Christian Oppression and Our Responsibility

According to Christianity Today, “An average of 159,960 Christians worldwide are martyred for theirfaith per year.”

Author Toby Westerman adds:

• A silent holocaust of Christian martyrs is taking place around the world. While individual instances of murder and mayhem are sometimes reported, the general pattern of violence is ignored by the media, the United Nations, and most national governments. The perpetrators belong primarily to one of two groups: fundamentalist Islamists or Communist-controlled governments.

Westerman lists some examples of this holocaust from 2009 and before:

• The burning of several Catholic Churches in Malaysia, the deaths of Coptic Christians shot following midnight Mass outside their church, police raids in Saudi Arabia against private prayer groups, all testify to the type of "toleration" employed by Muslim fundamentalists.

• In Egypt, allegations that a Christian man raped a Muslim woman resulted in the murder of seven Coptic Christians and an attempt to kill the area's Coptic bishop. The deadly assault took place about 60 miles from the ancient temple site of Luxor, a popular tourist attraction.

• In Saudi Arabia, a nation where no Christian church is allowed, the country's religious police are ever on the alert for non-Muslim religious activity, including private expressions of prayer. Private group Bible readings and praying run afoul of strict religious edicts. Even Filipino guest workers, who perform menial tasks for wealthy Saudi families, are in danger if they attempt to pray as they did in their homeland.

• While instances of Muslim persecution of Christian believers are documented from Nigeria to Indonesia, no where is Christian martyrdom more tragic and ironic than in post-Saddam Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 the Christian population was estimated at about one million. Unfortunately for Christians, the post-Saddam era gave the Muslim majority a taste of democratic rule without the American provisions of a popularly accepted version of the U.S. Bill of Rights. Unrelenting attacks on Iraqi Christians have caused between 400,000 and 500,000 Iraqi Christians to flee Iraq, and many of those remaining are internal refugees - displaced citizens in their own nation, fearful of returning to their homes.

And now the Western media are ignoring the fact that the “Free Syrian Army” are killing Christians in Syria. Oppression in Communist nations is equally egregious. Westerman  also indicts the media:

• It is time for the U.S. mass media to acknowledge the persecution of Christians around the world, and to identify those who commit these crimes. We must recognize that the persecution of vulnerable Christian populations by militant Islamists and Communists is a herald of things to come for the remainder of humanity.

While the Western media are ready to uphold humanitarian causes, Christian martyrdom is not one of them. For one example, World magazine laments that:

• Google is hot for homosexual rights, but where’s the global campaign to support Christians, who are persecuted in dozens of countries? (August 11, 2012)

This is none! What Western nation is threatening these abusing countries for their flagrant violation of human rights? I am aware of none.

Meanwhile, the churches remain silent, convinced, for one reason or another, that they have to stare clear of politics. However, this position finds absolutely no support within the pages of Scripture. Instead, we are repeatedly warned to stand against oppression, especially the martyrdom of our brethren:

• Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked. (Proverbs 25:26)

When a Christian is silent or unresponsive, he “gives way to the wicked.” Instead, we are to expose wickedness:

• Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. (Ephes. 5:11).

Silence is not an option. If we don’t extend ourselves to the broken and the dying, it is sin:

• Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. (James 4:17)

We cannot turn our backs. While many pastors insist that by taking a “political” stance, we turn people away from hearing the Gospel, Scripture would argue the opposite thing. Jesus prayed that His disciples would love one another so that the world would know that they belong to the Messiah – the Savior:

• "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35)

• "My prayer is…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me…May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:19-24)

How can the world see our mutual love, if we turn away from the oppression of our brethren? However, if they see us pouring ourselves out for our brethren  – whether they are in Africa, the Middle East or Asia – they will marvel at our love and self-sacrifice and wonder at the God who motivates such self-sacrifice.

Who is Saved: The Unrepentant?

