War on Religion?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-13-2012/the-vagina-ideologues---sean-hannity-s-holy-sausage-fest?xrs=share_fb

Check out the clip on the link above first.

Watched it? Ok, good. Now for some thoughts.

Today in my school's chapel someone warned about the coming government persecution of Christians kicked off by the birth control controversy. The words were something to this effect, "The day is coming when we'll see government persecution worse than what the Catholics have recently experienced with the birth control issue."

Now I respect this person tremendously but I do civilly disagree with him in this. I don't understand how a woman's health mandate turns into a war on religion but even better is when the Church throws a tantrum the government backs down and goes along with the Church.

If that is persecution then I clearly don't understand the word anymore!
To act as if Christians not getting their way in politics is persecution belittles the word to describe what millions of Christians do experience around the globe. This is how the democratic process works, not everyone gets their way all the time.

No, what I think we are experiencing is the dethronement of American cultural Christianity. Once upon a time the Church may have gotten it's way in government often (or maybe that's just a myth too) but those days in which Christianity dominated the Western world are over.... and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

First off, I've lived in a region where cultural Christianity is still vibrant and I, as well as others my age, can't help but notice the blatant hypocrisy within it. Christianity challenges those who are disciples of Jesus to an intense 'other' way of life- social justice, personal righteousness, an others-oriented way of living. Now for those who live in this cultural Christianity, someone can go to church in the womb, grow up in church, be a card carrying member yet never having counted the costs and picked up their cross. They are cultural Christians and are a product of cultural Christianity. This is how racism has infected the church of my home state for so long. Being a Christian and being racist (or having some remaining vestiges of discrimination) are both part of being a white, Southern person (that is the perspective I can speak from) and so there is no apparent contradiction. This can be said of many issues that I and others see as contradictions- e.g. Christian and pro-war (and not the just war variety but the total war kind).

Second and more importantly, the fact is American Christianity has tremendous political power which is incongruent with its victim mentality and understanding of the world. If we are on the long road to where Christianity is dethroned from THE religion of the West to a religion in the West, I think we are heading towards a path of healthier identity as Christians.

Christians are entirely too politicized. We are culture warriors before we are strangers carrying our cross speaking prophetically to power on behalf of the down and out on our way to the eternal country. And I guess that is my beef. We are political tools to a party.

Anyway this has gone way too long. I just know one thing- Jesus didn't disciple those who would find ways into political/economic power in his day seeking to spread his influence to that realm and baptize the State. The only time he came in contact with the 'powers that be' it was confrontational with him taking the side of the lowly, the outcaste, the down and out, the poor.

Far from the centers of power in Rome he started the project of planting his Kingdom in a backwater province among uneducated men and unwanted crowds.