Christianophobia

By Dr. Steve Elwart

How blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake because the kingdom from heaven belongs to them! How blessed are you whenever people insult you, persecute you, and say all sorts of evil things against you falsely because of me! Rejoice and be extremely glad, because your reward in heaven is great! That’s how they persecuted the prophets who came before you.

— Matthew 5:10–12, ISV

Types of Persecution

Persecution comes in many forms. There is the persecution that affects the body: the beatings, the shootings, the drownings, the crucifixions we have all read about brings into focus the price some pay to follow Christ.

There is also another kind of persecution, a soft persecution many more Christians endure. People who are Christians are being marginalized. With ever increasing frequency those who express a deeply held Christian view, are looked at as an impediment to progress.

Michael Lind, a progressive writer for “Politico” magazine suggests the American South, the “buckle of the Bible Belt”, is an “outlier” to modern norms. He believes:

The United States would be much less exceptional in general, and in particular more like other English-speaking democracies such as Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were it not for the effects on U.S. politics and culture of the American South.

Lind feels one of the attitudes holding America back is its “religiosity”.

The American government is also showing increasing signs of hostility toward Christians. In February 2013, the Obama administration announced the rights of religious conscience for individuals will not be protected under the Affordable Care Act. The United States Supreme Court has rejected the definition of marriage which has existed for millennia and now recognizes an un-Biblical view of marriage as being between two people instead of between a man and a woman. This ruling will open a floodgate of new definitions of what is a marriage.

Not only are Christians forced to accept this new paradigm in worldview, they are also being pressured to forgo their religious convictions. They are being coerced into doing things against their deeply held beliefs.

George Yancey is a tenured professor at the University of North Texas (UNT) in the Sociology Department. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Economics. Dr. Yancey has spoken on racial issues over 25 times in different churches, conferences and retreats and has been a consultant on racial diversity in churches.

Yancey also has a blog site titled, “Black, White and Gray” part of the Pantheos blog series. He has also written a number of books, among them: “Compromising Scholarship,” “Dehumanizing Christians,” “Beyond Racial Gridlock” and “So Many Christians, So Few Lions.”

His newest book is “Hostile Environment: Understanding and Responding to Anti-Christian Bias.” In the introduction of the book Dr. Yancey writes:

I remember vividly a disturbing conversation that I once had with a good Christian friend who taught in a high school. He told me that he mentioned one day in class that some Christians around the world were being killed for their faith. To his amazement, some students approved of these murders. In their minds, it was time for Christians to face the same death that Christians had inflicted on others. I was struck by the ahistorical nature of this line of thought. Although Christians in the United States do not face jail or death for their faith, there is a long history of Christians around the world being punished for their faith. I also wondered how so much hatred had developed against Christians. This conversation took place almost two decades ago, and I see little evidence that this type of hatred has abated.

As part of his research on the topic of Christianophobia, he and his associate, Dr. David Williamson (UNT), conducted a survey that elicited a variety of hostile statements aimed at conservative Christians. One statement in particular from a 36–45-year old male was striking: “The only good Christian is a dead Christian.” Dr. Yancey thinks the respondent saw themselves in a cultural war, one that has a take-no-prisoner mentality.

The thrust of Dr. Yancey’s book is what should the response to such attitudes be? How does one respond to such an attitude? Does one turn the other cheek? Should one back away from such confrontations, or does one stand and confront it. The book is Yancey’s attempt to share his insights on how best to respond to those who dislike or fear Christians.

Christianophobia is a vexing problem. When a person calls themselves Christian, the word conjures up a series of preconceptions about that person. Words like Bible-thumper, Holy Roller, intolerant, backward and uneducated come to mind. People use derogatory terms about Christians without fear of reprisal. If terms with the same degree of prejudice are uttered about other groups, societal wrath would pour down upon them. If fact, few readers of this article have even heard of the term Christianophobia, while the terms Islamophobia and homophobe have made their way into popular lexicon.

Just as racism is a real phenomenon in the world, bigotry toward Christians is very real as well. Dr. Yancey believes:

There is no one thing we can do, or cause we can fight for, to address Christianophobia. We must initiate a sophisticated discussion of possible remedies and struggle with a nuanced approach in order to reach compromise.

Toward the close of his book, George Yancey writes that we can fight religious intolerance as we fight racial prejudice:

We should follow in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr., who, even as he sought to fight for the civil rights of blacks, did not forget the humanness of the whites who opposed him. He fought to provide civil rights to African Americans but also to allow whites to redeem themselves from the ugly racism they had supported.

I call on my fellow Christian brothers and sisters to use their social power to aid other Christians but, as much as it is possible, to do so in a way that maintains relationships with potential social or political enemies instead of pushing them away.

The root of Christianophobia can be found in Man’s sin nature. Man is in constant rebellion against God in ways large and small and seeks to deny God’s power over mankind.

In the words of George Tillotson:

The true ground of most men’s prejudice against the Christian doctrine is because they have no mind to obey it.