Religious freedom is a cornerstone to both physical and spiritual liberty as spiritual bondage leads to physical bondage. The current administration\u2019s disposition toward religious freedom is creating an atmosphere of antagonism and persecution against people of the Jewish and Christian faith. From locking down churches during the COVID government mandates to demonizing Christians over Biblical instruction against sexual deviancy and abortion, the Biden Administration is continuing the animosity against faith that was accelerated during the Obama White House. The federal government, extreme leftist organizations, and the news media is fanning the flames of hostility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The House Judiciary Committee is investigating the FBI for infiltrating churches, Catholic churches in particular, with an eye toward identifying violent extremism and domestic terrorists. In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded \u201cinformation from the FBI relating to a January 23, 2023 document generated by the Richmond Field Office entitled “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities” (“FBI’s Richmond document”).’ In this document, the FBI purported to categorize Catholic Americans based on theological distinctions and relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center to suggest that certain kinds of Catholic Americans may be domestic terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, Family Research Council reported that \u201ccriminal acts against churches have been steadily on the rise for the past several years, and the first quarter of 2023 has continued the upward trend. The first three months of 2023 saw approximately three times the number of acts of hostility perpetrated against churches in the same timeframe last year\u2026 January of 2023 was a particularly intense month for acts of hostility against churches. Although the number of actions dropped in February and March. The first quarter of 2023 overall saw an unusually high number of acts of hostility, with 69 such incidents being documented. Our research indicates that number is more than the entirety of 2018, in which we identified only 50 incidents, or 2020, in which we identified 54. This steep increase is a cause for concern.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former Focus on the Family employee Carl Chinn began researching church violence in 1996. In 2015, Chinn\u2019s statistics indicated deadly church violence since 2009 (when Obama took office) increased 422% over the previous 11 years. At the time, Obama arguably presided over the most violent time against churches in recent American history. His portrayal of conservative Christians (pro-gun, pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-male\/female gender) as racists, radicals and extremists likely contributed to inciting such violence. And it is continuing under the Biden Administration. Jesus said in Matthew 24:9 that \u201cye shall be hated of all nations for my name\u2019s sake.\u201d Sadly, in America this hate intensifies under Democratic presidents and leftist influencers like the Southern Poverty Law Center, promoters of hate while pointing its fingers at others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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