Woman Up

Published on by D. G. Hart

While love was hoping all things, the BBs have piled on the situation in Houston in a way that raises a number of interesting questions about persecution. Tim Bayly himself insists that the difficulties contemporary Christians confront increasingly resembles what Chicken Little faced:

. . . the persecution suffered by Christians in this country is powerful, silencing the witness and confession of the Gospel everywhere and constantly. To act as if we don’t see or care about this low-grade persecution because it hasn’t yet come for us and our job and children, or because it hasn’t yet come to our city or school system, or because our mayor is not a lesbian who is subpoenaing the sermons of the churches in our city, is to refuse to read our times as closely and well as we read the clouds. It is to sleep when we should be preparing our children to stand against social pressures, stigmas, and loss of income so in the not-very-distant future they will be able to stand against imprisonment and execution.

Sure, it sounds histrionic to speak of the iron fist of diversity, inclusivity, and pluralism as a real threat to the civil liberties of Christians today. Unless, of course, one has studied the growth of the persecution and martyrdom suffered by our brothers and sisters in Christ under the iron fist of that same diversity, inclusivity, and pluralism enforced across the ancient Roman Empire.

As an American who still thinks that the point of the United States had to do with opposition to centralized and consolidated government, I can sympathize with small-government types who object to the politics of Houston. But as a Christian, I have trouble thinking that this qualifies as persecution or that we should oppose it. After all, the New Testament is replete with calls to Christians to bear their cross:

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. (1 Pet 4:1-3 ESV)

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Cor 4:7-12 ESV)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt 5:3-12 ESV)

This doesn’t mean that Christians should be masochists who look for ways to experience pain or that we should somehow lose a capacity to distinguish quiet and peaceful lives from one characterized by affliction. But it does suggest that persecution is not something about which we should bitch. It goes with the turf and may actually be evidence (pay attention Obedience Boys) of a lively faith.

At the same time, does a subpoena rise to the level of persecution? Consider a piece by Ross Douthat some time back:

If the federal government suddenly closed all religious schools in the United States, banned homeschooling, and instituted an anti-religious curriculum in public schools, I would absolutely call it persecution. But a step like denying religious colleges access to public dollars would not rise to the same level. It would certainly create hardship and disruption, and weaken institutional religion in significant ways. But it would leave the basic liberty to educate one’s children in one’s own faith intact, and I cannot see the warrant for claiming that a given faith is “persecuted” by the government’s decision to withhold a subsidy. Again: Disadvantaged, yes; persecuted, no.

Likewise, if the government suddenly required businesses to fire Christians, or instituted a policy of discrimination that prevented them from being hired, that would clearly be a form of persecution. But having the rules of a few professions suddenly pose new ethical dilemmas for religious believers is the kind of thing that can happen in any time and place. It’s a challenge, a hardship, a form of pressure … but it’s not really persecution as I think most people understand the term.

And to Dreher’s point that this definition would imply that there haven’t been that many cases of sustained persecution in the United States — well, I suppose I think that’s right. I wouldn’t use “persecution” to describe the rules that kept Jews out of Ivy League schools and country clubs, for instance, or the experience of atheist parents before the Supreme Court rolled back school prayer, or the hostility and scrutiny that Muslims sometimes face in the post-9/11 U.S.A. Or to use my own faith to bring the distinction to a finer point: In the 19th century, the Ursuline convent riots were a case of actual anti-Catholic persecution; the climate of anti-Catholicism that produced the Blaine amendments was not. This isn’t to minimize the anti-Catholicism of the 1870s and 1880s; it’s just to say that not every form of hostility deserves the same label as the work of a Diocletian or a Nero.

And using the “persecution” label too promiscuously, I think, carries three risks beyond intellectual inaccuracy. First, as Dreher sort of concedes, it doesn’t do enough to acknowledge the vast gulf separating the situation of Western Christians and the incredible heroism of our co-believers overseas, who face eliminative violence on an increasingly-dramatic scale. Second, as I tried to suggest in the column, it doesn’t do enough to acknowledge the gulf separating the situation of Western Christians and the situation of gays and lesbians, past and present, facing persecution at the hands of religiously-motivated actors. And finally, it doesn’t actually prepare conservative believers for a future as a (hopefully creative) religious minority, because it conditions them/us to constantly expect some kind of grand tribulation that probably won’t actually emerge.

