Sunday, April 22, 2018

No, Christians in the United States are not about to be martyred

FOX News recently ran this piece of Christian Right vicitimization propaganda: Douglas MacKinnon, How long will I be allowed to remain a Christian? 04/21/2018.

It's unfortunately a commonplace assumption among American fundamentalists that they are a persecuted minority and quasi-martyrs for the faith, even without any actual, you know, martyrdom. MacKinnon gives his own paranoid version of that posture:
Ironically, in some very real and ominous ways, it’s as if we are being transported back to ancient Rome.

Will we soon have to meet with fellow Christians in secret? Will we have to whisper our beliefs from the shadows? Will those Christians with “traditional” beliefs lose their jobs and livelihoods if discovered?
He complains about his own personal cross to bear, "I continue to be ridiculed for writing and speaking about a vision I had regarding the 40 days after the resurrection."

Ironically, the non-Pentecostal brands of the Protestant fundamentalism are very suspicious of claims of present-day visions. I suspect he might be getting more criticism on that quarter for his vision than from mainstream Christians or more secular people, because the latter two groups wouldn't be taking his vision particularly seriously, anyway.

He has a book about it, The Forty Days: A Vision of Christ's Lost Weeks (2016).

He also has had a column at the frivolous but venomous rightwing site, Townhall.





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