Any report of religious believers—Christian or otherwise—suffering persecution for their faith is disturbing, especially to people who take their faith and the rights of others seriously. As a fifth-generation Seventh-day Adventist whose childhood training was suffused with stories of Christians whose testimony was sealed with their blood in Rome’s Colosseum, at the stake, on the heights of the Alps, and in the dungeons of the medieval Inquisition, I can attest to the inspiration and courage such accounts impart to the striving faithful. While very young, I read large portions of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, borrowed from our local church library.
The persecution of Christians is by no means extinct in today’s world. In many countries, witnesses for Christ can easily find themselves faced with career loss, prison, and even death for the sake of the Savior and the faith they love. A recent report by the U.S. State Department lists as many as 25 countries (mostly Muslim and/or Communist) where the persecution of Christians for their faith has been, and continues to be, a serious problem [1].
But in recent times, tragically, conscientious Christians and others have been faced with another phenomenon—false and exaggerated reports of religious persecution in the United States of America. Reports of this kind have had a tendency of late to encourage the notion that anti-God secularism is poised to take over the United States and obliterate Christian liberty.
The point here is not that all recent reports of mistreatment suffered by Christians in America are false or exaggerated, only that the credibility of a significant number has collapsed under careful scrutiny.
False Reports of Persecution: Some Recent Examples
Following are several recent reports of alleged governmental hostility toward Christians in the United States, mostly with reference to the LGBT issue:
1. The Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. In 2014, it was reported by a prominent Religious Right outlet that Don and Evelyn Knapp, a pastoral couple living in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, had been threatened with jail time if they didn’t adhere to the city’s non-discrimination laws by performing gay weddings at the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, a makeshift facility owned by the Knapps [2].
A lawsuit was subsequently filed by the Knapps against the city of Coeur d’Alene, asserting the couple’s right not to conform to the anti-discrimination statute on the basis of their religious beliefs [3]. However, a Fox News account of the incident reported that the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel was in fact “registered as a for-profit business—not as a church or place of worship [4]. As a for-profit business, the chapel was subject to the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance [5].
The bottom line of the whole affair, so simple it should embarrass those responsible for its agitation, is that the Knapps would have been spared any controversy whatsoever with the city authorities had they simply licensed their business in the first place as a strictly religious corporation. Apparently the couple figured this out in the midst of the controversy, and thus filed to alter the status of their business as a strictly religious organization, making it exempt from the city’s anti-discrimination law [6].
Once this change was made, even the liberal American Civil Liberties Union acknowledged that as a strictly religious entity, the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel was not subject to the city ordinance in question, and was thus free—in harmony with the pastoral couple’s religious faith—to refuse to perform gay marriages [7].
2. Vermont pastor sentenced to prison for refusing to perform gay wedding. Not long after the above incident in Idaho, it was widely reported in conservative Christian circles and elsewhere that a Christian pastor in the town of Proctor, Vermont, had been sentenced to prison for refusing to perform a gay wedding [8].
But an investigation revealed that the alleged pastor, one Paul Horner, turned out to be a fictional character [9], and that the church he supposedly pastored, the Christian Proctor Church, was also non-existent [10]. The Honorable Myron Danus, the judge who allegedly sentenced the pastor in question, didn’t exist either [11].
The present writer heard this alleged incident reported at a seminar on the LGBT issue conducted in the Adventist community where I live. I am happy to say that when I subsequently reported to those who had conducted the seminar that I had checked out the story and found it to be false, they thanked me for fact-checking the report and—to my knowledge—have not repeated it since.
The old saying about a lie traveling around the world before truth can get its boots on, is truer today in the contemporary world of social media and the Internet than at any previous time in history. But what is especially disgraceful is to find so-called Christians peddling these falsehoods. Biblical teachings regarding human sexuality don’t need lies to sustain them. Breaking one commandment in order to protect another is hardly tenable in light of the Biblical warning that “whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). Some professed Christians may need reminding that Revelation 21, verse 8—which speaks of “all liars” having their part in the “lake which burneth with fire and brimstone”—is still very much in the Bible.
3. California State Senate supposedly forbids pastors to preach the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality. Not much more than a year ago, I heard a Seventh-day Adventist pastor at a very large gathering make the claim that the California State Senate had passed a law intending to force pastors to stop preaching the Bible’s prohibition against homosexual practice. The pastor openly admitted that he had gotten this report from Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network [12]—not exactly a credible source for a Seventh-day Adventist to use, considering Robertson’s longtime support for the uniting of church and state and his explicit endorsement of Sunday laws in one of his bestselling books [13].
But regardless of what one thinks of the religio-political agenda of Pat Robertson, the Christian Broadcasting Network, or any of their ideological fellow travelers, the fact is that the above report about the law enacted by the California State Senate is totally false. Nothing in this bill attempted to dictate the content of sermons or any other religious presentation [14], much less “ban the sale of the Bible,” as some had alleged [15]. It was merely a non-binding resolution asking citizens to show compassion toward LGBT persons, and warning of the dangers of so-called “conversion therapy” [16].
