{"id":28039,"date":"2019-01-13T13:58:24","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T17:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/?p=28039"},"modified":"2019-01-14T00:36:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T04:36:00","slug":"persecution-of-us-christians-reply-to-absurd-critique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2019\/01\/persecution-of-us-christians-reply-to-absurd-critique.html","title":{"rendered":"Persecution of US Christians: Reply to Absurd Critique"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

This came about due to a reply by one Curt Erickson on a public Facebook page<\/a>. He was reacting to my article,\u00a0Could State Murder of Christians Ever Happen in the US?<\/a>\u00a0His words will be in blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Anything physically possible can happen, theoretically.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Would Christians ever be persecuted, even minimally, in the US? Nah. We\u2019re an insanely large majority here. No non Christian has ever been elected prezdnit and non Christians in any public office are a tiny minority.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dunno. \u2018Finally, 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\u2019s not inconceivable at all. History is our guide. The religion of secularism and leftism is the enemy of\u00a0Christianity\u2026\u2019, while awkward, poorly written and fairly ludicrous, clearly states that the author believes this is a realistic danger. (Or, what\u2019s more likely, just claims to believe in order to get clicks.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No one\u2019s persecuting Christians. No one\u2019s gonna start.<\/span><\/p>\n

I never used the word \u201cHolocaust\u201d or \u201cgenocide.\u201d So what do you<\/em> do? You ridiculously caricature my argument by pretending that I suggested such a thing, and then mock and dismiss it. Nice job!\u00a0All I argued was that \u201cpersecution\u201d of Christians is \u201cthe way it is possibly<\/em>\u00a0going\u201d (first sentence: italics in original).<\/p>\n

2nd paragraph: \u201cwe may get to a point of actual martyrdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

My language was qualified and nuanced throughout. For example: \u201cWe may possibly<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0be spared actual physical persecution. I tend<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0to think it will occur, however, at some point . . .\u201d (emphases added presently).<\/p>\n

I wrote: \u201cPersecution against Christians has broken out in Christian cultures many times. That proves it can happen (and will happen again).\u201d Note that this was a general<\/em> statement: not just about the US. \u201cCan happen\u201d is self-evident. \u201cWill happen\u201d is not absolutely certain, but I would contend that, given the history, it is exceedingly likely and almost certain to occur somewhere<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0To speculate that it may<\/em><\/strong> happen in America is not crazy or absurd at all. I used another analogy:<\/p>\n

Could anyone have imagined in 1943, legal abortion (as a supposed constitutional \u2018right\u2019!) 30 years later, or same-sex \u2018marriage\u2019 70 [72] years later? No, of course not. . . .\u00a0So we can be almost assured that unimaginable things lie ahead that we can never imagine or conceptualize now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s all perfectly reasonable analogical \/ historical speculation.<\/p>\n

No non Christian has ever been elected prezdnit.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s not true. Jefferson was a Unitarian<\/a> who denied the Trinity and the miracles and divinity of Christ. Denial of the Trinity makes one not<\/em><\/strong> a Christian by any standard, accepted definition of historic Christianity (see the Nicene Creed<\/a>, Athanasian Creed<\/a>, and the confessions of any Protestant denomination<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Romney was almost elected, and he is Mormon, which is not Christian, either. Even Abraham Lincoln<\/a> was barely doctrinally Christian. He was certainly a theist, but his belief in Christian doctrines was quite scanty.<\/p>\n

(Or, what\u2019s more likely, just claims to believe in order to get clicks.)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cknow\u201d (within a noxious cloud of irrational speculation) about a person\u2019s interior state of heart and mind and what motivates them.<\/p>\n

I also note that it is you who made a definitive declarative claim, not I. You wrote:<\/p>\n

Would Christians ever be persecuted, even minimally, in the US? Nah. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No one\u2019s persecuting Christians. No one\u2019s gonna start.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I made a speculative<\/em> claim, which includes within it the possibility of non-occurrence.\u00a0\u00a0Which 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<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u201cever\u201d<\/span> happen: not even \u201cminimally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re the guy that wrote that? Cool. I may have some questions for you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so rare to get to talk to the actual author of a piece you disagree with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019ll have to wait a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have made a singularly unimpressive start.<\/p>\n

I have had a website \/ blog online for now almost 22 years. It has always allowed comments and interaction.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

Dave \u2014 don\u2019t get too impressed with your \u2018I\u2019ve had a blog for twenty years\u2019 self. It\u2019s a miniscule chunk of Patheos, and judging from your disqus post count, it\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was looking forward to a discussion about your persecution fantasies, but I\u2019ve got no interest in providing you with free material. Maybe if you\u2019d asked first, as any real writer would\u2019ve, but you didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Your post fails to establish that anyone\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re not very good at this. You should be better, given all the time you\u2019ve clearly sunk into the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Photo credit:<\/strong>\u00a0Execution of<\/span> Blessed Miguel Pro<\/a>, Mexican Jesuit, by a firing squad in Mexico City: 23 November 1927<\/span> [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a>]<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This came about due to a reply by one Curt Erickson on a public Facebook page. He was reacting to my article,\u00a0Could State Murder of Christians Ever Happen in the US?\u00a0His words will be in blue. *** Anything physically possible can happen, theoretically.\u00a0 Would Christians ever be persecuted, even minimally, in the US? Nah. We\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":28042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[289],"tags":[7438,7429,224,795,3555,4299,176,7441,4298],"class_list":["post-28039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-ethical-moral-issues","tag-christianity-government","tag-church-state","tag-judgment","tag-judgment-of-nations","tag-persecution-of-christians","tag-rebellious-nations","tag-sin","tag-state-murder","tag-wicked-nations"],"yoast_head":"\nPersecution of US Christians: Reply to Absurd Critique<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I claimed that state persecution of Christians may possibly occur in the future. 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Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \"This Rock\" (now called \"Catholic Answers Magazine\"), \"Envoy Magazine\" (Patrick Madrid), \"The Catholic Answer,\" \"The Coming Home Journal,\" \"Gilbert Magazine\" (American Chesterton Society), and \"The Latin Mass.\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \"The Michigan Catholic\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \"Envoy Magazine.\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \"Catholic Answers Live\" (twice), \"Faith and Family Live\" (Steve Wood), \"Kresta in the Afternoon,\" \"Son Rise Morning Show,\" \"Catholic Connection\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \"The Catholics Next Door.\" His large and popular website, \"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \"Envoy Magazine.\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \"index\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \"Surprised by Truth\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \"The Catholic Verses\" (2004), \"The One-Minute Apologist\" (2007), \"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\" (2009), \"The Quotable Newman\" (editor: 2012), and \"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \"The New Catholic Answer Bible\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \"Quotable Wesley\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).","sameAs":["https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}