 

There has been a lot of flap over reparative therapy (RP). Can it take away same-sex attraction (SSA)? Recently, the president of Exodus International, a ministry that helps Christians leave the gay lifestyle, has expressed his doubts about the effectiveness of RP in removing SSA. Alan Chambers instead prefers Christian discipleship programs focused on helping Christians resist various temptations.

No problem there. I too have my doubts about RP’s effectiveness in eliminating SSA. Although our Lord can easily remove our various temptations and weaknesses, He often leaves them for us to struggle through them (2 Cor. 12:9-10). However, this is no reason to dismiss Christian counseling. It might be helpful to understand the connection between their SSA and their early childhood influences.

However, knowledge doesn’t equate with cure. Through therapy, a female friend saw the connection between being repeatedly sexually abused by her father and her SSA. This understanding made her hesitate before plunging into the homosexual lifestyle. However, she still had the SSA and plunge she did. Consequently, she cut me off. (Despite all of the propaganda about Christian families cutting their children off as they take this plunge, I have no knowledge of such a family. Those Christian parents that I know have tried desperately to maintain a loving relationship with their wayward children. Instead, in every case of which I am aware, it is the children who reject their parents.)

However, Chambers, speaking at the Gay Christian Network, a group that supports this lifestyle, stated “we’re Christians, all of us,” and “we all love Jesus,” despite the fact that he continues to maintain that homosexuality is a sin. (World, August 11, 2012, 13)

This is truly problematic. While we all sin, repentance (along with faith) and confession are central to forgiveness and a relationship with Christ. According to Him, without repentance, we can only expect judgment:

• Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Rev. 2:5, 16)

• Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. (Rev. 3:3)

Jesus explained that without repentance, there could be no basis for eternal confidence. His disciples asked why tragedy had befallen a certain group of Galileans. Jesus answered:

• "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. (Luke 13:2-3)

Consequently, we have no Scriptural authorization to assure the unrepentant kidnapper or pedophile that they are Christians or that they are going to heaven as long as they merely profess a faith in Jesus. This isn’t a saving faith. It’s delusion. A faith that saves is a faith that repents. I cannot claim that I am trusting in Jesus if I refuse to do the things He tells me to do. This isn’t trust. If I trust in my doctor, I will do what he tells me to do. If I don’t do them, I really don’t trust him.

Although Chambers’ assurance to the Network was inclusive, it left God and His Word out of the picture. Sometimes love requires a warning and not a false but soothing word.

Chambers made a serious but common mistake. I pray that he will see that the approval of God is more important than the approval of men and that he will confess his mistake.

Postmodern Christianity and Uncertainty

This is my response to a dialogue among post-modern Christians who doubt that confidence and assurance in the faith are possibilities:

Thai families that are selling their daughters into the sex trade were offered money by a Christian group to not do so. However, they scorned the offer and continued to do what had become culturally acceptable.

I wanted to understand what was so attractive about the rejection of certainty that they would continue in this destructive behavior. I struggle with the same perplexity as I try to understand the influence of Daniel Taylor’s “The Myth of Certainty.”

While I understand that his thesis enables us to accept our less-than-optimal Christian experience – he tells us that we lack certainty because we are the deep, sensitive and contemplative Christians – I fail to understand why you all continue in this “certainty” that undermines the very joy and confidence you can have in believing. However, it is not merely a matter of the fact that Taylor’s thesis will hurt you in the long run; it is actually problematic on other levels:

1. Most obviously, it is incoherent. Taylor claims “certainty” about his thesis while he denies certainty regarding the Christian faith. How is it that he expects his readers to embrace certainty about Christian uncertainty? Meanwhile, his certainty is destructive of the Christian faith and of Christians who try to embrace both Christ and Taylor at the same time.

2. Taylor’s thesis is entirely unbiblical. Although the Christian life is filled with struggles – doubts, uncertainty, fears, temptations – this doesn’t mean that certainty or assurance aren’t possibilities. The Bible talks much about the reality of certainty, confidence and assurance:

• Moses’ father-in-law confessed assurance: “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly." (Exodus 18:11)

• God made it possible that even the “whole world” would know of Him:  “Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.” (1 Samuel 17:46)

• He gave Israel unassailable proofs of His protection: “You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.” (Deut. 4:35-36)

• Paul expressed a high level of confidence in the things of God (Phil. 1:25; 2:23; 2 Tim. 1:12).