Please understand that the “conversion therapy” this bill warns against has nothing to do with the heart-transformation and supernatural empowerment described in Holy Scripture, but is rather a reference to extreme, even barbaric techniques designed to change a person’s sexual proclivities. Such methods have included ice-pick lobotomies, nausea-inducing drugs, electric shocks applied to the hands and genitalia, etc [17]. Banning or advising against such perverse procedures in no way hampers or forbids the spread of the Biblical gospel of the forgiveness of sins and the power to overcome sin through Jesus’ blood (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 10:29; 13:12,20-21).
4. The state of Massachusetts identifies churches as “public accommodations.” A recent online article, warning against the Equality Act—now making its way through Congress—on account of the proposed law’s alleged attack on the rights of religious organizations to uphold the Bible’s sexuality teachings [18], claims that the state of Massachusetts now identifies churches and their sponsored institutions as “public accommodations,” and thus subject to the non-discrimination mandates of the Equality Act should it be enacted [19].
But the online article referenced above gives no documentation for its claim regarding the state of Massachusetts and its definition of public accommodation. The fact is that while, on September 1, 2016, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination did state that the Commonwealth’s public accommodation statute applied to churches, the statute’s actual wording makes no mention of churches or other religious organizations [20]. A subsequent article in the Harvard Law School Journal on Legislation noted:
The Commission does not get to write the law—the legislature does. And the text and history of Massachusetts’s nondiscrimination statute shows that churches are not places of public accommodation and are thus not subject to the nondiscrimination statute [21].
Conclusion
Persecution is a very real thing for Christians in many parts of the world. And we can’t deny that such experiences have occurred in free America, throughout our history and more recently as well. And as we study the predictions of the inspired pen, we can know of a surety that persecution on a global scale looms ahead for God’s end-time church.
But again it should be stated that lies are never acceptable in the pursuit of Christian objectives, however laudable the latter may be. Exaggerated claims of harassment and persecution may succeed in agitating the faithful and stirring them to political and other forms of action, but for reasons of both spiritual integrity and public credibility such misguided flourishes of zeal have no place in the Christian’s public witness.
When reports surface of people being persecuted for their faith, especially in free countries, we need to check them out carefully, so as to separate fact from fiction. Absolute truthfulness is non-negotiable for the Christian, before God first and foremost, and before our fellow humans as well. Neither civil authorities nor others will take the warnings of Christians seriously regarding threats to religious freedom if Christians develop the reputation of spreading lies, fabrications, and exaggerations relative to such threats. Crying “Wolf!” for little or no reason may excite a political constituency, but it erodes the very credibility needed when genuine threats arise and warnings are raised concerning them.
REFERENCES
1. “Persecution of Christians,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians
2. “Govt tells Christian ministers: Perform same-sex weddings or face jail, fines,” ADF Media, Oct. 17, 2014 https://adfmedia.org/press-release/govt-tells-christian-ministers-perform-same-sex-weddings-or-face-jail-fines
3. Todd Stames, “City threatens to arrest ministers who refuse to perform same-sex weddings,” Fox News, Oct. 20, 2014 https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/city-threatens-to-arrest-ministers-who-refuse-to-perform-same-sex-weddings
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. David Badash, “Entire Hitching Post Controversy is False: ACLU Finds Chapel Falls Under Religious Exemption,” New Civil Rights Movement, Oct. 24, 2014 https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2014/10/entire_hitching_post_controversy_is_false_aclu_says_chapel_falls_under_religious_exemption/
7. Ibid.
8. Keely Herring, “Did a Vermont pastor get sentenced to prison for refusing to marry a gay couple?” Politifact, July 16, 2015 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jul/16/blog-posting/did-vermont-pastor-get-sentenced-prison-refusing-m/
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Andrea Morris, “CA Lawmakers Trying to Force Pastors to Embrace Pro-LGBT Ideology,” Christian Broadcasting Network, June 18, 2029 https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2019/june/ca-lawmakers-trying-to-force-pastors-to-preach-pro-lgbt-sermons
13. Pat Robertson, The New World Order (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991), p. 236.
14. Peter Montgomery, “Conservative Christian Media, Leaders Spread Lies About California LGBTQ Resolution,” Right Wing Watch, June 19, 2019 https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/conservative-christian-media-leaders-spread-lies-about-california-lgbtq-resolution/
15. ----“Matt Barber Says Proposed Conversion Therapy Ban Would Ban Bible, Criminalize Christianity,” Right Wing Watch, May 21, 2018 https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/matt-barber-says-proposed-conversion-therapy-ban-would-ban-bible-criminalize-christianity/
16. ----“Conservative Christian Media, Leaders Spread Lies About California LGBTQ Resolution,” Right Wing Watch, June 19, 2019 https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/conservative-christian-media-leaders-spread-lies-about-california-lgbtq-resolution/
17. “Conversion therapy,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy
18. Gerry Wagoner, “The Equality Act Passes Congress, and is on Track to Become Law,” Fulcrum7, Feb. 26, 2021 https://www.fulcrum7.com/news/2021/2/26/the-equality-act-passes-congress-and-is-on-track-to-become-law
19. Ibid.
20. Caleb C. Wolanek, JD, “Churches are not Places of Public Accommodation,” Harvard Law School Journal on Legislation, Nov. 28, 2016 https://harvardjol.com/2016/11/28/churches-are-not-places-of-public-accommodation/#:~:text=1.,Massachusetts%20law%20historically%20regulated%20businesses.&text=2.,not%20places%20of%20public%20accommodations.
21. Ibid.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan