Currently, over 200 million Christians worldwide are living under the threat of persecution.

Topping the list of countries which have mounted a campaign against Christians are China and Sudan followed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Burma, Greece, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. (Washington Watch, May 1998). Increasing persecution is also found in Cuba, Laos, and North Korea.

Many Islamic-dominated nations have adopted a fanatical, militant doctrine of persecution against all “infidels.”

The militant Islamic Government of Sudan, for example, is waging a self-described religious war against Christian, non-Muslim, and moderate Muslim persons by using torture, starvation, enslavement, and murder. In Pakistan, the government has declared those that who “insult” Mohammed will be put to death. In Communist Laos more than 250 pastors and Christian workers have been arrested; more than 60 churches and Christian institutions have been shut down; and the government has forced many thousands of believers to sign documents to "renounce" their faith and belief in Christianity.

In Saudi Arabia there is no religious freedom. Apostasy is punishable by death. There are no public worship services for non-Muslims. Anyone who does mission work or converts Muslims faces expulsion, jail, or execution.

In countries near and far, people are being persecuted simply because of their faith. Hundreds of men and women are in prison serving sentences that range from a few months to life. They are not criminals who have robbed or murdered other citizens but Christians who were put on trial for their faith in Christ and found guilty. Christians are beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and murdered by those who are hostile to their faith in Jesus Christ.

Here in America the persecution of Christians has not yet reached the feverish pitch as in other parts of the world. There is still a Constitution that protects them and allows them to freely practice their faith. But, broiling beneath the surface, the same hatred of God that exists in other parts of the world is festering in all our institutions. Slowly, methodically, and incrementally the anti-God forces are working to remove that Constitutional barrier.

It is important to recognize that those who are working for the dissolution of our society have a spiritual agenda. They are not merely attempting to dismantle the historic cultural values of this nation and move us toward a homogenized world. They also want to destroy Christianity and Bible-based religion. It is a clear part of their agenda, and they have already moved a long way in that direction.

In America it is called 'secularism' and is becoming visible in all walks of life and in all our institutions. Numerous legislative and legal battles which I'll discuss below attest to the fact that religious warfare is taking place.

Government
The federal government abridges the free exercise of religion in America by:

The City council in Oceanside, CA banned public prayers that begin or end with the phrase "in the name of Christ."
 

Schools
Possibly the most sinister battlefield in the war on Christianity takes place in the classroom. The Ten Commandments have been prohibited on school bulletin boards and most forms of prayer have been declared unconstitutional in the nation's schools, even that which is student initiated.

Atheists and others who hate God despises Christians who help others come to a saving knowledge of Christ. They are determined to battle those who would help immature Christians -- particularly Christian children -- grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.

Increasingly, our children are discriminated against for trying to present their Christian convictions in school.

Dozens of Albertville Alabama middle school students were suspended for two-days for walking out of class to protest a federal court ruling that bans school prayer. In 1997 U.S. District Court Judge Ira DeMent struck down a law that required schools to allow voluntary student-initiated prayers at school events, saying it created excessive state entanglement in religion. He ordered the end to school-sponsored religious activities, such as prayers during morning announcements and at school events even though it isn't forced on students.

In 1997, a high school student in Florida was suspended for handing out religious literature before and after - but not during - school hours. Two high school students in Texas were told by their principal they could not wear rosaries. The Principal claimed that they were symbols of gang activity, even though the boys were not involved in any gang.

In 2002, music teachers in Michigan, Maryland, and Virginia didn't allow students to perform traditional carols like "Silent Night" and "The First Noel" during Chrismas. A New Jersey public school banned the Charles Dickens play, "A Christmas Carol" because of its spiritual overtones and message of redemption.

The Courts
A judge in Gadsden, Alabama, Roy Moore, has been ordered to stop conducting prayers in his courtroom and displaying the Ten Commandments. That led Alabama Gov. Fob James, a supporter of prayer in public schools, to vow to use state troopers, if necessary, to allow Moore to continue the prayers.
Confessed child rapist James Arnett's sentence was overturned by an Ohio appeals court. The reason: the judge in his case quoted from Matthew 18:5-6 during sentencing.

