This is the first of a series of posts related to the November 2020 elections in the United States. The first post will give an overview of what the election of a Democratic president and Congress means for the persecution of Christians in the United States. The following posts will analyze what is happening from a biblical viewpoint, answering the crucial questions of how to understand these events within the framework of biblical prophecy, and how American Christians should respond. It is my conviction that the American church has failed to understand these events and respond properly to them because it does not understand or accept biblical prophecy, which is the key to making sense of the events of our time. Too many Christians are shocked by what is happening because they do not understand what the Bible says about the world becoming dramatically worse before the return of Christ, and they do not believe that the United States—the dominant country in the world of the end times—is even mentioned in biblical prophecy. In fact, difficult days are ahead, though in the end it will all work out for good as part of God’s plan to wind up the affairs of this world and replace the kingdoms of this world with His own eternal kingdom.

The narrow and disputed election victory of the Democrats in November 2020 and January 2021 appears to be a watershed moment in the history of both the United States and of the entire world. It signifies not just a change of agenda, but a takeover of the world’s most powerful country by a party that intends to prosecute its ideological opponents for alleged political and religious “crimes.” This represents a radical departure from traditional party politics in the United States, which sought to preserve freedom of speech and the democratic system of government by allowing the free expression of opposing views. While the more “political” issues get the headlines, I would like to point out how the Democratic Party has shifted radically to the left on religious issues over the past few decades, and what the current threats to religious liberty are.

