September 2018 Chuch & State Magazine - September 2018

Presecution Complex: Religious Right Groups Claim Christianity Is Oppressed In America. The Truth Is Quite Different.

  Rob Boston

Evangelist Franklin Graham didn’t hold back.

During a May 2017 radio interview with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, Graham asserted that Christians in America are being “persecuted” and singled out “over and over again” for refusing to accept that LGBTQ people have rights.

“I want our politicians to see what is happening, and I want the voices of these people who have been persecuted, I want their voices to be heard,” Graham said. “I want to give them a stage for them to be able to tell their stories and do it right there in Washington, where hopefully we can see some policy changes.”

Graham received no pushback from Perkins over his claim that Christians in America are persecuted. That’s not surprising, since Perkins often pushes that line himself.

Franklin Graham speaking during Donald Trump's inauguration

(Photo: Evangelist Franklin Graham speaks during the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January 2017. Credit: White House.)

In a 2015 appeal for funds, Perkins accused the administration of President Barack Obama of engaging in persecution of Christians. He vowed to stop the “administration’s persecution of Christians within our borders.” Perkins warned darkly that a “rampage of ‘political correctness’ … is coming to your state, your town, your church. Christians you know are targets … maybe Christians in your own home.”

Call it a persecution narrative, par­a­noia or just plain fear-mongering, but such claims are a common refrain these days among the Religious Right – even though they’re impossible to prove. Such claims reached tsunamic proportions during the Obama years, and have subsided only somewhat since the election of President Donald Trump. To the Religious Right, persecution of Christians is either already rampant or just around the corner.

Some Religious Right figures employ lurid rhetoric. Pastor Robert Jeffress, a Dallas Southern Baptist minister who is close to Trump, asserted during a November 2014 radio interview that attacks on American Christians are led by Satan.

The devil, Jeffress asserted, “has been trying to extinguish the Christian message ever since he inspired Herod to try to kill the Christ child.” The goal, Jeffress said, is to marginalize Christians and paint them as extremists.

Jeffress has an expansive definition of what constitutes “persecution.” In an October 2016 blog post titled “Get Ready for Persecution,” he wrote, “Now, obviously there is a spectrum of persecution that people experience. That spectrum can range from not being invited to a dinner party because you are too opinionated, all the way to being tortured and even executed because you will not recant your faith in Jesus Christ.”

Added Jeffress, “America is more hostile toward Christianity now than at any other time in our nation’s history.”

Trump administration officials have embraced the persecution narrative as well. During a “religious freedom summit” hosted by the Department of Justice July 30, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told attendees, “Let’s be frank: A dangerous movement undetected by many is challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt, it’s no little matter, it must be confronted intellectually and politically and be defeated. This past election gives us a rare opportunity to arrest these trends and to confront them.

“We’ve gotten to the point where courts have held that morality cannot be a basis for law, where ministers are fearful to affirm holy writ from the pulpit, and where one group can actively target religious groups by labelling them hate groups. This president and Department of Justice are determined to protect and advance our heritage of freedom of religion. … The Constitution’s protections don’t end at the parish parking lot nor can our freedoms be confined to our basements.”

Such hyperbolic claims are nothing new; in fact, they’ve long been part of the Religious Right’s narrative. During a 2006 Washington, D.C., conference sponsored by the Rev. Rick Scarborough, a Texas pastor who’s active in the Religious Right, then-Speaker of the House Tom DeLay (R-Texas) asserted that American society treats Christianity “like a second-class superstition. … Seen from that perspective, of course, there is a war on religion.”

To the Religious Right, it’s a given that there’s a “war on Christmas,” and, by extension, a larger “war on religion” or “war on Christianity.” The groups also tend to define “persecution” so broadly that benign acts – such as expecting the owner of a business to serve everyone equally – can become oppression in the Religious Right’s narrative.

Cries of persecution by fundamentalist Christians may raise money and inspire activism for Religious Right causes, but they wither in the face of the facts. In the United States, Christian groups often receive special treatment or exemptions from laws that similarly situated secular groups must follow. The position of Christian groups is often one of privilege. (Ironically, it’s minority religions, such as Islam, Hinduism and others, that often feel the sting of persecution, such as experiencing difficulties with zoning, restrictions on travel such as Trump’s Muslim ban and other forms of discrimination.)

Cries of persecution by fundamentalist Christians may raise money and inspire activism for Religious Right causes, but they wither in the face of the facts. In the United States, Christian groups often receive special treatment or exemptions from laws that similarly situated secular groups must follow. The position of Christian groups is often one of privilege.

