How to Kill a Christian in Three Easy Steps

How do you kill a Christian in America . . . and get away with it?

Imagine an America where killing Christians is not only socially acceptable, but also considered beneficial and even enjoyable. What social dynamics would have to exist in order for a society to reach this point?
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Let’s do a little reverse engineering.

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Reverse Engineering

What would have to happen in American to make killing Christians legal?

Like solving a geometric proof, in order to prove the "given" that it may one day be legal to kill Christians, we must prove a series of other propositions using logic, precedent, and reasoning. Let's start with the proposition closest to the given.

Proposition 3: A government that takes the life a Christian (solely for being a Christian) must first make Christianity illegal. 

Even though capital punishment isn’t as popular in America now as in previous decades, our government already possesses the power to dispatch those individuals whose crimes are so egregious that the public must be protected from them at all costs. But that’s not currently true of Christianity in America.

Therefore, in order to prove our given, we must ask what would have to happen to make Christianity illegal in the U.S.?

Proposition 2: A government that makes Christianity illegal must first convince the culture that Christianity is harmful.

All laws are created because the law-givers (parents, teachers, kings, and republics alike) have decided that certain words and actions -- and, in some dystopian fiction, even thoughts –- are harmful to the culture. In America, our Constitution allows for representatives of the people (who act in accordance with the people’s wishes) to create laws. Therefore, the majority of people would have to be persuaded that the beliefs and actions of Christians are so harmful to the public that laws must be enacted to protect the nation from Christianity. 

Let's consider our current cultural climate. Harvard professors have recently argued that homeschooling needs to be abolished specifically to keep children from being "brainwashed" by their conservative parents. Bill Gates has invented a vaccine that will target and deaden a section of the brain he believes produces what he refers to as fanatic fundamentalist religious beliefs. The woke culture of the extreme left believes that conservative and -- specifically -- Christian beliefs are not only disgusting but also dangerous to everyone who interacts with them. Even professing "progressive Christians" believe it's inappropriate to "colonize" a child's spirituality. And recently a teacher at an episcopal high school verbally attacked one of the students for doing nothing more nor less than posting conservative content on her social media. At the time of this publication, the student is facing disciplinary action for her conservative posts.

In order to make Christianity illegal, you must convince the culture that it's harmful to the nation. Given recent events, it's very easy to argue that this has already happened in America -- at least on a broad scale. But for those who do not see how Christianity is being demonized, we must ask the final question in order to prove the last proposition.

How might a government demonize Christianity as a precursor to calling it dangerous?

Proposition 1: A government that demonizes Christianity must first persuade the nation that Christianity is divergent.

Not all things that one people group find harmful are viewed the same by another. A facet of the U.S. believes vaccinations are deadly while another believes them to be necessary for survival. Part of the nation is convinced we have to wear masks to survive, and the other part thinks masks are part of the problem.

How does one group persuade others to join their side? The best way to convince the nation that Christianity is harmful is to provide factual evidence of the destructive nature of Christianity. But since there is neither contemporary nor historical evidence of genuine negatives growing from biblical Christianity, naysayers will have to either lie or take the sneaky approach -– generalization.

Lies are easy to come by and are as old as sin itself. Scan any social media platform and you will find more lies about Christianity than you can read in a lifetime. But the best lies will be the ones that ​make the sins of Christians -– which are clearly condemned by Scripture -– seem like the actual tenants of Christianity, or at least stereotypical of the whole. Enter generalization.

Christians will be defined by the worst of their kind: hypocrites, crusaders, and bigots. And when that fails because the listeners are capable of logical, reasoned thought (a dying ability), then the God-haters will have to resort to making Christians look weird, awkward, fanatical, strange, and untouchable. Because Christianity cannot be proven to be genuinely harmful, people must be made to believe that it is at least divergent from the "woke" path.

It is undeniable that this is happening every day in America.