Could it be then that by invoking the language of persecution Christians are simply showing their desire to get in the line of victims? After all, this is the recent and easy way to achieve status in the United States, namely, to show that you are the object of oppression (even to the point of having your feelings hurt). But that was hardly the attitude that characterized the early Christian martyrs who knew a thing or two about persecution. Here the BBs may want to take a page — of all things — from a woman named Perpetua:

But the mob asked that their bodies be brought out into the open that their eyes might be the guilty witnesses of the sword that pierced their flesh. And so the martyrs got up and went to the spot of their own accord as the people wanted them to, and kissing one another they sealed their martyrdom with the ritual kiss of peace. The others took the sword in silence and without moving, especially Saturus, who being the first to climb the stairway was the first to die. For once again he was waiting for Perpetual Perpetua, however, had yet to taste more pain. She screamed as she was struck on the bone; then she took the trembling hand of the young gladiator and guided it to her throat. It was as though so great a woman, feared as she was by the unclean spirit, could not be dispatched unless she herself were willing.

Ah, most valiant and blessed martyrs! Truly are you called and chosen for the glory of Christ Jesus our Lord! And any man who exalts, honours, and worships his glory should read for the consolation of the Church these new deeds of heroism which are no less significant than the tales of old. For these new manifestations of virtue will bear witness to one and the same Spirit who still operates, and to God the Father almighty, to his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom is splendour and immeasurable power for all the ages. Amen.

There is persecution and then there is persecution (thanks to our mid-West correspondent).

30 thoughts on “Woman Up”

  1. Christianity has historically had a privileged position in America. I think that we as American Christians must be careful not to confuse loss of privileged status with persecution.

    Like

  2. If the sermons were proclamations of the gospel maybe the preachers should be glad to send their them to the city board. It would be an otherwise rare opportunity to proclaim Christ to folks who won’t take the time to download them from the web.

    Like

  3. A database of preached sermons would be good ion order to calibrate the level of plagiarism that is going on each Sunday.

    Like

  5. It seems that the BB’s might benefit from understanding how Scripture instructs to deal with persecution:

    And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

    (Revelation 12:11-12 ESV)

    What is happening in Houston seems little more than a minor legal/political inconvenience, not bona fide persecution. But, even if it were granted that yielding sermon manuscripts (how many pastors in H-Town use one?), qualified as persecution – wouldn’t the biblical model here be to hand them over and let the consequences be what they will? If a pastor or Christians want to mount opposition, fine, but they shouldn’t mistake playing the political game with Christian witness in the face opposition. In my book, it’s totally fine to oppose the mayor’s subpoena on grounds of conscience or politics, but I don’t think we should automatically assume that opposition is accomplishing anything spiritual, or advancing the true interests of the Church militant.

    Like

  6. Yeah, the BB’s are melodramatic screamers and over reacting, but there really is such a thing as soft totalitarianism and genuine, not faux persecution.
    Lipservice to the rule of law, and you know who not withstanding, 21st century America really does have “hate” laws on the book which are actionable, end of story.
    And marital rights for lesbians and sodomites just happens to be the current sacred cow, golden calf and bugaboo of our coercive cognitive elite. Or if you prefer Codevilla’s term, the ruling class who believe in more big govt.
    Still if you can demand that pastors marry homosexuals which is where we’re headed in principle, you can demand that doctors perform abortions, photographers shoot pornography, bakers cater for cannibals and the rest of us have to sell it or contribute our tax dollars to support it.

    The fraternity in equality – equal outcome or egalitarianism – of the French Revolution, not the equal opportunity before the law of the American Revolution is the ahem, performative/operative conceptual paradigm that all the legal beagles yapping about the constitutional right to equal protection have engraved on the boot drive. Homosexuals have an “equal right” to get married. Well of course, they do. Trouble is, they operating according to a definition that thinks the exception of Nero should be the rule.
    And the lawyers are going to drive that concept into the rocks, because that’s what they do. Then the govt. will come along and say, let us help you fix the mess we made. Rinse, lather and repeat.
    Case in point the the constitutional case for Alice in Wonderland Alex in the Women’s Washroom aka the HERO. Res ipsa loquitur. (That’s latin, not a lisp.)

    Or to paraphrase Louie The Armstrong, ‘If ya gotta ask, you don’t know. And if ya don’t know, I can’t tell you’.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I got to go tune up the beany copter.
    cheerio

    Like

  8. Darryl,

    I agree Houston and Idaho aren’t exactly persecution but things are moving swiftly—much more swiftly than I anticipated—in an unhappy and even ugly direction. It behooves us to pay attention. First it was college campuses regulating speech in unconstitutional ways. That didn’t really hurt anyone off campus but people who grew up under the idea that they have a right not ever to be offended to have their feelings hurt eventually come into positions of real authority (such as city attorney or mayor) and then things begin to get serious. We have a duty to pay attention and not to tell ourselves that these things don’t mean anything. We may disagree as to exactly what they mean but they do mean something.

    It wasn’t that long ago that JFK had to convince everyone that he wasn’t a secret agent of the Vatican. We’ve come a ways from those concerns about church and state to another set of concerns altogether.