Far from sanctioning persecution of Christianity, the First Amendment protects the “free exercise” of religion, a provision that has been interpreted to mean that the government may not excessively intervene in the internal affairs of religious organizations.

In addition, statutes render houses of worship, ministries and religious groups tax-exempt, a benefit that is extended to a variety of secular groups as well. But there’s one key difference: Most non-religious charities, public-interest groups and educational organizations that claim tax-exempt status are required every year to file a detailed financial statement with the Internal Revenue Service called a Form 990. The document, which must be publicly available, provides information about how these groups raise and spend money. Houses of worship and religious groups are exempt from filing a Form 990.

Furthermore, religious organizations, unlike secular groups, are not required to report publicly the amount of money they spend on lobbying activities in Washington, D.C. In many states, religious organizations can spend money on ballot referenda without reporting it.

U.S. law often treats religious groups with a special kind of deference, and since Christianity is the dominant religion in America, churches, including conservative ones, reap those benefits. In 2006, The New York Times reported that far from being hostile to religion, America’s legislators often given houses of worship special breaks.

Religious organizations, reported The Times, “enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly.”

Asserted the newspaper, “An analysis by The New York Times of laws passed since 1989 shows that more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use. New breaks have also been provided by a host of pivotal court decisions at the state and federal level, and by numerous rule changes in almost every department and agency of the executive branch.”

While some of these exemptions and breaks for religious organizations may be mandated by court decisions, others are the result of effective lobbying by Christian organizations or a desire by legislators to court or show deference to faith communities. The Times noted, for example, that some states exempt all church-based child day care centers from regulations – even though a compelling case can be made that regulations protect children from harm.

In light of this, why does the “persecution-of-Christianity” myth hold such sway?

Part of the answer is that such claims spur Religious Right activists to mobilize and donate to national organizations. By portraying themselves as a persecuted minority, right-wing evangelicals tap into a deep psychological vein that allows followers of the Religious Right to imagine themselves as latter-day versions of the early Christians who endured persecution in the Roman Empire during the second, third and fourth centuries.

But again, inconvenient truths derail the narrative. Early Christians had to meet in secret and communicated with one another through symbols and signs. According to some ancient accounts, discovery as a Chris­tian could lead to death. (Although it should be pointed out that some scholars are challenging this history. In her 2013 book The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom, Candida Moss, a professor of theology at the University of Birmingham in England, argues that the persecution of Christians during the Roman era was not so widespread, nor as violent, as is commonly believed.)

Conservative Christians in America today hardly face anything amounting to persecution. Their mega-churches dot the landscape, they dominate television and radio airwaves and their ministers preach freely from tax-exempt pulpits. While there is certainly pushback to much of their political agenda, U.S. law protects the right of religious leaders and their congregants to make anti-LGBTQ statements, to deride feminists and to assail political and theological liberals.

Conservative Christians in America today hardly face anything amounting to persecution. Their mega-churches dot the landscape, they dominate television and radio airwaves and their ministers preach freely from tax-exempt pulpits. While there is certainly pushback to much of their political agenda, U.S. law protects the right of religious leaders and their congregants to make anti-LGBTQ statements, to deride feminists and to assail political and theological liberals.

That hasn’t stopped Religious Right leaders from making outrageous claims, of course. The national dialogue over LGBTQ rights is instructive. In 2009, Congress considered legislation that would allow the U.S. Justice Department to offer assistance when a crime that results in death or serious injury is committed against any American because of the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Religious Right leaders went ballistic and insisted that the bill, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, would penalize speech critical of gay people.

“Let’s say you preach from Genesis 19 or Romans 1, referencing the homosexual agenda or lifestyle,” read a bulletin from Perkins’ FRC. “Your sermon could be heard by an individual who applies it in a way prohibited by a hate crimes law. Not only would the offender be prosecuted under this law, but you could also be prosecuted for conspiracy. Consequently, hate crimes laws would radically impact our freedom of speech as Christians.”

Tony Perkins talks to Kellyanne Conway at the 2017 Values Voter Summit

(Photo: Family Research Council President Tony Perkins talks to Kellyanne Conway, an advisor to President Donald Trump, during the 2017 Values Voter Summit. Credit: Liz Hayes, Church & State.)

The Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association chimed in, “An offended homosexual could accuse a pastor, Sunday School teacher or broadcaster of causing emotional injury simply by expressing the Biblical view that homosexuality is sinful.”

