Report: Attacks on Religion in America Doubled in 3 Years

Report: Attacks on religion in America doubled in 3 years

A Texas-based legal group has released another compilation of legal attacks against individuals, ministries, and business owners that have stood up for their religious liberties.

Each year, First Liberty Institute compiles a list of incidents of hostility based on religious beliefs. This year showed 1,285 such incidents – more than double the number documented by the initial survey, published in 2013. First Liberty attorney Justin Butterfield [says] that some of the attacks have been in areas that used to be unthinkable.

"We've seen numerous religious ministries forced by the government to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs that would violate their religious beliefs," he begins. "We've seen a football coach suspended for praying after a football game on his own. We've seen the Department of Veterans Affairs stop Native Americans from practicing their faith."

In addition, an Orthodox Jewish synagogue was sued by the government for meeting in a private home – and a Marine was court-martialed for refusing to take down a Bible verse.

"... We're hopeful that people whose faith is attacked, whose religious freedom is attacked, will read this and learn what their rights are so that they can stand up and defend their rights," Butterfield adds.

(Charlie Butts, "Report: Attacks on religion in America doubled in 3 years," OneNewsNow Online, March 16, 2016)

[TBC: Yes, Paul told the centurion, who was about to have him unlawfully scourged, that he was a Roman citizen; and he told the local officials at Philippi to come and apologize for beating him and Silas without trial. That was not, however, political/social activism. He was not attempting thereby to change society. He was simply standing up for his personal rights under the law (as we also should do), and that includes voting. Paul was determined to obey God rather than men and never held back from preaching the gospel, though it meant his life.

Instead of protesters we need prophets who call the world to repentance: Enochs who walk with God and warn of judgment (Heb:11:5By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
See All...; Jude 14-15); Noahs, preachers of righteousness (2 Pt 2:5), who warn of judgment to come and invite sinners into an ark of safety. What if, instead of building the ark, Noah had tried to reform society! We need Daniels: "Mene, mene, tekel upharsin"—the handwriting is on the wall, America! You've been weighed in the balance and found wanting! Murdered babies, the abomination of homosexuality, and society's flippant, deliberate rebellion against God have aroused His anger beyond any possibility of reprieve! We need Isaiahs and Jeremiahs who had never heard of making a "positive confession" or of the "power of positive or possibility thinking," but preached truth!—Dave Hunt, “Christian Activism: Is It Biblical?, TBC newsletter, Nov. 1989]