Summer Black, Director, Armor of Truth
The evidence is overwhelming that North American culture is more and more becoming an inhospitable climate to the gospel and that freedom of speech is obviously in jeopardy. With Bill C-367, following the controversy of Bill C-4 in Canada, there is justification for major concern throughout North America that biblical teachings regarding controversial issues, when spoken publicly, might be considered "hate speech."
As North Americans, we are accustomed to hearing the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ raised at the very mention of church-state relations. […] In the popular mind, this has come to mean that explicitly religious views, or even views that are principally derived from religious perspectives, are inappropriate in the public square. Thinking which suggests that the public square is somehow morally neutral and that a religious view can be kept as purely private and personal is based on a compartmentalized view of humanity that is erroneous. This can be argued from human experience and history as well as from the clarity of God's Word.2
Our Canadian brothers and sisters need our prayers right now. Beyond the digital gulag Christian persecution in the West is real and will increase with legal combat known as LAWFARE.
Seen & Heard - Item #1
C-367 Reading Aloud From the Bible Is Hate Speech To Be Severely Punished (Click to read article)
“Hair thinning legislation introduced in Canada; critics compare Amendment C-367 to the laws of Communist China.
Some organs of the so-called progressive press try to ridicule or present the fact of the persecution of Christians in the West as non-existent - most recently they served up the statement of State Secretary Miklós Soltész, who spoke of dismissals and prisons for those who profess Christianity.
Of course, the persecution of Christians in the West cannot be compared to the rest of the world, where Open Doors reports that almost five thousand people have been killed for their Christian faith, mainly in Africa, and a total of 365 million people have been persecuted for the same reason. No, the persecution of Christians in the West is rather a product of the restriction of freedom of religion and speech, of the basic ideals on which liberal democracies were once built.
According to a relevant report… the religion of priests and preachers suffered a total of 168 cases of abuse in Western countries between January 2020 and December 2023, including arrests and fines in a total of 16 countries” -Mandiner 2/24/24
Seen & Heard - Item # 2
BILL C-367 Threatens Christian Speech (Click to read article)
“So far, “hate crime” charges against Christians have been very difficult to prove because of an important protection in our Canadian Criminal Code. There is a “religious exemption” in Section 319 that states: “No person shall be convicted of a [hate crime] offence… if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”
In other words, if you are saying what the Bible says about sexuality, gender, marriage, family, or anything – no matter how unpopular, offensive, or “hateful” it might sound to someone else, you have the freedom to express yourself under Canadian law. Christians have the right to quote the Bible in Canada.
But if Bill C-367 passes, that protection will be removed from the Criminal Code. We will then expect to see a flurry of charges against pastors, churches, Christian organizations, and ordinary believers who dare to speak the truth in love in the public square. This will, in turn, create a chilling effect that will diminish everyone’s freedom of speech.”
Call to Action
“Bill C-367 must be stopped, and we need your help to stop it! Take a moment to send an Action Alert Email to your Member of Parliament today and ask him or her to stand up for our right to share our Christian values and beliefs in the public square.
If we want to keep Canada free – both for ourselves and our children – we need to speak up now.”
-David Cooke 2/19/24
Seen & Heard - Item # 3
Western Countries Increasingly Under Lawfare Against The Gospel Of Jesus Christ (Click to read article)
The aim is to reform the public psyche by permeating every activity in our national lives.
At the heart of this move against God’s good design for government and culture is a deep seated resentment for God’s authority. Those who fight against order do so from man’s natural instinct for the sin of envy which is typiclly expressed in resentment and entitlement. Christian philosopher Roger Scruton explains this urge in the context of totalitarian ideology.
Totalitarian ideologies are adopted because they rationalize resentment, and also unite the resentful around a common cause. Totalitarian systems arise when the resentful, having seized power, proceed to abolish the institutions that have conferred power on others: institutions like law, property and religion which create hierarchies, authorities and privileges, and which enable individuals to assert sovereignty over their own lives. To the resentful, these institutions are the cause of inequality and therefore of their own humiliations and failures. In fact they are the channels through which resentment is drained away. Once institutions of law, property and religion are destroyed - and their destruction is the normal result of totalitarian government - resentment takes up its place immovably, as the ruling principle of the State.
For the resentful there is no such thing as real authority or legitimate power. There is only pure power, exercised by one person over another, and diagnosed through Lenin's famous questions:
"Who? Whom?'. Once in power, therefore, the resentful are inclined to dispense with mediating institutions, and erect a system of pure power relations, in which individual sovereignty is extinguished by central control.4
I have chosen to quote Scruton here in order to emphasize a specific quality of the rise against Christianity in the West. The coming persecution will be difficult to see at first because it likely will not be overtly violent as has been seen in the East. Therefore, understanding the ideology motivating the move against Christ in the West is helpful in tearing down the arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God in our society.
Ray Pennings is the vice president for the Work Research Foundation1 a Canadian think tank dedicated to cultural renewal and chairman of the board of governors of Redeemer University College. In 2008, in the context of Canadian society, which seems to portend things to come in the United States, Pennings wrote a manual and legal primer titled Church and Caesar2 for Christians who will certainly face exactly these issues. We highly recommend his work and the book God vs. Government: Taking A Biblical Stand When Christ and Compliance Collide by Nathan Busenitz and James Coates written in response to Coates’ direct persecution and imprisonment in Canada during the Covid-19 restrictions imposed by the Alberta authorities.
The church is called to be a witness to the world. She should be unapologetic in speaking where Scripture speaks clearly, also on the issues of the day. What happens in the world matters to God and the Word of God shouldn't be silent in the public dialogue.
When speaking out on public issues, church leaders must take great care, however, to ensure that their description and analysis of public issues are accurate and correct. One discredits the gospel when partial truths regarding public issues are repeated without reflection. God's Word must not be associated with false witness. Care must also be taken to promote respect for civil office-holders, even as we disagree with them, keeping in mind that they too are ministers of God.2
We are called to be holy as our Lord is holy. We find our strength and instruction for all matters of faith, practice, and life in exile from His Word, our firm foundation. We offer the following encouragement from the mouth of our Great God and Savior as spoken through His apostle,
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot…
…since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for
“All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.”And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
(1 Peter 1:13-19; 23-25)
Even when the weather is rough and visibility low, if we stand on the firm ground of Scripture in all things, and speak His truth boldly, He is faithful to hold us fast and for His glory.
Sources and Links
Pennings, R. (n.d.). Ray Pennings Archives. Comment Magazine. Retrieved February 24, 2024, from https://comment.org/contributors/ray-pennings/
Pennings, R. (2008). 1. In Church and Caesar. essay, Reformation Heritage Books.
Busenitz, N., Coates, J., & Macarthur, J. (2022). God vs. government : taking a biblical stand when Christ and compliance collide. Harvest House Publishers.
Scruton, R. (2007). A Political Philosophy (pp. 150–151). Bloomsbury Publishing.
Other Reading
Western Countries Increasingly Under Lawfare Against The Gospel of Jesus Christ
What The Collapse May Look Like
Anglophobia by Harry Richardson & Frank Salter
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May grace and peace be multiplied to you.