The Traditional Values Coalition warned, “This so-called ‘hate crimes’ bill will be used to lay the legal foundation and framework to investigate, prosecute, and persecute pastors, business owners, Bible teachers, Sunday School teachers, youth pastors – you name it – or anyone else whose actions are based upon and reflect the truth found in the Bible.”

None of this was true. The bill was designed to give the federal government more power to investigate crimes of violence, such as murder and assault, against LGBTQ people. It specifically contained a provision stating, “Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

The measure, now known as Ma­t­thew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, became law in October 2009. No religious leaders have been prosecuted under it. A far-right legal group called the Thomas More Law Center filed suit against the law but lost in court.

In 2014-15, as it began to look as though the Supreme Court would uphold marriage equality, Religious Right groups again spread hysterical claims. Jeffress, who serves as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, told “The Daily Caller,” a conservative web­site, “That may mean we experience jail time … but as the scripture says, we ought to obey God rather than man, and that’s our choice.”

Scarborough told a Texas radio station that pastors should “resist all government efforts to require them to accept gay marriage, and they will accept any fine and jail time to protect their religious freedom and the freedom of others.”

Richard Land, a former Southern Baptist Convention official, raised the specter of pastors in prison as well. Asked by Newsmax TV if the nation could come to the point where pastors end up behind bars for refusing to preside at marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, Land replied, “It could.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee really went around the bend. During a conference call hosted by FRC, he asserted that marriage equality could lead to “the criminalization of Christianity.”

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, marriage equality has been the law of the land for more than three years. The number of religious leaders who have been imprisoned or in any way punished by the government for resisting it stands at zero.

Many progressive leaders don’t just reject the Religious Right’s persecution, they consider it offensive.

“At this point, I don’t experience mass persecution as we enter into worship on any given day,” Pastor Lydia Munoz of the Church of the Open Door, a United Methodist congregation in Kennett Square, Pa., told Church & State. “My ability to worship or to lead others in worship in a Christian church has never been thwarted or deemed illegal. What I do see that is under persecution is the gospel message of Jesus Christ – it is being co-opted by white evangelicals who equate their ability to discriminate based on sexual orientation or document status, class, or records (incarcerated or prior conviction) with religious freedom.”

My ability to worship or to lead others in worship in a Christian church has never been thwarted or deemed illegal. What I do see that is under persecution is the gospel message of Jesus Christ – it is being co-opted by white evangelicals who equate their ability to discriminate based on sexual orientation or document status, class, or records (incarcerated or prior conviction) with religious freedom.

~ Pastor Lydia Munoz, Church of the Open Door, Kennett Square, Pa.

Munoz notes that she happily presides at weddings for same-sex couples but is well aware that she doesn’t have to.

“I perform same-sex weddings because I believe that God blesses all unions, that people come together out of love and God is love,” Munoz said. “I’ve never experienced any of my colleagues being forced to do any same-sex weddings. On the contrary, my colleagues and I are trying to bring awareness and justice in our own denomination for the full inclusion of all people in the life of the United Methodist church including same-sex weddings, ordination rights and such. If a pastor feels that it is against their conscience to perform a same-sex wedding, they don’t have to do so.”

Munoz finds the Religious Right’s claims of being persecuted to be especially ironic in light of the historical examples of religious groups that have suppressed people’s rights.

“There is a reason why our foun­ders decided that this was important because we all know the history of how the church came to be the government and vice-versa,” she observed. “It wasn’t good, and those who stood outside of this, like Galileo and others, were persecuted and made into criminals. This is the slippery slope that we risk. 

“We can’t be a nation that claims to have been founded on these principles of religious freedom and yet deny that right to every American citizen,” she added. “The very gift of this country has been that we are proud of our democratic way, where all voices are heard, and the notion – although we often fall short of this – but the notion is that we value everyone regardless of their social status.”

Religious persecution is a real problem around the globe. Some countries ban certain religions or attempt to squelch them all. Tension between religious groups that erupts in violence is common in some countries. In others, those who dare to express skepticism of faith are attacked or even killed. (This problem is especially severe in Bangladesh, where several bloggers who championed secularism have been assassinated by Islamic extremists.)

Members of the Trump administration have of late been making a lot of noise about how they plan to combat religious persecution worldwide. Whether they are serious about this remains to be seen. One thing’s for certain: For anyone who wants to combat religious persecution, there’s plenty of work to be done worldwide – but you won’t find much of it on our own shores.

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