Christians Thrown to the Lions – Not Rome but in America
By Michael Bresciani (04/29/07)
April 25, 2007 one of the most serious threats to religious
freedoms and free speech wrangled its way through the Judiciary Committee.
It has yet to undergo the scrutiny of the full house but Hate Crimes bill
HR 1592 is the most serious threat to religious freedom since this country
began.
Among the organizations and groups fighting HR 1592 are For Faith and
Family, Traditional Values Coalition, Faith2Action, The High Impact
Coalition, Repent America, Focus on the Family, Americans for Justice,
Exodus International and the Pacific Justice Institute. These are not the
only organizations in the fight but they are perhaps the best ones to
refer to if you are seeking a clear picture of the seriousness and the
dangers inherent in this bill.
Rev. Lou Sheldon of Traditional Values Coalition and Andrea Lafferty the
CEO of the TVC sat in on the proceedings for some eleven hours both
submitting material to counter the bill and monitoring the arguments and
subsequent voting. While we can thank God for Christian soldiers like
Sheldon and Lafferty and the groups aforementioned it seems the alarm has
not filtered down sufficiently to the rank and file of the rest of
Christendom.
Rather than just lambasting Christians for hitting the snooze button on
this issue I would rather issue a call to action and provide a short list
of what you actually can do to help stop this bill from actualization. I
would say the first order of business would be to visit the organizations
mentioned in this article to familiarize your self with the language and
implications of HR 1592. Since the bill will reach the house and be voted
on between one week and a month letters will miss the mark. The best
course of action is to search online and by telephone.
Christians should be warned that it is not just pastors and evangelists
who may be constrained from quoting parts of the Bible that have to do
with homosexual behavior. Every Christian will be affected. You may be
sharing with a neighbor or just voicing your Biblically based views on the
subject in one minute and be arrested and jailed for it in the next.
HR 1592 is the most dangerous precursor to Orwellian type thought policing
that has ever come down the pike. It leaves any reasonable person
wondering what could be next. If carried out it could lead to the arrest
of every teenager who calls someone else a geek or a jock or blurts out “I
hate you” to parents who have grounded them or corrected them in any way.
It would require jailing a host of Hip Hopsters who are well known for
their use of the N word The B word and the H word. Writers, commentators,
teachers and lecturers would have to tread the thinnest ice or face
serious consequences.
If passed the bill would produce a kind of fear that has always been
associated with tyranny in any nation or civilization throughout history.
Even among non Christians the threat of jail hangs heavy even for simply
voicing an opinion. America may be all to involved with contrived survival
scenarios like those of the popular CBS series Survivor. A quick check
back into the real world may be all to disconcerting. The panorama of
9/11, Iraq, Katrina and VA Tech may be the truth that is stranger than
fiction that we hate to look at, but ignoring HR 1592 is what happens when
we retreat to fantasy.
Living in a contrived or alternate reality is sufficient to preoccupy a
nation while real life truth is under attack. Who cares may seem to cover
the whole matter but the immutable laws of reciprocation will be what
returns to cover the freedom of thought and speech of all the purveyors of
fantasy. In warfare this is called creating a distraction. America has
been summarily distracted.
Make no mistake the Christian Church was in place before the Nazi’s
swallowed Germany but were to busy with theological arguments, membership,
cake and rummage sales and other innocuous pettiness to create the
slightest resistance to Hitler’s insanity. In America it may be more the
building fund, the prosperity gospel or building cultural churches that is
distracting us but the result will be the same. The lions are hungry.
What can you do? First familiarize yourself thoroughly with HR 1592.
Google the sites mentioned and read up. Secondly pray and get your
churches to pray about this dangerous bill. Thirdly, support those who are
fighting HR 1592. Some of the organizations and ministries mentioned have
spared no expense to fight HR 1592 and need your help to keep up the
fight. Many of them like the Traditional Values Coalition have lists of
your representatives in Congress state by state and e-mail addresses to
which you can send your message of disapproval. Finally, wake up; you have
very little time left to join in this fight.
We all can remember that during the decades of the cold war and the fight
against communism there were a few voices saying that America was most
likely to fall from within rather than succumbing to communism. Pull
yourself away from American Idol and Survivor just long enough to see that
we are on that slippery slope now.
If you are a believer then you already know the meaning of this verse. But
now is the time to take it up one level. The enemy (unseen) is doing much
more than trying to get you to curse the milk you dropped on the floor
this morning. It is you and all who believe as you do he is trying to put
on the floor.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12
Freedom of religion and freedom of speech is what occupies the ground
between diligent and dilettante. Lions can be released into that middle
ground unless we all take this fight seriously.
Rev Bresciani
http://www.americanprophet.org
(Printer friendly version) Email: Michael Bresciani