• We too are promised this confidence and assurance (Eph. 3:12): “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22)

• Assurance is also something to pursue: “Be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall.”  (2 Peter 1:10)

3. Sadly, Taylor’s embrace of uncertainty undermines this pursuit of certainty. “We have not because we ask not” (James 4:3). Taylor instead wants to make us comfortable with our uncertainty.

I write these unsettling words because I want to build bridges among Christians. Even more importantly, to show you that you have found the wrong “comfort.” I pray that you will understand.

   

   

   

   

The Dharma of Happiness

My very limited survey of self-help literature has shown me that there has been some improvement. It seems that there used to be an emphasis on first taking care of #1, whether psychologically, financially, physically or sexually. However, there seems to be a growing appreciation of the fact that there are certain human principles or laws – dharma - to which we have to adhere in order to promote our happiness or mental health. For instance, instead of fulfilling ourselves sexually, we are now advised to give, forgive and to be grateful.

University of California Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky presents eight “suggestions.” One of these is “Learn to forgive”:

• Let go of anger and resentment by writing a letter of forgiveness to a person who has hurt or wronged you. Inability to forgive is associated with persistent rumination or dwelling on revenge, while forgiving allows you to move on. (Time, Jan. 17, 2005)

Few today would doubt the wisdom of these words. Many of us have actually experienced their “wisdom.” One woman located her biological father who had abandoned the family when she was only three years old. She was now a mother herself. In her letter, she asked his forgiveness because she had hated him for many years. He was touched and responded, “It is I who must ask for your forgiveness.” Now, they are best-of-friends.

I too have been blessed by following the law of forgiveness. My wife had left me for another man 35 years ago. However, forgiveness has healed our relationship and has brought forth something very special. My present wife and I are now close friends with my ex and her second husband. This has proved to be a blessing in many ways.

Forgiveness is healing. It restores, teaches and deepens us. However, this self-help “suggestion” separates the act and benefits of forgiveness from the truth of forgiveness. It tells us to forgive for the benefits of forgiveness and not because it’s the right thing to do.

This distinction might sound meaningless, but it isn’t. It’s essential. I couldn’t and wouldn’t have forgiven my ex for only the benefits. My sense of personal dignity would have forbidden me from laying down my grievance. I had been wronged, and I wouldn’t allow myself to be bought-off by the emotional/psychological benefits. This compromise would have been a betrayal of what I had known to be true – that I had been wronged.

However, I knew that Christ had forgiven me – something that I didn’t deserve. I therefore had an obligation to forgive others, not because it would benefit me but because forgiveness represented a truth higher than my damaged ego.

However, over the years, the Lord began to teach me something else. I had always prided myself that I wouldn’t do to others what they had done to me. I had always regarded myself as morally superior, but that didn’t last for long. Under the Lord’s all-wise tutelage, I learned the truth of this verse:

• So, if you think you are [morally or spiritually] standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! (1 Cor. 10:12)

I’ve had to learn the hard way. I had convinced myself that I would always stand firm and never do the things that others do. However, I’ve learned that, if the Lord mercifully pulls out the rug from under us, we will fall. And I fell.

Forgiveness is a matter of truth – not only the truth of our Lord’s forgiveness but also the truth about ourselves. We are in no position to look down on others because, given the right circumstances, we will do the same kinds of things (Romans 2:1; John 15:4-5)

If instead, we practice forgiveness only because of the benefits we receive, it’s not really forgiveness. It’s conditional – based upon whether or not we are profiting from it. It’s also not truth, and it must be of truth. Can you imagine someone “forgiving” by saying, “I don’t really want to forgive you, but because of the emotional benefits that I expect to derive from this act, I will temporarily set aside my grievances. But if you don’t respond in the way I want, all bets are off!”