The Media
Our entertainment industry and the news media sneer at anyone who defends Jesus Christ in public and have been leading a propaganda war of stereotyping Christians into a subordinate class. Their distortions reflect a genuine misunderstanding of who Christians are and what they believe.

Americas' TV news broadcasts ignore conservative and Christian news events, except when coverage makes religious leaders look "cold, intolerant and oppressive," says Washington, D.C.'s Media Research Center.

Though most Americans believe in God and regularly attend religious services, "religion and religious issues are hardly ever mentioned, much less covered, on network television morning, evening and magazine shows," said the center's chairman Brent Bozell. He said that the center has surveyed more than 18,000 nightly news shows broadcast by ABC, CBS, NBC, the Cable News Network and the Public Broadcasting Service, but found only 212 stories that focused on religion. That amounts to 1 percent of coverage although 52 percent of Americans say they attend church and more than 90 percent say that they pray regularly.

Network coverage of abortion and homosexuality "are never done from the religious viewpoint," Bozell said. Instead, "religious figures are regularly portrayed as reactionary roadblocks while their positive influences are rarely covered." Except at Christmastime, when the networks traditionally broadcast "heartwarming" segments in their broadcasts, the news shows usually portray religious groups and their leaders "as cold, intolerant and oppressive," Bozell said. ["TV news broadcasters unfair to Christians, says research center," Christian Crusade, April 1994]

The Public Square
The trend in the public forum is to replace the word "Christmas" with "Season's Gretings" or "Happy Holidays."

In March 1998, The ACLU put pressure on the small town of Republic, Missouri to remove a fish symbol from its official logo, calling it a "secret sign of Christianity."

In April 1998, Rev. Patrick Mahoney was arrested for praying on the steps of the Supreme Court.

Tourists visiting Washington D.C. in 1997 were ordered by the police to stop praying in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

In 2003, the National Park Service removed 30 year-old plaques inscribed with Bible verses at Grand Canyon following complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union. (Agape Press)

Reaping What We've Sown
Since we have effectivly censored our public officials, our teachers, our elected representatives and our judges of expressing their faith in public, the predictable is happening: a generation of young people growing up with very little understanding of the spiritual principles on which our country was founded. And we wonder why so many of them can kill, steal, take drugs and engage in promiscuous sex with no pangs of conscience. Our culture has taught them that right and wrong are abribrary - subjective - changing.

The result of this propaganda campaign is that Christians are depersonalized. Depersonalization makes it easier for people to accept negative stereotypes, pigeonholed, and, in the extreme, tolerate abuse and persecution of the people who have been depersonalized. Historical precedent for this can be found in Nero's treatment of Christians, racism in all forms, and Hitler's treatment of the Jews.

Secularists appear to have agreed upon three specific mechanisms to complete the task of immobilizing and silencing conservative Christians. You can find evidence of these strategies in your own communities and schools.

2. Convince the American people that Christians are in violation of the Constitution.
Liberal activists would have us believe our founding fathers were terrified at the prospect of Christians participating in the political process. This led them, we're told, to establish a wall of separation between church and state. But no such provision appears in the Constitution or any of the foundational documents. The principle of separation of church and state is found only in one of Jefferson's letters, and referred, not to the exclusion of religious people from government, but to the protection of religion from governmental interference.

"[The religious right] are demanding their rightful seat at the table, and that is what the American people fear the most."
[Rep. Vic Fazio, D-Calif., "God as a Wedge Issue," Norfold Virginian-Pilot, June 24, 1994]

Democrats in Congress have formed a so-called "Radical Right Task Force" ... which is paid for with American tax dollars. This "Task Force" meets in the U.S. Capitol to plan how to intimidate Christians from going to the polls and to deny churches tax-exempt status if they distribute Christian Coalition's voter education literature. The task force met on August 11, 1994, according to a spokesman for Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), "the main thrust of the meeting" was "non-profit groups vs. Advocacy groups" and "when do non-profits cross the line and become advocacy groups?" The law provides tax exemptions for non-profit groups but not for advocacy groups. [John Wheeler, Jr., "Assault on Faith," Christian American, September 1994]