1. In 1993, Congressman Chuck Schumer and Senator Ted Kennedy cosponsored the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which specified that the enforcement of government laws and regulations must allow broad latitude for religious objections, in order to prevent unintentional restrictions on religious freedom. The RFRA passed Congress nearly unanimously, and President Bill Clinton enthusiastically signed it into law.
   • Now, Chuck Schumer has vowed to pass the Equality Act immediately after Democrats regain control of the Senate, and Joe Biden has promised to sign the Equality Act into law. The Equality Act essentially seeks to make sexual liberties override religious liberties. It stipulates that all people must be allowed to use the bathroom or locker room of their choice, without any exemption for Christian organizations or parental religious beliefs. In fact, it specifically states that the RFRA cannot be used to provide “any claim, defense, or basis” for challenging the requirements of the Equality Act. When the Equality Act was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019, all the Democrats voted for it, but only eight Republicans joined them. The Senate never voted on the Equality Act due to Republican opposition, and President Trump also issued an official statement opposing it.
   • If the Equality Act is passed in the Senate without a successful Republican filibuster, it will create immediate legal problems for Christian institutions, resulting in a court battle. One obvious area of contention will be whether Christian organizations can expel or refuse to admit students, staff, or faculty who are active homosexuals or who undergo a “gender transition.” Probably state and federal governments will deny student loans and other financial aid to schools that refuse to comply, accreditation agencies will revoke accreditation, the IRS will revoke tax-exempt status, and some states may revoke Christian schools’ licenses to operate. Some individual school presidents or pastors may be charged with criminal offenses. The current Supreme Court would almost certainly rule in favor of Christian institutions, but some lower courts would not. Also, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court could be lost by packing the court or by deaths and retirements. More disconcertingly, the Equal Rights Amendment is very close to passage by the states and by Congress, and not even a conservative Supreme Court could overturn a constitutional amendment. (Some liberals even want to rewrite the entire Constitution.) Once the Equality Act is passed, it will be nearly impossible to overturn, as there is not enough popular support, and certainly not enough establishment support, for the protection of Christian churches and schools which have policies that exclude homosexuals.
   • Another bill that has been proposed in the U.S. House, the Do No Harm Act, also specifically annuls provisions of RFRA and redefines statutory harm to include the supposed emotional harm that is inflicted on homosexuals by Christians organizations with lifestyle standards that refuse membership to practicing homosexuals.
2. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Communications Decency Act in order to restrict internet pornography. This act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 414-16, and the Senate by a vote of 91-5.
   • Now, mainstream opinion journalists and the big tech companies openly advocate pornography as something positive and healthy, and pornography illustrating all sorts of sexual perversion has been added to the sex ed curriculum of some public schools. (In some states sex ed is K-12, with a heavy emphasis on presenting homosexuality and transgenderism in a positive light, and warning that abstinence is harmful.) The Democrats are also mandating sexual abuse in schools by requiring schools to allow students and teachers to use the locker room or restroom of their choice, and it seems likely that they will soon pass laws that erase all legal distinctions between male and female toplessness. Even worse things are likely on the horizon. Unfortunately, a growing number of Republicans are also in favor of such indecency, although nearly all political opposition to sexual immorality is to be found within the Republican Party.
3. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages, and declared that states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. This act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 342-67, and the Senate by a vote of 85-14. In 2000 and 2008, the people of California voted in favor of propositions that banned gay marriage. In his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama stated repeatedly that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, and that he is opposed to gay marriage.
   • In 2012, Obama completely reversed his position, violating his oath of office by refusing to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act without the law being repealed by Congress. (This began a trend; Democratic executives at all levels of government have since stopped enforcing laws which they dislike, usurping legislative power.) Pressure from Obama and the federal government led to the 2015 Obergefell decision by the Supreme Court that made same-sex “marriage” the law of the land, as liberal justices usurped the power of Congress and read into the Constitution a right that was clearly never intended by those who passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Immediately afterward, the Obama administration launched a global campaign of persecution against all those who advocate the very position that Obama himself advocated only a few years earlier. There was great celebration by Leftists and the mainstream media when Kim Davis, a Christian county clerk in Kentucky who declined to place her signature on marriage licenses for same-sex couples, was imprisoned. The depth of hatred that Democrats have for those who hold a different ideology—especially those who espouse biblical Christian values—seems to know no bounds.
4. In the 1990s, liberal Democrats led an anti-smoking crusade, winning class-action lawsuits against the big tobacco companies, increasing cigarette taxes, banning smoking indoors, and educating people about the dangers of cigarette smoking. Senator Joe Biden coined the term “drug czar” in 1982 and led the effort to establish the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in 1988. Senator Biden and President Clinton supported the reauthorization of the ONDCP in 1996 as part of the “War on Drugs.” The 1996 reauthorization bill specifically prohibited the use of federal funds for research related to the medical use or legalization of marijuana.
   • Today, Biden and the Democrats have pledged to legalize marijuana nationwide. Several liberal states and municipalities have already legalized (decriminalized) hard drugs, and the Democrats will legalize these nationally sooner or later. It is unfortunate that some Republicans also favor the legalization of marijuana, although there is far more opposition to drug legalization within the Republican Party than within the Democratic Party.
   • While at this point Christians are not being punished for opposing drugs, it is possible that such persecution could come. Simply living in a society where drugs are openly sold and consumed is spiritually and physically oppressive.

The following is a list of other assaults on Christian religious liberty that are likely to come in the United States soon.