    Like

  9. Scott, perhaps. But I never take city politics seriously. I’ve seen The Wire. Seriously, I think we have to be careful to distinguish a Christian from a politically conservative reaction to stories like this. I can’t imagine the apostles going batty over the emperor. Actually, I can. And Revelation is one of the hardest books in the Bible to understand. I wish I had similar trouble understanding the Christians who have gone ballistic over this one.

    Like

  10. It seems to me that one ought not to turn a certain reading of historical Providence into the Law of God which we must obey in order to be faithful to Christ; i.e. if we are not reading history “right,” then we are failing morally, and thus in sin. Do we not have the Christian freedom to interpret history differently such that we think America is not ancient Rome?

    I also wonder whether these verses also might apply to us when local governments step on our rights a bit:

    Matthew 5:
    39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

    In other words, if they ask for a sermon, send them two.

    I Peter 2:
    18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. 19 For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. 20 For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. 21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: 22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

    This is to slaves; how much more so then for free citizens? One might think we would look for opportunities to suffer as slaves do — just a little bit — in order to imitate our Savior more.

    Like

  11. Chris you are exactly right about the temptations of reading providence in terms of our own social location. Doug Frank (in Less than Conquerers) shows how this worked when “evangelicals” lost their powers last time.

    Those who are studying persecution while on a study cruise with Sproul (see the link above in dgh’s post) will maybe cry out “woe is me” and react in fear like those Old School Presbyterians who resisted changes in the institution of slavery.

    Theodore D. Bozeman, “Inductive and Deductive Polities”, Journal of American History, December 1977, p722–Materially comfortable and conspicuously toward the leading groups in society, the old school carried forward traditional Calvinist support for business and professional vocations….Having supported from the beginning a version of Protestantism supportive of property consciousness, the Old School leadership had incentive enough for worry about social instability… Old School contributions to social analysis may be viewed as a sustained attempt to defend the inherited social structure…The General Assembly found it necessary to lament the practice of those who ‘question and unsettle practice which have received the enlightened sanction of centuries’… Social naturalists assumed that the laws of society were not merely true, that is, given in the scheme of nature. They bore too the humbling force of prescription; they demanded compliance. The desire was to draw the ought out of the is…to make facts serve a normative purpose.”

    Janice Knight–The first group, familiar to readers of The New England Mind, is composed of Perry Miller’s “orthodoxy” : Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, Peter Bulkeley, John Winthrop, and most of the ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony…. identified power as God’s essential attribute and described his covenant with human beings as a conditional promise. They preached the necessity of human cooperation in preparing the heart for that promised redemption, and they insisted on the usefulness of Christian works as evidence of salvation…. Miller, among others, has lamented that these religionists developed structures of preparationism and an interlocking system of contractual covenants that diminished the mystical strain of piety he associated with Augustinianism.

    Janice Knight—The second body closely embodies that Augustinian strain. Originally centered at the Cambridge colleges and wielding great power in the Caroline court, this group was led in America by John Cotton, John Davenport, and Henry Vane. Neither a sectarian variation of what we now call “orthodoxy” in New England nor a residual mode of an older piety, this party presented a alternative within the mainstream of Puritan religious culture. In a series of contests over political and social dominance in the first American decades, this group lost their claim to status as an “official” or “orthodox” religion in New England. Thereafter, whiggish histories (including Cotton Mather’s own) tell the winner’s version, demoting central figures of this group to the cultural sidelines by portraying their religious ideology as idiosyncratic and their marginalization as inevitable. (Janice Knight,”Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism)

    Like

  12. Yeah, swamp ’em with sermons.
    Wheelbarrows full. Lined up for miles.

    But really, Anita O’Day was not persecuted?
    Chuck McIlhenny (OPC) in San Fran?
    No it ain’t Rome, but neither is this the Old Anachronism Society.
    Equal outcome/results, positive law in place of moral or natural.
    Connect the dots.
    If the BB’s at least know something’s afoot, it can’t be that tough for Old Schoolers to figure it out, can it? Or are the OSers still in kindergarten?

    We got a case of a lesbian mayor hiring lawyers to file a subpoena that’s as broad as the highway to you know where in defence of an ordinance that prosecutes anybody that disagrees with or businesses that don’t provide the opportunity for a male voyeur, rapist, opportunist or loonie tune psycho to use the women’s bathroom at will under the guise of “equal rights”.

    Any judge in his right mind would throw the ordinance out on its ear and give the bum’s rush to the lawyers who brought the frivolous suit, if not disbar them. Plaintiffs would be paying all of the defense expenses and then some.

    Wait, that would be in a sane world.
    Not even a Christian world, so yeah, maybe the notBB’s are right. This is Not persecution.
    It is idiocy.

    My bad. Sorry. I’ll be good next time.

