Dale Hansen, the Detroit News political blogger who claimed that Christians brought the “War on Christianity” on themselves, is back with more vitriol at “Christian pervasion” in American society.
His new article for the Huffington Post is titled "Fox News Doesn't Understand Religious Freedom." Hansen railed against Fox News and charged the “conservative fear machine has been cranked up to DEFCON 5,” following the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision.
After ranting about Gretchen Carlson’s alleged overblowing of the “war on Christmas,” Hansen concluded,
“The problem seems to be that some Christians can't understand how anyone would be offended by Christianity. Perhaps the best illustration of this point came when Bill O'Reilly referred to an atheist group that put up billboards attempting to convince people that there is no god as a ‘bullying group’.…[P]eople like O'Reilly can't put themselves in the shoes of non-Christians to see how their proselytization could be considered bullying. In their mind these people are preaching good will toward men, so how could anyone be offended?” (emphasis added)
Hansen then went for broke with his outrageous accusations:
“While the Christians of today certainly aren't as forceful as their Crusades-era predecessors, there is little doubt that some believers push the boundaries. Would Christians feel that they were being bullied if atheists showed up at their door to talk about the fallacy of God? Would they find an atheist on a loudspeaker outside their local sports arena offensive? If schools forced children to recite verses that say that God isn't real, wouldn't Christians demand that this sort of speech be removed from the public sphere?”
So door-to-door evangelism, annoying loudspeaker proselytizing, and classroom verse recitals are tantamount to defensive warfare to take back the holy land? That’s a bit of a stretch. Also, when was the last time kids were required to recite Bible verses in school? The 1960’s?
Finally, Hansen repeated his charge that there really is no Christian persecution in the first place. He condemns Cal Thomas for "ignorance" for predicting activists will press to strip tax exemptions of Christian colleges, and then he readily admits that the next trend will be to strip tax exemptions, and that's fine with him, because America isn't run by "Christian doctrine," but by the Constitution.
“What these Christian activists don't seem to understand is that when people oppose Christian pervasion, they aren't declaring war on Christianity; they are simply fighting for equal treatment. Christian religious freedom is bordered on all sides by the religious freedom of everyone else. By crossing those borders, you infringe on the rights of others. This means one person's religious freedom is another person's discrimination. If only we lived in a world where faith was used to lift up all Americans instead of being used to ostracize thy neighbor.”
You heard it here first. Attacks on Christian voices in the public square are not attempts to marginalize people of faith. They are mere efforts at reclaiming territory from religious zealots who upset the utopian balance of equality, a balance that would never have been disturbed if Christians used their faith to equally lift people, rather than disparage others.
Hansen’s framework raises an important question. If Christians are by default borderline proselytizing bullies who upset equality with political action, what hope do they have that the culture and the courts will recognize their plight as persecution rather than just punishment for discrimination?
