Joshua Philipp, investigative journalist from The Epoch Times, recently interviewed me for his show, Crossroads. You can find the interview in the Crossroads YouTube channel. It’s located the day after Josh’s investigative report from inside a human trafficking tunnel on the border!
I appreciate The Epoch Times for their familiarity with all of the vulnerable people groups in China, persecuted and oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party. I met the interviewer Joshua Philipp when I spoke at a rally supporting legislation to name the CCP as a Transnational Criminal Organization. Uyghur people of East Turkestan organized the rally at the U.S. Capitol last month. A few days later Josh came to IRD to ask me about the threats to both global and national religious freedom.
For years I have reported on, spoken about, and done advocacy for persecuted Christians and other religious believers around the world. I have always felt that Western Christians who equated the situation in the United States with global conditions were self-focused and unrealistic. Once year my Christmas newsletter to friends and family declared, “If you have not been disemboweled for your faith like Christians in Sudan, you are not being persecuted!
Things have been changing in this country. I still submit that we are not under persecution, but we are a lot closer to it. Religious liberty is under assault in America, under the guise of many ideological predilections. But what it all boils down to is growing attempts to shut the mouths, stifle the speech, of Christians through intimidation, cancel culture, and identity politics.
As I tell Josh in this interview, our brothers and sisters in Christ around the globe, and other persecuted people of faith, are killed for holding on to their beliefs. They deserve better from us.
Comment by John on January 5, 2021 at 9:05 pm
I find it interesting that the author cites cancel culture and identity politics as means by which she feels Christians are “having their mouths shut and speech stifled.” First let’s stop acting like cancel culture was invented in the last decade by militant progressives. The true pioneers of cancel culture were Christian fundamentalist organizations like the American Family Association Focus on the Family, and Family Research Council who have been organizing boycotts of companies and media they believed were promoting pro-choice positions, gay rights, and other liberal causes for decades. Among the targets of their efforts were “radical” companies like Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Starbucks, the Gap, and Campbell’s Soup Company. Some of these companies only crime was calling their December sales a “holiday sale” rather than a “Christmas sale.” And as for identity politics, answer me this. When fundamentalist Christians claim allowing LGBT to marry in state courts was a personal attack on them and their beliefs or claimed Starbucks was participating in “War on Christmas” because of the design of their holiday cups isn’t that just another form of identity politics around their religion? They certainly don’t tend to concern themselves with the rights of other religions, some of whom may be experiencing more visible persecution here in America. They don’t speak up when an angry mob demands the tearing of a mosque in Middle Tennessee, or when a synagogue is vandalized by white nationalists? They don’t object when a major party candidate suggests a religious test for refugees wanting to enter the country, as long the religion they’re trying to keep out isn’t Christianity. You don’t hate identity politics or cancel culture, you just hate them when another group uses them.
Comment by Jim on January 6, 2021 at 7:49 pm
John,
Please define “Christian fundamentalist organizations.”
Comment by John on January 7, 2021 at 10:36 pm
I provided examples. American Family Association, Focus on Family, Family Research Council (they really love the word family). Basically the foundations and organizations one normally thinks of when one hears the words Religious Right.
Comment by Jeff on January 7, 2021 at 11:03 pm
John, please “do the work”. Precisely define exactly what makes an organization “Christian fundamentalist”.
“What one thinks of” is not in any way a definition.