Defamation of Christianity in our Marketplace.
By Paul Merkley.
DEFAMATION OF CHRISTIANITY THE MARKETPLACE.
By Paul Merkley.
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According to the organization, Open Doors (usa@opendoors.org) persecution against Christians is increasing, intensifying and spreading throughout the entire world.
This responsible organization calculates that more than 245 million people are “highly persecuted for their choice to follow Jesus where they live.” This is an increase over last year’s 215 million.
Worldwide today, a high level of persecution is the lot of one in nine Christians in the world — up from 1 in 12 last year. Every day, eleven people are killed because they are Christians.
Outright persecution in the textbook sense is not going on in our own midst, of course, although there are indicators already that persons and organizations whose hearts are set on outright persecution are working devotedly to lower respect for Christian faith, further and further, with the goal of achieving conditions under which outright persecution will have become possible. The first step on this path is lowering respect for Christian faith and for Christian practice, through ridicule and mockery.
Almost everywhere in our midst, it is generally accepted that Christian faith should never be presented in the public space as something that engages healthy minds. Any reference to the church or to the Bible or to any Christian organizations has to be handled as damaged goods – definitely not to be recommended to the enlightened minds. In short: in the public space nothing positive is ever said about the Bible, the church, priests, clergy, or individuals who identify themselves out loud as Christians. In the world of popular entertainment, such persons and such institution get mentioned only briefly and always as objects of scorn and ridicule. All of this contributes to a pattern of increasing boldness in expressions of contempt for what has been received from our civilization and culture:
A recent contribution to this missionary effort is the publication of a crudely blasphemous portrayal of Jesus as a moronic sort of comic book action hero. ( https://www.cbr.com/jesus-christ-dc-comics-superhero/.) Since the appearance of that item, the googlim have brought to my attention an Australian publication which goes even further in the work of mocking to death Christian faith. The amazing brazenness of this material is all the more damaging to the values of our civilization by reason of the fact that its central message is an appeal for support of a cause that is presumed to be impervious to criticism — organ donation.
In this Australian commercial, Jesus Christ is portrayed dying on the cross as Roman soldiers try to sign him up to donate his organs after death. Australian Christians are calling the commercial, produced for the government-backed Dying to Live campaign “beyond blasphemous.
It is hard to believe that the government employees responsible for this literature simply failed to notice the possibility of offense. Events of this kind make it clear that there is a willful and perfectly conscious effort in our midst – in this present case, supported by public money – to distribute contempt for the story of Jesus.
Serious Christian individuals, as well as church organizations, have a duty to be vigilant around these matters and to protest in the loudest terms; otherwise, organizations that make profit out of all provocative publicity – from comic-books all the way up to government manifestos – will conclude that mockery of Christ is a sure way to make profits in every corner of the market place.
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The Bayview Review 