About Christian Persecution at Home

First I want to explain the picture, and maybe that's not necessary for a real football fan, but I had to look it up.  I think the picture on the right is Tim Tebow, in a Denver Broncos uniform.  As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing wrong with either picture, but apparently Tim Tebow is an overtly fundamentalist Christian who has exaggerated prayer rituals in football games, and a habit of painting biblical verses and chapters on the black paint under his eyes.  Back when he was a high school aged student, his parents home schooled him, and fought a successful legal battle to allow him to play football at a local high school even though he did not attend classes at that school.  Interesting football trivia.  Anyhow, back to the picture.  It seems a lot of football fans are upset over Tebow's religious displays (the picture here does not show his classical "Jesus loves me" pose), but there are also a lot of fans who love him. Below is the web page I got the picture from, and coincidentally it is written by another motorcyclist.  (In that way, he's like me, "The Lost Motorcyclist".)  He happens to be Christian and through the blog below, gives his views on this "attack" on Christianity, which actually is about the same as my view.  Could it be that motorcyclists think alike even though they may not have the same religion?

http://412ministry.blogspot.ca/2012/01/christians-and-persecution-complex.html

Now for my own ideas on the persecution of Christians. Fox News often portrays Christianity as being under attack, not only in the non-believer parts of the world, but also at home in the USA.  Is this true?  Is there really a "War on Christmas", for example.  Are Christians being forbidden to pray in schools or anywhere else?

Quote by Ronald Reagan, a Republican President of the USA from the nineteen eighties.
 "Today there are those who are fighting to make sure voluntary prayer is not returned to the classrooms. And the frustrating thing for the great majority of Americans who support and understand the special importance of religion in the national life -- the frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and openmindedness. Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.”

The fight about prayer in US public schools is between those who want the whole school to publicly pray to a Christian God, and those who say no children in public schools should be forced to pray to any God.

In my own experience there has been an upsurge in Christian Fundamentalism in the last fifty years, and it's quite possible that there has also been a pushback against it.  Also, during the same time it appears that there is a drop-off in church attendance, making it look like there are more anti-religious people around.  Also, ongoing immigration from non-Christian countries, may also have added a bit of fuel to the fire, as Christians see their old churches being bought by Muslim groups and converted into Mosques.

I think what had been a quite stable religious situation fifty years ago has become stirred up a bit.  And this includes Canada too.

But in my opinion, the most devastating attack on Christianity (as I know it) is not coming from Muslims or Atheists, but from within, from a certain type of right wing Fundamentalist Christianity.

I believe in tolerance, and freedom of religion, and I also share a belief in the supposed Christian values such as peace, love, and helping the poor.  But I'm never going to give up science, reason, and freedom of religion to support a faith-based gun-toting right wing political agenda.  Much less if that right wing religion is opposed to helping the poor, opposed to freedom of religion, opposed to education, and opposed to peace.