• An expansion of “hate speech” laws that will require the recognition of the legitimacy of transgenderism by punishing those who refer to transgender persons using the pronoun of their birth (physical) gender. This has already begun as a workplace rule and a requirement by media companies, but will expand to include fines or imprisonment for all violators in all contexts.
• It is possible that an anti-Christian “doctrinal statement” may be introduced into workplaces and/or made a requirement for holding public office, which would require people to recognize the legitimacy of homosexuality, homosexual “marriage,” transgenderism, and so forth. In authoritarian countries that have a façade of democracy, it is common for only those candidates approved by the ruling class to be allowed to run in elections. This removes all possibility of a future change in the ruling party’s core policies. Already it seems likely that conservative Congressmen who anger the left-wing establishment will be expelled from Congress by Democratic Congressional leaders, overturning elections.
• There will be a continuing expansion of the types of sexual perversion that are not merely recognized as legitimate, but that are celebrated, protected, and aggressively advocated. “Homosexual” became “LGBT,” which has become “LGBTIQ+”, and this will likely be expanded to include pedophilia, incest, bestiality, and who knows what else.
• There may be some sort of regulations imposed on Christian schools and homeschools that will require all students to be indoctrinated with the leftist worldview, especially on the homosexual issue.
• There will be a continuation and acceleration of the purge of cultural symbols of the past from museums, parks, government buildings, and history books.
• Big tech, publishers, and the rest of corporate America have already begun aggressive ideological purges of books, articles, videos, websites, merchandise, and advertising that are deemed “offensive” or “contaminated” due to association with a conservative “sinner.” Some sort of ideological purges will likely be made official U.S. government policy at some point, as in many other countries. I fully expect that the day will come when Amazon removes my books and WordPress removes my blog, if I do not first migrate elsewhere.
• Services may be denied to individuals who are known to be part of a hated class of people (i.e., conservative Christians) by companies that fear even the slightest association with ideological opponents of the Left. Eventually this will likely mean exclusion from basic services, such as air travel, hotel, cell phone, banking, internet shopping, and even insurance. This is a more radical form of the discriminatory policies that were once imposed on blacks in parts of the U.S., which is now being done under the false pretense of “inclusion” and “anti-discrimination.”
• Joe Biden has stated that he may ask Congress to pass a “domestic terrorism” law and to create a special office in the White House to fight “ideological extremists.” Such a law would likely allow the president to suspend the civil liberties of conservative groups or individuals that he deems “ideological extremists” and would allow Biden to use federal funds to promulgate propaganda for liberal “values” in the media and schools.
• In spite of this past summer’s “cancel culture” assault on Senator Tom Cotton and President Trump for proposing the use of the military to control leftist rioters, and Trump’s toleration of the vast left-wing protests at his own inauguration, the military is already being deployed to deter conservatives from protesting the Leftist ascent to power. This shows that the Democrats are willing to use military force to crush opposition to their agenda. Any resistance to the crackdown will provide an excuse for stronger measures.
• The homosexual agenda will be imposed on other countries through strongarm tactics by corporate America and as part of the official foreign policy of the United States. Foreign companies, political leaders, and governments that oppose homosexual “marriages” or other aspects of the liberal agenda will face a devastating boycott.

How did we get to this place? The United States has been decaying spiritually for quite some time. By the late 1990s, it had became clear that the homosexual rights movement, which was an outgrowth of the feminist movement, was a polarizing “wedge” issue because it forced everyone to take a stance on one side or the other, with no middle ground (in spite of the talk at the time of moral relativism, tolerance, and multiculturalism). Further, militant homosexuals made clear that they were not just seeking toleration, but also a ban on all criticism of homosexuality and the opportunity to “proselytize” children and teenagers by presenting the homosexual lifestyle as normal, healthy, and even superior. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, homosexual rights continued to be expanded at all levels of government in the United States, and the movement even began to make inroads in the church. However, it was the Obama presidency that radicalized and hardened the Left—and not just on the homosexual issue—making Leftists unwilling to compromise or take a conciliatory posture towards conservatives. Beginning towards the end of the George W. Bush presidency, but accelerating at a feverish pace since the end of the Obama presidency, left-wing Democrats have waged an unrelenting war on conservatives, with no desire to “turn down the temperature,” compromise, or be amicable.

Too many Christians and pastors view the conflict in America as purely political, rather than spiritual. In fact, Daniel 10–12 teaches that visible political conflicts are merely a manifestation of an invisible spiritual conflict between God and His agents and Satan and his agents. The real conflict is spiritual, and the spiritual drives the political (see this post). This does not imply that political activism is the best way to fight the spiritual battle, or that the Republican Party is always right. But it does mean that political events are not without spiritual significance, and are not always secondary issues or matters on which pastors and churches should remain silent or refuse to take sides. In the United States today, it is clear that the Democratic Party has a thoroughly satanic agenda and attitude. While I recognize that there are many problems in the Republican Party, only the Republican Party still has many advocates for biblical morality on key issues, and President Trump was a very strong defender of Christian religious liberty. Political activism will not save America, but it sure is important not to be supporting the side that is persecuting God’s people. One’s Christian faith should not be separated from any area of one’s life, and certainly not from contemporary politics, where Americans are literally voting on whether to persecute Christians. Shame on evangelical Christians who voted Democratic in the last election. Shame on Christian leaders who steered people away from voting Republican.

