This came about due to a reply by one Curt Erickson on a public Facebook page. He was reacting to my article, Could State Murder of Christians Ever Happen in the US? His words will be in blue.
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Anything physically possible can happen, theoretically.
Would Christians ever be persecuted, even minimally, in the US? Nah. We’re an insanely large majority here. No non Christian has ever been elected prezdnit and non Christians in any public office are a tiny minority.
The idea that somehow Christians are facing a risk of a Holocaust or an Armenian style genocide are fever dreams invented by people who know nothing of holocausts or genocides.
Dunno. ‘Finally, we may get to a point of actual martyrdom (not at first government-sponsored). The latter would still be quite a ways off, but it’s not inconceivable at all. History is our guide. The religion of secularism and leftism is the enemy of Christianity…’, while awkward, poorly written and fairly ludicrous, clearly states that the author believes this is a realistic danger. (Or, what’s more likely, just claims to believe in order to get clicks.)
No one’s persecuting Christians. No one’s gonna start.
I never used the word “Holocaust” or “genocide.” So what do you do? You ridiculously caricature my argument by pretending that I suggested such a thing, and then mock and dismiss it. Nice job! All I argued was that “persecution” of Christians is “the way it is possibly going” (first sentence: italics in original).
2nd paragraph: “we may get to a point of actual martyrdom.”
My language was qualified and nuanced throughout. For example: “We may possibly be spared actual physical persecution. I tend to think it will occur, however, at some point . . .” (emphases added presently).
I wrote: “Persecution against Christians has broken out in Christian cultures many times. That proves it can happen (and will happen again).” Note that this was a general statement: not just about the US. “Can happen” is self-evident. “Will happen” is not absolutely certain, but I would contend that, given the history, it is exceedingly likely and almost certain to occur somewhere.
I provided eight examples: six of which were within the last 100 years, and one (Armenian genocide) only a little longer than that. I fail to see what more proof is needed of the likelihood of persecution somewhere, than eight examples of exactly that: all in predominantly Christian cultures. To speculate that it may happen in America is not crazy or absurd at all. I used another analogy:
Could anyone have imagined in 1943, legal abortion (as a supposed constitutional ‘right’!) 30 years later, or same-sex ‘marriage’ 70 [72] years later? No, of course not. . . . So we can be almost assured that unimaginable things lie ahead that we can never imagine or conceptualize now.
It’s all perfectly reasonable analogical / historical speculation.
No non Christian has ever been elected prezdnit.
That’s not true. Jefferson was a Unitarian who denied the Trinity and the miracles and divinity of Christ. Denial of the Trinity makes one not a Christian by any standard, accepted definition of historic Christianity (see the Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, and the confessions of any Protestant denomination).
Romney was almost elected, and he is Mormon, which is not Christian, either. Even Abraham Lincoln was barely doctrinally Christian. He was certainly a theist, but his belief in Christian doctrines was quite scanty.
(Or, what’s more likely, just claims to believe in order to get clicks.)
Ah, nice touch. Having engaged in ridiculous straw man arguments having little or nothing to do with what I actually argued, now you switch on a dime and suggest that I am merely lying through my teeth to get clicks.
But this is how it goes in this age. Dialogue is Dead. Instead we have mutual monologues, caricature / straw men, and rank personal insults: in effect, claims to “know” (within a noxious cloud of irrational speculation) about a person’s interior state of heart and mind and what motivates them.
I also note that it is you who made a definitive declarative claim, not I. You wrote:
Would Christians ever be persecuted, even minimally, in the US? Nah. . . .
No one’s persecuting Christians. No one’s gonna start.
I made a speculative claim, which includes within it the possibility of non-occurrence. Which is more reasonable? I think, clearly, my speculation based on direct past historical analogy is more reasonable and plausible than your claim that it definitely would not “ever” happen: not even “minimally.”
You’re the guy that wrote that? Cool. I may have some questions for you.
It’s so rare to get to talk to the actual author of a piece you disagree with.
But it’ll have to wait a bit.
You have made a singularly unimpressive start.
I have had a website / blog online for now almost 22 years. It has always allowed comments and interaction.
This exchange (including back-and-forths to come, that can always be added) will be a new article on my blog. Or will you complain and protest about that?
Dave — don’t get too impressed with your ‘I’ve had a blog for twenty years’ self. It’s a miniscule chunk of Patheos, and judging from your disqus post count, it’s as poorly attended as it is poorly written. After twenty years you should be doing a lot better, or you should be doing something else.
I was looking forward to a discussion about your persecution fantasies, but I’ve got no interest in providing you with free material. Maybe if you’d asked first, as any real writer would’ve, but you didn’t.
Your post fails to establish that anyone’s currently persecuting Christians as you claim, and it fails to make a decent case that such a thing is likely to occur in the US in the future.
You’re not very good at this. You should be better, given all the time you’ve clearly sunk into the project.
See ya. Par for the course and entirely predictable. If one has nothing but insults and straw men at first, they never graduate to rationality and serious argumentation. ZZzzzz
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Photo credit: Execution of Blessed Miguel Pro, Mexican Jesuit, by a firing squad in Mexico City: 23 November 1927 [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
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