"People of traditional faith have become effective, and this makes the left quake." [Sen. Dan Coats]

Several leading political and cultural groups have mounted a campaign to misrepresent and discredit the religious right in hopes of undermining the growing political influence of religious conservatives. President Bill Clinton called religious conservatives "obstructionist right-wing fanatics" who embrace a message of "hate and fear." Hillary Clinton claims that those who are bringing charges against her husband for his extra-marital sexual adventures are part of a "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" or simply are prejudiced against anyone from Arkansas. Texas governor Ann Richards labeled them "mongers of hate" who "preach their anger" and "have turned the party of Lincoln into the party of Operation Rescue." Also, Congressman, Vic Fazio, chairman of the Democratic Congresional Campaign Committee, said the "intolerant," religious right wants "to carry views that are distinctly religious over into government and try to impose them as law" using "stealth candidates" and "subterranean tactics" to advance its ruthless agenda. U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders spoke of the "unchristian religious right" as "those people who are selling our children out in the name of religion." Writing on the op-ed page of the New York Times, Robert H. Meneilly writes, "The religious right confronts us with a threat far greater then the old threat of Communism." You see it also in the frenzied howls of James Carville, who just can´t seem to restrain himself from linking the name of Jerry Falwell with every conservative on his hit list.

The Christian Right has oftentimes been compared with Nazism and they point out that Nazi's were Christian. But, were they?

Martin Borman was a very high Nazi official in Hitler's government and he wrote, "National Socialism and Christian concepts are irreconcilable. The Christian churches build upon man's ignorance and are endeavoring to keep the greatest number of people in a state of ignorance....Our National Socialist concept of the world is on a far higher plane than are the ideas of Christianity, whose essential points have been taken from the Jews. For that reason too, we have no need of Christianity....." (The NAZI YEARS, Joachim Remak, pp. 103-104, Prentice-Hall, 1969)

One of the most brilliant propaganda coups of all time is the liberals' labeling (redefining) NAZIs as 'right-wing'.

Ludwig Von Mises described socialism under the Nazi's [increasingly similar in America],"There are, however, no longer entrepreneurs but only shop managers (Betriebsfuhrer). These shop managers do the buying and selling, pay the workers, contract debts, and pay interest and amortization. There is no labor market; wages and salaries are fixed by the government [Labor unions, minimum wage]. The government tells the shop managers what and how to produce [FDA, OSHA], at what prices and from whom to buy, at what prices and to whom to sell. The government decrees to whom and under what terms the capitalists must entrust their funds and where and at what wages laborers must work. Market exchange is only a sham. All the prices, wages, and interest rates are fixed by the central authority [Federal Reserve]. They are prices, wages, and interest rates in appearance only; in reality they are merely determinations of quantity relations in the government's orders. The government, not the consumers, directs production. This is socialism in the outward guise of capitalism. Some labels of capitalistic market economy are retained but they mean something entirely different from what they mean in a genuine market economy." (Omnipotent Government, Ludwig Von Mises, p. 56) [emphasis added by author]

3. Embarrass, insult, shout down and mischaracterize Christians, hoping to intimidate them into silence.
Those who reject Jesus will shun Christians, for faithful believers carry the presence of the Holy Spirit who brings conviction of sin as well as God's love. Any mention of sin grates against today's relativistic values and the kind of "freedom" where anything goes. That's why Christians, who are "the aroma of Christ" to believers, are also "the smell of death to those who are perishing." They hate the true Jesus.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph" (2Cor. 2:14-15)

Any Christian who has stood his ground on Biblical faith has grown uncomfortably accustomed to being called all sorts of names:

The defenders of all that is fine and decent indict Bible-believing activists as "hate mongers," "fire-breathing radicals," "unchristian," "merchants of hate" who would establish "a Christian version of the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran" and "fanatics" with a message of "hate and fear." By stigmatizing the values movement, the Left hopes to avoid the issues in debate. Its subliminal message is: "Don't listen to what these extremists are saying. Don't take them seriously." They're militants and bigots - and that's all you need to know about them." [Don Feder, "The Religious Right? That's You," Christian American, September 1994.]

The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and open-mindedness. Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.- Ronald Reagan