American political “Leftism” is looking increasingly like a religious system. Leftism holds to a dogmatic system of beliefs, seeks to impose them on others, and seeks to identify and eliminate heretics. Leftism is in many ways a political religion, because it uses politics as a means of spreading its values and forcing conversions. Homosexual rights is one of its core tenets; some others currently include more general sexual openness, abortion, assisted suicide/euthanasia, legalized drugs, Darwinian evolution, global warming, and economic socialism. Christianity, in its traditional and biblical form, is viewed as the greatest threat to the religion of Leftism and its ideological opposite. The fervor of Leftists in America is also characteristic religious fervor, which can be seen in Leftists from top to bottom—from the corporate executives who eagerly cut all ties with anyone who is deemed a “sinner,” to the opinion journalists who ceaselessly rail against conservatives without any attempt to be nice or fair or unhypocritical, to the many people in my own neighborhood who aggressively post atheistic and Democratic Party signs in their front yards year-round. It is clear that there is a satanic energy behind the religious fervor of Leftism, as Satan makes a final great push to wipe out Christians and Jews before Jesus returns.

Even before the Democratic Party takeover of Congress and the White House, the Left found a way to exercise political control over American institutions without formally being invested with political power, by a near-total takeover of the elite establishment. If a corporate executive is heard saying something as innocuous as, “I do not believe a man should marry another man”—a moral principle so fundamental to human civilization that it has been taken for granted by virtually everyone in world history before just the last few decades—that executive will be fired and will not be able to find another job. Teachers, government workers, and even many private employees could also be fired for making such a statement. As for big tech companies, they have shown that they do not just have the power to censor content on their own platforms—they also have the power to censor competitors’ platforms. Essentially they have considerable power to control content across the entire internet, at least in the United States. Virtually any website or cell phone app can be censored by leftist American tech giants. Without passing a constitutional amendment to annul freedom of speech, the Left now strictly controls what may and may not be said. When the leftist establishment acts in concert to censor and purge conservatives, they are carrying out extrajudicial punishments without legal due process or legislative action. Without respect for the Constitution, for due process, and for free exchange of ideas, true democracy cannot exist, since debates, campaigns, and elections cannot be truly free. There can be no effective political opposition to leftist ideology, particularly on the all-important moral and spiritual issues.

There is some uncertainty at present as to what the Democrats might do in the short term to attack Christian individuals and institutions that oppose homosexuality and that in general espouse a biblical worldview. It is clear that strong repressive measures are coming, including not just restrictions on Christians but also the legalization of more sinful practices. Some of the coming measures are doubtless ones that very few people are currently talking about. I do not personally know exactly when or how all of these measures will come. Perhaps the worst will not come until the Republican Party also shifts more fully to the left on moral and spiritual issues. However, I can say with confidence that the day will come when not only will Bible-believing institutions and churches in America be closed, but the United States will actually lead a worldwide campaign to persecute and kill Christians wherever they may be found. The United States will never be turned around spiritually and politically, and efforts to save America are futile. Ultimately, American Christians will need to follow the steps of their forebears and peacefully leave their country in search of religious freedom elsewhere. How do I know these things? From biblical prophecy, which will be the subject of my next post.

