant homosexuality, another phobia is growing, Christophobia, “an irrational fear and hatred of Christ and of Christians.” Indeed, often those who are most vigilant against homophobia are the most violent in their Christophobia.
Christophobia is not new; it’s as old as Luke 8:26-38, where, after Christ delivered a man from thousands of demons, people reacted not by rejoicing but by running away in terror, then urging Him to leave. Even the healed man seems to have felt the crowd’s hostility and begged the departing Jesus to take him too.
However, although Christophobia is not new, it does seem to be a reaching epidemic proportions in many places. Last century, communist nations such as China, the Soviet Union, and North Korea waged a merciless and murderous war on harmless Christians. This century, while communist oppression has diminished, many Islamic countries have taken on the persecutor’s mantle. In January 2011, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an atheist convert from Islam, wrote a Newsweek article on the “War on Christians” being waged across the Muslim world resulting in thousands of injuries and hundreds of deaths:
Fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other.
But we don’t need to look in the history books or to other nations for Christophobia. Even in America, there is a determined effort to remove Christianity from the public sphere and consciousness: Christian holidays and symbols are being extirpated, prayer is banned in public schools, the 10 Commandments have been removed from courts and classrooms, blasphemous art and a mocking media deride Christian values. We might ask, “What have we done to deserve this? What threat do we pose? Why is Christophobia the only acceptable bigotry that’s left?”
I offer three answers to these questions in my monthly article at Christianity.com
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