    Like

  13. Bob- all that might be but do you really think the Bawler Bros (or you?) would stand up for Muslims if they encountered the same (speaking of rule of law)?

    Like

  14. GAS-X, let’s see…

    Bumper Sticker BS Bob, is there such a thing as Islamophobia? Bill Maher: more religious bigot or clarion voice on the dangers of Islam in the hands of an angry kook? Is it true that observant religionists of whatever faith tend to make good citizens?

    Like

  15. Imagine what the BB’s could accomplish with civil authority, stocks, and a red-hot poker.

    I was a victim of anti-Christian bigotry this past weekend. Our local library had a book sale and I noticed that the books from the “Left Behind” series were in the “fiction” section and not in the “religion” or “history” section. Consider me slighted.

    Like

  16. RSC – I agree Houston and Idaho aren’t exactly persecution but things are moving swiftly—much more swiftly than I anticipated—in an unhappy and even ugly direction.

    Erik – I agree with Darryl that there’s danger in universalizing local politics. Wacky things happen in bastions of liberalism and secularism (e.g. College campuses) but so what? Last I looked the map was mostly red and the Republicans are set to take over the U.S. Senate. The judiciary leans left, but the Catholics are currently beating the Jews on the U.S. Supreme Court. These things ebb & flow as they always have, throughout history, throughout the world.

    Keep in mind that the news is driven by 5% of the population that are liberal activists and 5% that are conservative activists. The 90% in the middle mostly don’t give a crap and are going to do little to support extremists on either end of the spectrum if it actually requires any effort.

    Like

  17. stevie- I wasn’t asking a sociological question. However, since I’m a pavlovian stimulus for you to jump on your favorite hobby horse (squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak) I’m happy to oblige. Why do you ask?

    Like

  19. The elected commissioners of the Appalachian county were my business is domiciled voted very showily in the last year to have IN GOD WE TRUST painted on all the county buildings. This would seem to be a significant victory to culture warriors and would be almost unimaginable to embattled Xians on the right or left coast. But (Captain Renault is shocked, shocked) meth making continues apace, prescription drugs are abused at epidemic levels, adultery is still popular, shady business deals abound, and the overwhelming majority of the citizens still treat Sunday as any other day.

    Like

  22. Erik, recently I had lunch at “The Pita House,” and the Arabic woman skimped the tahini sauce on my Babaghanooj. But Paul told me there’d be days like this.

    Like

  24. gaz,
    Is kill the infidel/jihad fundamental to Islam or not?
    Exception or the rule?
    Back in ye goode olde days the Mormons had to drop polygamy before they could become a state.
    Does 2k mean anything goes.

    Grim, when ya gonna stop lashing out? Curt wants to know.

    Like

  25. BS Bob, so that’s a “no, clarion voice, and whatever-JihadWatch-says.” But would a return to goodle days be kicking 32 states out of the union for not sufficiently legislating Christian mores by allowing gay marriage? 2k minds want to know.

    Like

  26. Bob-which Muslim where? What Mormon when? You need to take off that rule of law mask it doesn’t fit you; you look silly. Curt wants to know if you’ll join a group.

    Like

  28. Bob- I channeled Hayak and he said your emphasis on classes of persons is antithetical to the rule of law and leading us down the road to serfdom. He said you and Curt agree in principal if not application. He told me to remind you what he wrote in “Law, Legislation, and Liberty”:
    “Justice is thus emphatically not a balancing of particular interests at stake in a concrete case, or even of the interests of determinable classes of persons, nor does it aim at bringing about a particular state of affairs which is regarded as just.”

    Like

  29. Gaz, don’t channel Hayek until you can spell him right.
    And my emphasis on classes of persons? You’re preaching to the choir. The HoustonEqRightsOrd is about justice/special rights/exceptions for some very speshul people, lesbians, sodomites and other pschosexually disturbed individuals that want to use the opposite sex’s washroom.

    But this just in.
    The Boy Scouts discriminate against girls. (Boo. Hiss. Mega Ungood.)

    Gee Ollie, what are we going to do about equal constitutional protection for all the girls that want to be Boy Scouts?
    Oh come on, Stan. Don’t be a stupid right wing hater. It’s simple. We just give them free sex change operations and the problem is solved.
    You’re such a genius, Ollie. How come you’re not president?
    Because being puppet master is more fun, Stan.

    Like

  30. BBBBBBut Bobbi- it sounds as if you want to bring about a particular state of affairs? Oh well, the heck with Hayek (and the rule of law) I hear Barton is coming out with a new book which will show us the way to the promise land through evangelical obedience (even if he has to lie about history). With soldiers like Bobbi how can we fail? Barton will be our Moses and Bobbi our Joshua. All hail Barton and Bobbi! All hail Barton and Bobbi!

    Like

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.