This type of “forgiveness” is laughable, but this is the self-help forgiveness, lacking its necessary theological content.

You will doubtless respond, “I’ve practiced forgiveness without the theological content that you insist is necessary. And I found it to be healing!”

I’m going to try to not be offensive, but this will be difficult. This is because I’m almost sure that my response will be experienced as dogmatic and invasive. I am going to tell you what you have experienced. In other words, I will make the offensive suggestion that I know better about your experiences than you do. Gulp!

I would venture to say that forgiveness “worked” for you because it not only bore positive results, but that you sensed something transcendent about it – that you were somehow it touch with the “truth” behind it, although you might not have been willing to acknowledge the fullness of it.

The process of forgiveness is a pointer. It points to the Transcendent. We sense that there is more involved in forgiveness than good feelings. We actually sense something holy. The feelings come and go, but the instruction in “holiness” remains. Similarly, we might also sense the transcendent in music or in a sunset. The feeling might depart but the lesson leaves its afterglow.

Our Lord’s pointers are all around us. They point beyond our feelings to a reality that we dimly see, but it’s a reality that must be acknowledged if our searching is going to lead anywhere.

   

Probing the Priestess and the Question of Love

I met a brand-new Episcopal priestess today at church. What a delightful woman! I therefore felt some hesitation about confronting her with my provocative and often unsettling questions. Fortunately, Anita and I prayed before that the God would give us grace in speaking, in order to honor God and to love others. I trusted that the prayer would carry me through on this mission, but had my doubts based upon my past performances.

She informed me that she had graduated from seminary with more questions than she had had before. Perhaps I could exploit that vulnerability?

“Do you still have those questions?” I probed.

“No, I resolved them.” Hm? I was going to follow up in this manner: “Do you feel that your lack of answers will make ministry difficult?” I wanted to bring the conversation around to the centrality of Christ and His Word. I’d now have to probe in a different location.

After apologizing for asking such invasive questions, I asked, “What is it that you feel you have to offer others?”

“Well, I see my role as helping people answer the questions that are important to them.” This was a people-centered answer not a God-centered one. She seemed to assume that it is most important to help people find a spirituality that works for them.

With another apology, I probed further: “Don’t you think that there are essential, objective principles or truths that pertain to everyone – truths that we Christians must all minister?”

“What do you mean?” I could tell she was becoming a bit uncomfortable, so I decided to back off a bit and personalize my response.

“Well, I come from a Jewish background and identified intensely with my roots. However, I had a problem. I had suffered from intense depression for decades. I had seen five highly recommended psychologists, and each left me worse off than I had been before. I therefore saw no other answer on the horizon apart from God, but I wanted Him my own way. He had to be a Jewish God, not a Christian one. Consequently, I wasn’t finding God. I found out later that I am in no position to set the terms of the relationship. I had to come to Him according to His specification, acknowledging what He wanted me to understand about Himself – His Cross and my utter sinfulness.”

However, in many churches, this is now a revolutionary, if not idiotic, idea. According to them, a relationship with our Creator should not depend upon believing certain truths. An Episcopal daily devotional for August 5 reads:

• There is a confusion today about the word “believe”…Another interpretation is “trust.” Belief has nothing to do with trying to talk ourselves into ideas just because others like them…A big part of defining, what we believe is noticing how we are building up the body of Christ.

Well, there certainly is a strong connection between what we believe and what we do to build up Christians. However, believing is not the same thing as doing. For one thing, we come to the Savior, not by earning our way through our good deeds, but by simply humbling ourselves to acknowledge His truth. The Apostle Paul associates this building process with the use of the right material – the Word of God:

• Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth [of Scripture] in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. (Ephes. 4:14-16)

Only when Christians are established in the Word do they find peace and stability. Therefore, growth is a matter of “speaking truth in love.” However, according to the Episcopal devotional, belief is not about truths or doctrines. It’s about simply trusting! But trusting in what? Well, it’s trusting in something other than “ideas.” However, this devotional is using their erroneous ideas to denigrate ideas. Somewhat of a contradiction!