In my previous post, I discussed a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court this fall regarding the refusal of a Christian to actively support homosexual “marriage.” Given the Court’s current makeup and the rulings of lower courts, it is almost certain that SCOTUS will rule against the Christian in this case, which will have far-reaching legal implications for other Christians in the United States. Now another troubling case seems certain to head to the Supreme Court, following President Trump’s ban on “transgender” individuals from service in the U.S. military. In spite of the fact that this ban was in place without a legal challenge up until October of last year, it seems possible that the Supreme Court will rule that discrimination against people who identify as “transgender” is somehow unconstitutional. Such a ruling would have a wide-ranging effect that would surely put greater legal pressure on churches and other Christian institutions to compromise. Perhaps the only thing that could weaken the Court’s position is the fact that allowing the participation of men in women’s sports as “transgender women” would make it impossible for female athletes to compete.

While there is still some uncertainty regarding these rulings and their effects, it has been apparent for decades that American culture is becoming progressively more anti-Christian, leading to increasing legal and cultural pressures on Christians. It has become increasingly apparent that a large number of people on the American political Left believe that those who hold opposing viewpoints should not be tolerated and should not even have a legal right to exist. These Leftists control much of academia, the media, and the corporate world. Their agenda is increasingly coming into the church, which means that the church does not present unified opposition to the Leftist agenda. A recent poll showed that 47 percent of young white American evangelicals believe that homosexual “marriage” should be legal; the question of whether homosexual acts should be legal does not even get asked because it is assumed that nearly everyone would say they should be. It is evident that at some point Leftists will gain enough power to fully implement their agenda, which is particularly aimed at destroying conservative, biblical Christianity for its moral values and theological dogma. Exactly when and how this will happen is not known, but in general the Left only needs control of a single branch of government to advance its agenda.

Perhaps the crisis will hit this fall, after the Court’s ruling against Masterpiece Cakeshop (if that is indeed what happens). Or perhaps it will come more gradually, given that there is now a Republican president, a Republican Congress, and Republican control of most state governments. Perhaps the crisis will hit at different times for Christians who live in different states or who engage in different occupations. But the fact that only one Christian was imprisoned for refusing to sign marriage licenses for homosexual couples should be of no comfort, since the rest of us who hold the same convictions would also have been imprisoned if we had been in the same situation. It should be remembered that Kim Davis’ imprisonment was actually celebrated by then-President Obama, the mainstream media, technology executives, and large numbers of their supporters on the political Left. They made it clear that they want all who hold opposing views to be forced to recant, or to be removed from society if they refuse to renounce their beliefs. When it comes to the issue of homosexuality, in particular, no opposing viewpoints are tolerated. The fact that this attitude is considered the politically correct attitude should certainly give pause to Christians in the United States.

Given the clear direction of the political and religious situation in the United States, it is completely befuddling that American Christians, their churches, and other Christian institutions have made no plans whatsoever for what to do when the crisis hits. There is no biblical justification for lack of foresight or preparation. Of course Christians should pray and speak out, but the Bible does not promise the church protection from persecution. So far, the church’s response has been (1) to pray that the U.S. would get “turned around”; (2) to be socially and politically active in order to “take the culture back”; or (3) “they’ll just have to put us in jail.” There really has been no forward thinking or facing of the facts. American churches have also done little or nothing to enable persecuted Christians in other countries to migrate to safer places.

In the book of Acts, we find that when Christians were forced to leave their comfort zone in Jerusalem due to persecution, the subsequent scattering of Christians throughout the world turned out to be good for the growth of the church (Acts 8:4). It forced Christians to spread out to the world when they would not go voluntarily to do missionary work. In the American context, ministries which have an overseas arm could potentially transfer their assets to their foreign headquarters before they are seized by the U.S. government or lost in lawsuits. There are ample historical examples of Christians fleeing persecution as a group and establishing new Christian communities in foreign countries. Church historians tell us that all the Christians in Jerusalem fled the city together just before the outbreak of the Jewish War in AD 66; they survived the war by relocating their community to the Gentile city of Pella. Many of the early settlers in the United States itself were fleeing persecution in Europe and were searching for a place where they could worship God freely according to their conscience.