• In science the nation believes we lack logic and reason.
• In politics we are made to look -- at best -- old-fashion and anti-progressive; at worst we are called racist, phobic, and intolerant. 
• In psychological discussions Christians who take a biblical approach to "mental illness” are made to appear asinine.
• In cultural forums, Christians are verbally eviscerated for rejecting culturally “beneficial” practices like abortion and homosexuality.
• And of course, in matters of philosophy, atheists try to convince the general populace that Christians are infantile and backward for believing in a supernatural deity.

Conclusion

A government may kill what it determines is illegal.

A government may make something illegal if it decides it's dangerous.

A government may call something dangerous if it declares that it's divergent.

There are countries in the world where it is legal not only for the government to kill Christians, but also for common citizens to get involved. There are countries in the United Nations that have made Christianity illegal. And of the three steps to making it legal to kill Christians in America, the U.S. has been fully invested for years in the first, and is moving through the second as quickly as it can.

I’m not going to provide a prediction or a timeline. I believe history does that just fine. However, allow me to point out that the first draft of this article was written in 2016. Back then I conjectured that America was solidly in Phase 1 and only hinting at Phase 2, but now -- only four years later -- I am amazed how far into Phase 2 we are.

But though I don't intend to provide a prophetic timeline, I will say that if Christians do not take this reality seriously, most of us will be completely blindsided when we discover that our faith in God is now illegal and punishable by death.

However, I am not suggesting we fear that day. I am instead suggesting we do the following:

1. Obey the Bible. It will be hard for people to believe that Christians need to be locked up if every Christian they know is more loving, respectful, gracious, honest, obedient, and forgiving than they. Sure, Christians in a secular nation will still be the outliers. We’ll be strange. But it will be difficult to demonize us if we commit ourselves to God’s plan of loving, Truth-proclaiming, redemptive relationships. Being different isn’t inherently bad, and the world knows that. In Matthew 5:16 Jesus declares that we should "Let [our] light shine before men in such a way that they may see [our] good works, and glorify [our] Father who is in heaven." The implied outcome of lived-righteousness is that some people will be drawn to God. And I Peter 3:16 reads, "keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame." Here we learn that in some cases attacking lived-righteousness will only produce shame in the attacker. Yes, it's true that people will hate Christ's disciples if they hate Christ, but His disciples shouldn't be doing anything so that they hate us simply because of us.
2. Stand against professing Christians who don’t obey the Bible. Christianity will be easily demonized as more and more Christians are characterized by hypocrisy, pedophilia, embezzling, adultery, hatred, legalism, violence, racism, and vitriol. When a professing Christian falls into these sins, those of us who love the Lord must first confront the sinning brother in a biblically loving way. We cannot afford to ignore it. Peter did it. Paul did it. Christ did it. We must as well. And if the erring brother refuses to accepts God’s Truth and repent, then we must act biblically and publicly remove that individual (and/or his organization) from the church (Matthew 18:15-17). If biblical Christians publicly reject places like Westboro Baptist Church, then biblical Christians cannot honestly be lumped together with them. If Christians biblically condemn professing believers who blatantly disobey God’s Law, we testify to the public that those people do not deserve to define God’s Christianity.

I do believe there’s hope for individual revival in America. I believe that -- by the grace and power of God -- American Christians will still be able to share the Truth even if we are one day murdered for doing so. But I also believe it won't be long before we see the first legal American martyr.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

If you're a Christian who loves God, I invite you to join The Celebration of God.

If you're a parent, I invite you to access the free parenting resources available at Truth.Love.Parent.

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AMBrewster

AMBrewster is the president of Truth.Love.Parent. and host of its award-winning parenting podcast. Aaron is a husband, father, biblical counselor, pastor, and speaker. He not only preaches at couples conferences and parenting seminars, he also trains pastors, counselors, youth workers, and teachers to biblically disciple at-risk children and families-in-crisis. He's created hundreds of hours of free parenting resources including The Celebration of God, a dynamic discipleship experience that equips families to better understand, love, and serve the Lord every day of their lives.