Perhaps instead, it’s a matter of trusting in a person – Jesus. However, what about Him do we trust? That He was a good role model? A moral human being? Someone who offered one way of salvation among many? The Bible makes it overwhelmingly clear that salvation is a matter of accepting certain truths – “ideas” - about Jesus. Paul warned that:

• If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! (Galatians 1:9)

The priestess who stood before me seemed to be an incredibly gentle, sensitive and caring person. I felt like an insensitive brute by causing her discomfort. I wanted, above all else to be winsome, but the true Gospel is offensive. It informs us that God’s ways aren’t ours and that our human sentiments are often misguided. I had to remind myself that there is more than what the eye sees – including eternal consequences. Besides, God sees the inner person, while we are limited to what we see superficially.

Sometimes less is actually best, so I drew back from the battle lines and introduced the priestess to my wife.

   

   

Should Religion be Subject to Criticism?

Atheist Greta Christina writes:

• Why should religion be treated differently from all other kinds of ideas? Why shouldn’t we criticize it, and make fun of it, and try to persuade people out of it, the way we do with every other kind of idea? (alternet.org, 4/29/2012)

Christina asks a good question. I think that religion should be open to criticism, especially in our pluralistic society. To not be open to criticism is to be marginalized. If we are willing to be criticized, then we have no right to criticize others and their beliefs. If we try to maintain this imbalance, we will inevitably self-segregate, and I fear that we have done this to some degree.

However, I am struck though that Christina would even ask such a question. The Bible has been the object of intense criticism for almost 300 years, and, somehow, we’ve survived it – and I trust that we will continue to survive.

The Judeo-Christian tradition has always been open to rationality and, therefore, criticism. Our God has always been willing to enter into dialogue with His critics. He states through Isaiah the Prophet:

• "Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

Perhaps He might not enter into dialogue according to our schedules, but He does promise answers to those who are seeking (James 1:5-8; Matthew 7:7-8). Job had demanded an audience with his Maker, and he finally was granted it (Job 40-42). Even “doubting Thomas” finally received the confirmation he had demanded.

However, not all religions are as open to reason and criticism. The Koran warns:

• [Surah 33:59-61] If the hypocrites, the sick of heart, and those who spread lies in the city [Medina] do not desist, We [Allah] shall arouse you [the Prophet Mohammad] against them, and then they will only be your neighbors in this city for a short while. They will be rejected wherever they are found, and then seized and killed.

I was a bit provoked by Christina’s phrase, “shouldn’t we criticize it, and make fun of it.” Certainly, she has that right. However, she later asserted:

• We need to draw a careful line between criticizing ideas and marginalizing people. We need to remember that people who disagree with us are still people, deserving of basic compassion and respect.

As Christians, we certainly agree with Christina. However, I began to wonder what Christina meant by the term “people.” Some are highly educated, while others aren’t. Some say wise things, while others are willfully malicious and cause great pain. Why should they all be treated with “basic compassion and respect?” From a pragmatic point of view, some should be assigned a negative value, and if they have negative worth, then there can be no basis for “compassion and respect.”

However, according to Biblical revelation, we are all created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27), and therefore are greatly valued and beloved by our Creator (John 3:16). This makes indiscriminate “compassion and respect” for all a Biblical virtue. However, I wondered if Christina realized that her “faith” had a Biblical basis and also that it couldn’t be supported by her materialistic thinking.

Christina then insists that religious belief is more dangerous than other kinds of beliefs:

• But if religious differences really are more likely to lead to bigotry, tribalism, violence, etc., doesn’t that show what a bad idea it is? If the ideas of religion are so poorly rooted in reality that there’s no way to resolve differences other than forming battle lines and screaming or shooting across them, doesn’t that strongly suggest that this is a truly crappy idea, and humanity should let go of it? Doesn’t that suggest that persuading people out of it is a really good thing to do?