I believe it is time for the American church to start making serious plans to move their institutions, their money, and ultimately their people, overseas in anticipation of the inevitable outlawing of biblical Christianity in the United States. Churches should also prepare to move from one country to another as the world changes. The solution is not political activism, which will not reverse the long-term cultural trend, or revolution, which is both futile and unbiblical. Seeing as we have been given a legal reprieve through the election of a Republican president, Christian organizations and seminaries should start establishing overseas headquarters or campuses, and they should make plans to move all their assets overseas if necessary before they are confiscated. While such projects as new buildings on a seminary or church campus, the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, and the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. are worthy and valuable, it is very questionable how long these institutions will be able to operate before the government institutes requirements with which they cannot comply. Why not invest overseas? Christians should especially look to invest in the Middle East, which the Bible reveals is the focus of end time events. Africa is another place in which the church is under-invested, in spite of containing many Christian-friendly countries. Latin America is an easier and closer place for Americans to go, although the level of religious freedom in Latin American countries varies and has been decreasing.

A parallel could be drawn between the situation of Christians in present-day America and the situation of Jews in Germany in the 1930s. As the Nazi party rose to power, their intentions to persecute and kill Jews became ever clearer, yet only some Jews fled, or were able to flee, and some waited until it was very late in the game. Those who remained suffered terribly. Hitler would have killed every last Jew in Europe had the Allies not liberated his concentration camps (in God’s providence). Overall, one could say that the Jewish community in Germany, and in Europe as a whole, lacked any sort of master plan to enable them all to flee before Hitler’s pogrom began. Nor is it disingenuous to make a comparison to the Holocaust: there have been many times and places from the first century up to the present day in which governments have attempted to exterminate all Bible-believing Christians and churches using the most horrific imaginable means of torture and mass murder. The Bible makes clear that Christians will again be terribly persecuted at the end of the present age (Rev 17:6; 18:24; 19:2).

The problem for the church in the United States is not just legal pressure, but also cultural assimilation. The church has for a long time been losing its young people to the allures of American culture, while those who have stayed in the church have adopted many of the culture’s beliefs and practices in contradiction of biblical teaching. On the other hand, it could be argued that Christians are still having a significant restraining influence in American culture and politics, and that they should largely stay put while they are still able to have this influence. While there is room for debate regarding when it will be appropriate or necessary for Christians to make the uncomfortable decision to migrate from the United States, it should be apparent that that day will come, and it is therefore wise to prepare for it.

Anthony Kennedy, the octogenarian senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and the Court’s swing vote, was widely expected to announce his retirement this past Monday. Unfortunately, Kennedy decided not to retire. His continued presence on the Court is likely to have huge negative ramifications for Christians in the United States, given a case that the Court decided to hear in its fall term, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, No. 16-111.

I believe that the reason why Justice Kennedy decided not to retire is precisely because he wants to rule in October against Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop Lakewood, Colorado, and a grandfather of three. Phillips is a “cake artist” who creates spectacular cake designs. He also is a committed Christian who refuses requests to create cakes to celebrate Halloween, or to bake with alcohol. When a homosexual couple asked him in 2012 to create a designer cake to celebrate their upcoming wedding, Phillips refused. He said he would be happy to sell the couple baked goods for sale in his shop; he just would not create a custom cake to celebrate their wedding. He said he does not discriminate against homosexuals, but he also does not use his artistic talents to promote messages which are contrary to his religious beliefs. While the homosexual couple could have bought a cake from another bakery—in fact, another bakery made them a cake with a rainbow design for free—they decided to sue Mr. Phillips in order to punish him and other people of faith like him. All of the lower courts have ruled against Masterpiece Cakeshop, which makes it likely that the five socially liberal justices on the Supreme Court will follow the same line of reasoning. Ever since the incident occurred, Phillips has faced serious harassment, loss of business, and even death threats against him and his family.

