Back in the 1980s, my family began learning many things we never would have known had we not been listening to American Family Radio, a Christian radio network carrying many streams of information. There were news shows, sermons, talk shows covering a wide range of topics, and Christian teaching programs. I learned of good and bad— with the bad including how Christians in some parts of America were beginning to be “persecuted,” so to speak. Their First Amendment rights were being threatened or outright removed from places like school campuses, workplaces, the streets, and even church settings. I also began getting information from organizations such as the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group that represents people facing these problems.
I ran across Janet L. Folger’s book The Criminalization of Christianity, copyrighted back in 2005. The only problem with this being an old book is that the situation has only gotten worse since then. As we all know, a number of years ago, the Supreme Court ruled against prayer in schools, and later the Ten Commandments were removed. In some states, for many years now, I have read reports of children being told they could not bow their heads in the cafeteria to give thanks, or write reports about their favorite hero—Jesus.
She quotes journalist Richard Vigilante, who takes issue with schools undermining parents’ values: “If Americans do not have the right to maintain, for themselves and their families, moral beliefs taught for millennia by the religions to which between 70–90 percent of the population subscribe, then a lot of us are living in the wrong country.”
The Boy Scouts of America were kicked out of city parks, public schools, and local meeting rooms. They lost city, county, and United Way funding to mentor kids without fathers. They began being labeled “discriminatory” and “bigoted.” As Ms. Folger said, “Why? Because the Boy Scouts didn’t think it was in the best interest of young boys to let self-proclaimed homosexuals become scout leaders and go camping with them.” On university campuses, Christian clubs were not permitted to meet because they wouldn’t allow homosexuals on their board of directors. And in some places in the world, pastors have gone to jail for reading “hate speech” from the Bible—specifically Romans Chapter 1.
Everyone has heard of “hate speech” laws, which are used to keep people from saying anything against behaviors others disagree with. Christian people can actually go to jail in some places for expressing their biblical beliefs against activities deemed morally wrong by the words of the Bible. Even if a person wants to help someone who isn’t adhering to Biblical morals—trying to get them to at least think about their behavior—it is not legally acceptable.
I remember when some people accused pro-lifers of hatred toward abortionists and assumed that all Christians were in favor of their murder. I wonder if Mississippi still has a hate speech law. On page 128 of Ms. Folger’s book, she listed Mississippi as one of the states “where ‘gender identity’ was added to the hate-crimes list.” Another place Mississippi is mentioned is on page 145, where she says our state had representatives on a task force to train students to “police the halls for ‘violators of verbal offenses.’” The program was “spearheaded by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and the National Association of Attorneys General.”
In April 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Claude Alexander Allen to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His nomination was blocked. Ms. Folger recounts, “The lovely ladies at the National Organization of (some) Women submitted a reason their obstructionist-minded Democratic supporters considered valid enough to keep Allen off the bench: His children are homeschooled.” She continued, “I am also confident that Senate Democrats would never confirm our Founding Fathers to the bench! They believed in God and what the Bible says—and they were homeschooled, too!”
I wish I could include more quotes from her chapter on Ronald Reagan, whom she admired as we did back then. On February 10, 1982, he said, “It’s hard when you’re up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp.”
The question at the end of the flyleaf of the book asks, “At a time when upholding traditional values has somehow become synonymous with ‘intolerance,’ will you rise up and defend your religious freedoms—before it’s too late?”
This is twenty years later, and we can see the handwriting on the wall—even written larger than in 2005!
People, get ready! Jesus is coming soon!
You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282
