In his helpful book, Exposing Myths about Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends, the late author and professor Jeffrey Burton Russell addresses to common claim:
"This has certainly been true at times. But other ideologies repress free thought too, so the question is whether Christians tend to be more or less repressive of dissent than other people. The current fact is that Americans of all persuasions are increasingly closed-minded to views other then their own. In contemporary culture, closed-mindedness is evident in identity politics, political correctness and physicalist reductionism. Scientific journals suppress evidence of anything that hints of intelligent purpose in any form, and even evolutionist professors can get into trouble for not being the right kind of evolutionists (atheists) or appearing to be 'soft' on the question. Meanwhile, Orwellian thought control is growing in the United States and is already established in Britain and Canada. The Canadian Human Rights Commission has been tireless in punishing (not just debating, not just censuring, but punishing) Christians and others who disagree with its doctrines.
"This has certainly been true at times. But other ideologies repress free thought too, so the question is whether Christians tend to be more or less repressive of dissent than other people. The current fact is that Americans of all persuasions are increasingly closed-minded to views other then their own. In contemporary culture, closed-mindedness is evident in identity politics, political correctness and physicalist reductionism. Scientific journals suppress evidence of anything that hints of intelligent purpose in any form, and even evolutionist professors can get into trouble for not being the right kind of evolutionists (atheists) or appearing to be 'soft' on the question. Meanwhile, Orwellian thought control is growing in the United States and is already established in Britain and Canada. The Canadian Human Rights Commission has been tireless in punishing (not just debating, not just censuring, but punishing) Christians and others who disagree with its doctrines.
Relativism poses as freedom but is just another form of tyranny: You must believe that all religions are equal because we say they are. You must agree with us that everything is relative, or we will punish you. The only thing that isn't relative is the validity of our correctness. And that is based simply on what we and our colleagues happen to believe and what we have the power to enforce.
In reality, there is only one way that all religions an be equally valid, and that is if they are all wrong, which is the real subtext. Thought-control totalitarians feel the greatest need to suppress opinions precisely when those opinions are most persuasive, because then they are perceived as most dangerous to the ruling ideology. Here is a comment from the left-secular British newspaper The Guardian:
'There's an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised. It's disguised because the would-be dictators - and there are many of them - all pretend to be more tolerant than thou. They hide alongside the anti-racists, the anti-homophobes and anti-sexists. But what they are really against is something very different. They - call them secular fundamentalists - are anti-God, and what they really want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth. But the fundamentalists saw an opening. Because we live in a multiconfessional society, they fostered the falsehood that wearing a crucifix or a veil or a turban was deeply offensive to other faiths. They pretended to be protecting religious sensibilities as a pretext to strip us of all religious expressions...From everyone being welcome, it had become everyone but.'
In reality, there is only one way that all religions an be equally valid, and that is if they are all wrong, which is the real subtext. Thought-control totalitarians feel the greatest need to suppress opinions precisely when those opinions are most persuasive, because then they are perceived as most dangerous to the ruling ideology. Here is a comment from the left-secular British newspaper The Guardian:
'There's an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised. It's disguised because the would-be dictators - and there are many of them - all pretend to be more tolerant than thou. They hide alongside the anti-racists, the anti-homophobes and anti-sexists. But what they are really against is something very different. They - call them secular fundamentalists - are anti-God, and what they really want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth. But the fundamentalists saw an opening. Because we live in a multiconfessional society, they fostered the falsehood that wearing a crucifix or a veil or a turban was deeply offensive to other faiths. They pretended to be protecting religious sensibilities as a pretext to strip us of all religious expressions...From everyone being welcome, it had become everyone but.'
Christianity is properly open-minded and reasonable. When it isn't, it isn't fully Christian. Christians want to look for truth whatever and wherever it is."1
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnote:
1. Jeffrey Burton Russell, Exposing Myths about Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends, p. 144-145.
1. Jeffrey Burton Russell, Exposing Myths about Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends, p. 144-145.
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