It’s Friday and the close of another week of nonsense inflicted on us by the clowns running the show in the three-ring circus called Washington. Lest we forget, there are many types of clowns in politics, all of which were foreshadowed by medieval court jesters. There are the kind, kid-friendly Bozos and Ronald McDonalds, but also the sadistic and evil Pennywises and Twistys. The problem is that one kind is intentionally destroying the country while the other kind is incompetent or unwilling to prevent it.
I often think about where we’re headed as a nation. As a Christian, I have watched the coarsening of our culture and the increasing public hostility toward historic, traditional Judeo-Christian society over the last couple of decades. At the core, the cultural war on our national values is a war on Christianity which is being replaced by a secular humanism whose religion is practiced in the Church of the Perpetually Aggrieved.
This isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last, that Christians have been scapegoated as the source of ills in society. It happened in the first century, and I thought it might be interesting to read an account of what happened to our brothers and sisters two millennia ago.
From Tacitus in his Annales regarding the Neronian Persecution in A.D. 64. in the wake of the great fire in Rome:
But all the endeavours of men, all the emperor’s largesse and the propitiations of the gods, did not suffice to allay the scandal or banish the belief that the fire had been ordered. And so, to get rid of this rumour, Nero set up as the culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians. Christus, from whom their name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Checked for the moment, this pernicious superstition again broke out, not only in Judaea, the source of the evil, but even in Rome, that receptacle for everything that is sordid and degrading from every quarter of the globe, which there finds a following. Accordingly, arrest was first made of those who confessed [sc. to being Christians]; then, on their evidence, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of arson as because of hatred of the human race. Besides being put to death they were made to serve as objects of amusement; they were clad in the hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs; others were crucified, others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed. Nero had thrown open his grounds for the display, and was putting on a show in the circus, where he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or drove about in his chariot. All this gave rise to a feeling of pity, even towards men whose guilt merited the most exemplary punishment; for it was felt that they were being destroyed not for the public good but to gratify the cruelty of an individual.
— Documents of the Christian Church, 2nd Edition, by Henry Bettenson, Oxford, 1963, pp. 1-2.
Why do I share this? I hope to prompt those who believe in Christ to be prepared for what is likely to happen to them as our society drifts further into a lawless — or at least a constitutional-less — future. Be prepared to be persecuted, to be an “object of amusement” being destroyed “not for the public good but to gratify the cruelty of an individual” — or a political party.
We already see evidence of Christians being targeted.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and 19 GOP state attorneys general are demanding answers from the FBI and Justice Department and threatening legal action after a leaked internal FBI memo revealed that the agency had efforts underway to identify and treat Catholics as “potential terrorists.” …
The memorandum deploys “alarmingly detailed theological distinctions to distinguish between the Catholics whom the FBI deems acceptable, and those it does not,” the AGs write.
“Among those beliefs which distinguish the bad Catholics from the good ones are a preference for ‘the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings,’ and adherence to traditional Catholic teachings on sex and marriage (which the memorandum glibly describes as ‘anti-LGBTQ.’” …
The AGs state that after defining which Catholics are the dangerous ones, the memo proposes dealing with the bad Catholics through “the development of sources with access,” including in “places of worship.”
But not only are the FBI and DOJ thinking about infiltrating and spying on the Catholic church, but they deliberately targeted a pro-life father and husband who shoved an abortion center worker to the ground who was hostile toward his 12-year-old son. The father, Mark Houck, had previously been cleared of any wrong doing by the local authorities.
The Department of Justice charged Houck with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Those charges stemmed from a 2021 incident when an abortion clinic volunteer repeatedly harassed Mark’s son and Mark, acting on his fatherly instincts, pushed the volunteer. Local authorities ultimately dismissed the matter—until the Biden DOJ re-upped it in response to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Early in the morning of Sept. 23, 2022, the Houck family was startled awake by banging on the front door and the doorbell ringing. Answering the door, Mark came face-to-face with about 15 FBI agents on his property.
This isn’t a case of mistaken identity. This was a deliberate show of force intended to intimidate and send a message to anyone thinking about protesting at an abortion clinic.
We will decide when you are done.
You can expect more of these kinds of incidents now that that boundary has been breached. Christians will ultimately become fair game for the clowns in charge, especially when they resist the regime’s dictates as a matter of conscience — like refusing to get the Chinese Lung Pox jab.
Have a good weekend.