Justice Kennedy had been signaling for months that he would retire at the end of the court’s summer term; supposedly he decided at the last moment not to do so. I suspect that Kennedy tricked his conservative colleagues into thinking he would retire in order to get them to schedule the case against Masterpiece Cakeshop for the Court’s fall term. Kennedy is afraid that his homosexual (LGBTQ) rights agenda will be reversed by his replacement, and he wants to force everyone in the country to conform to this agenda before he retires by means of a very restrictive, precedent-setting ruling. That ruling will state explicitly that the court-ordered prohibition on “discrimination” against homosexuals (really, an objection to their lifestyle) supersedes First Amendment freedom of religion. Then a row of dominoes will start to fall, as homosexuals demand admission into Christian colleges and seminaries, Christian non-profit groups, church membership, and even church pastorates. Pastors could be punished for refusing to perform weddings for homosexuals. Homosexuals will also have the power to close Christian businesses by requesting services which they know will be refused, and then having the courts fine these businesses until they are bankrupted. In addition, biblical preaching and teaching against homosexuality could be considered criminal hate speech, and Christian counselors could be punished for telling their clients that homosexual acts are sinful. After all, Mr. Phillips is being punished not for actively opposing homosexuality, but merely for refusing to support it.

It should be noted that the Courts have never interpreted anti-discrimination ordinances as broadly as they are now interpreting them with reference to homosexuals. Many churches have never allowed women to be pastors, elders, or deacons, and some Christian seminaries still do not admit female students or accept female faculty members. The courts have never ruled that women must be admitted to these positions because of laws (or court rulings) against gender discrimination. Nor have the courts ruled that a baker in Michigan would be discriminating against Ohioans if he refused to create a cake to celebrate Ohio State’s victory over the University of Michigan. Even on the issue of racial discrimination, a baker who does not refuse service to people because of race but declines to create a custom cake with a “Black Lives Matter” message would not be punished by the courts, since we have a right to free speech and are not compelled to promote controversial political messages. There is a different agenda in play on the issue of homosexual rights which makes different reasoning and standards apply to that single issue than to any other issue. This is because the appropriateness of homosexuality, unlike the existence of the female sex, the existence of different races, or the suitability of a sports team, is at its root a religious/spiritual issue. The goal of homosexual advocates is not merely to gain legal and social acceptance, as their agenda was once presented. Homosexual advocates are really seeking conversions—first, an ideological conversion (requiring a change in religion for some), but also a conversion of lifestyle. The ultimate goal of the homosexual movement is to create homosexual feelings in everyone by (1) teaching that homosexual desires and acts are a good thing which should be accepted and celebrated; (2) presenting images of homosexuals and homosexual romance throughout the media and in public settings (which those who have been indoctrinated will view with admiration); and (3) teaching children from about the supposed goodness of homosexuality from their earliest ages, and encouraging or forcing them to experiment with homosexuality (in order to change their natural desires). In other words, homosexuals are promoting their lifestyle as the superior one, with the aim of making everyone “LGBTQ” and not having any straight people around. Perhaps few advocates would say this outright, but it is clear from their activism that this is what they are doing.

Biblical Christianity is the main obstacle to the acceptance and propagation of homosexuality in Western society; therefore, it has become the primary target. Islam is sometimes condemned by homosexual advocates for its intolerance of homosexuals, although it is more often celebrated because of its intolerance of Christianity. With regard to the legal issues, judges have become theologians, taking sides in this spiritual battle which, at its very core, pits biblical Christianity against its opponents. Liberal judges and activists are seeking to force conversions to their side, not just in ideology but also in practice. They show no tolerance for what they view as despicable heresy, and they seek to censor and suppress it. If the desired laws are not passed by Congress or ratified by the states, then it is up to the courts to “protect” the homosexual agenda by prohibiting opposition to it. Homosexual “rights” are seen as a person’s most basic and fundamental legal rights, which means that all of one’s other rights may be taken away for refusal to support the homosexual agenda.

Given what is happening today, with the prospect of the loss of legal status for Christians in the United States, the significant question for Christians is how we ought to respond. This will be the subject of my next post.