Of course, if religion always breeds warfare, then Christina is correct, and we should “persuade people out of it.” However, she commits several fallacies:

1. She claims that religion is a “truly crappy idea.” However, there are many different religions. Christina doesn’t refer to “crappy ideas” but a “crappy idea,” as if they are all one and all “will lead to bigotry, tribalism, violence.”

2. She also fails to see that we all have our religions. Even the atheists have their religions. If we define religious belief as those beliefs that can’t be proved by science – and many use this definition – then we are all religious. We all have values/morals, which science can’t prove. We all have standards we use to place a value on people and things. In fact, some atheists are willing to acknowledge that they too have their religion. The First Humanist [Atheist] Manifesto (Paul Kurtz, 1933) reads, “Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view.”

3. Christina also erroneously assumes that all religion lacks an evidential basis. She claims that they are “so poorly rooted in reality that there’s no way to resolve differences.” However, are the moral claims of secular humanism any more “rooted in reality than the claims of other religions? Hardly!

Sadly, out of defensiveness, we have been prone to fight. However, this should serve as a call to better acquaint ourselves with the evidential basis of Christianity – the reasons to believe – rather than to fight or abandon our faith, as Christina would like to see happen.

Besides, it is remarkable that she hasn’t acknowledged the very obvious fact that the atheistic religions have a worse track-record. Atheistic Communists have murdered a hundred million according to many estimates.

We don’t ask for different treatment - we should be prepared for criticism and even welcome it. We just ask for fair treatment.  As secular humanism has gained control of the media and universities, we have seen the Christian faith marginalized, Christians routinely portrayed as idiots, and Christianity construed as a “crappy idea” at best and the source of “bigotry, tribalism, violence, etc,” at the worst. And this is all happening without meaningful access to the media to rebut these unfair characterizations.

It is therefore astonishing that Christina needs to make a case for the right to criticize religion. It’s like as Eskimo pleading for more snow.

Hate Speech: What in the World is it?

Most recently, Chick-Fil-A (CFA) has been accused of “hate speech.” Why? Because CFA have been open about their Biblical belief in exclusively heterosexual marriage. According to many championing the gay agenda, this automatically means that CFA hates gays! Somehow, non-agreement has been magically translated as “hate.”

Do these “champions” actually see things this way or is this just propaganda? After all, in order to be consistent, they should also call President Obama’s words “hate speech.” Why? Because he wants to raise taxes on the rich and not others! Does this mean that he hates the rich? I wouldn’t say so. It seems that he too has become pretty wealthy.

Meanwhile, the Republicans want to limit government. Does this mean that they hate government workers? Of course not!

Interestingly, there are gays who are becoming quite troubled by these “hate speech” charges. One gay writes:

• My name is Matt. I'm approaching 20 years old. I am a liberal and a supporter of Barack Obama in 2012. What's more is that I am gay and I support Chick-Fil-A… those running the corporations (like Dan Cathy CEO of Chick-Fil-A) have a right to express their beliefs. It has always been an area that causes me to respect Chick-Fil-A when they close on Sundays for the only purpose of retaining personal convictions over profit motives. Mr. Cathy has been unfairly attacked for his statement that he doesn't support same-sex marriage. As a gay man I say let him not support gays. When the gay community and gay activist groups push on anti-gay people and organizations to change their minds and opinions via bullying or forced involvement I fear it would make whatever accomplishments taste cheap like a greasy coin. Ultimately the acceptance of the gay community and the right of gays to marry will not be achieved through violent means, physical and verbal, but through peaceful and honest negotiations…How would you feel if Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona, a well known Republican and Christian, told all gay business owners and workers that they could not get a job in the state because their beliefs did not match the beliefs of the state? We would call it unfair and a violation of our civil rights. Why then is it okay for a mayor to tell a company they cannot open business in the city simply because our beliefs differ?

Sadly, Matt makes far more sense than our media and universities – and these should have a vested interest in the free exchange of ideas - that have jumped on the “hate speech” bandwagon.