[StBernard] At last, Christians draw a line in the sand against their PC secularist persecutors

[Westley Annis]

At last, Christians draw a line in the sand against their PC secularist
persecutors 
 
By Gerald Warner UK Last updated: November 24th, 2009

At long last, Christian leaders have faced up to their persecutors in the
secularist, socialist, One-World, PC, UN-promoted axis of evil and said: No
more. In the popular metaphor, they have drawn a line in the sand. For
harassed, demoralised faithful in the pews it will come as the long-awaited
call to resistance and an earnest that their leaders are no longer willing
to lie down supinely to be run over by the anti-Christian juggernaut. This
statement of principle and intent is called The Manhattan Declaration,
published last Friday in Washington DC.

It is difficult to believe that so firm an assertion of Christian
intransigence in the face of persecution will not have some beneficial
effects even here. For this Declaration is no minor affirmation by a few
committed activists: on the contrary, it is signed by the most important
leaders of three mainstream Christian traditions - the Catholic Church, the
Orthodox Church and Evangelical Protestants. For an ecumenical document it
is heroically devoid of fudge, euphemism and compromise.

The Manhattan Declaration states that "the lives of the unborn, the
disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of
marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in
jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that
freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by
those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith
to compromise their deepest convictions".

For Barack Obama, the PC lobby, the "hate crime" fascists and, by
implication, their opposite numbers in Britain, the signatories have an
uncompromising message: "We pledge to each other, and to our fellow
believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will
intimidate us into silence or acquiescence." That is plain speaking, in the
face of anti-Christian aggression by governments. The signatories spelled it
out even more unequivocally: "We will fully and ungrudgingly render to
Caesar what is Caesar's, but we will under no circumstances render to Caesar
what is God's."

In a world where a Swedish pastor has been jailed for preaching that sodomy
is sinful, similar prosecutions have taken place in Canada, the European
Court of Human Rights (sic) has tried to ban crucifixes in Italian
classrooms, Brazil has passed totalitarian legislation imposing heavy prison
sentences for criticism of homosexual lifestyles, Amnesty International is
championing abortion, David Cameron has voted for the enforced closure of
Catholic adoption agencies, and Gordon Brown's government has just been
defeated in its fourth attempt to abolish the Waddington Clause guaranteeing
free speech - this robust defiance is more than timely.

The signatories are unambiguously expressing their willingness to go to
prison rather than deny any part of their religious beliefs. Those
signatories are heavyweight. On the Catholic side they include Justin
Cardinal Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia; Adam Cardinal Maida, Archbishop
Emeritus of Detroit; the Archbishops of Denver, New York, Washington DC,
Newark, Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Kansas City, and Louisville; and other
Bishops. The Orthodox include the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America
and the Archpriest of St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. There are
also the Anglican Primates of America and Nigeria, as well as a host of
senior Evangelical Protestants.

In terms of influence on votes and public opinion, this is a formidable
coalition. It has served notice on the US government that further
anti-Christian legislation will provoke cultural trench warfare and even
civil disobedience. As regards the sudden stiffening of resistance among the
usually spineless Catholic leadership, it is impossible not to detect the
influence of Benedict XVI.

We need more declarations like this, on a global scale, and the requisite
confrontational follow-up. This is Clint Eastwood, make-my-day Christianity
- and not before time. From now on, any governments that are planning
further persecution of Christians had better make sure they have a large
pride of lions available for mastication duties. The worm has turned.