The Persecution Has Arrived

Christians: Persecuted in America

By now, many folks are familiar with Aaron and Melissa Klein, the Christian couple who operated a popular bakery in Gresham, Oregon for several years until they ran afoul of the state of Oregon and its LGBT community in 2013 when they declined to bake a cake for a lesbian couple engaged to be married.

The Kleins refused the order because of their biblical worldview that condemns the homosexual lifestyle. Though the gay couple had to go elsewhere to find their cake, they decided to teach the Kleins a lesson for turning them down.

The couple filed a complaint with Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), and the agency subsequently dropped the hammer on the Kleins. Big time. And when word of the snub spread through Oregon's LGBT community, the gay brownshirts descended on their bakery and began threatening people who did business with them.

The hammer that BOLI slammed the Kleins with was a $135,000 judgment awarded to the gay couple for "emotional suffering stemming directly from unlawful discrimination. The amounts are damages related to the harm suffered by the Complainants, not fines or civil penalties which are punitive in nature." 

How BOLI calculated that financial sum is a mystery. How do you put a price-tag on "emotional suffering"? Evidently, BOLI knows how to do that. More likely, the "award" was a message sent to other Christian business owners in Oregon and elsewhere in America that if they walk the talk outside their churches, they'll pay a heavy price. And so, think of that $135,000 as hush money.

Interestingly, on BOLI's website, people with religious worldviews who operate businesses or are employed in the state of Oregon are protected from religious discrimination. Except, evidently, when they refuse to service gays. Then their first amendment rights don't apply. One wonders whether the Kleins would've been prosecuted by BOLI had they been Muslims. When gay push comes to Muslim shove, the lesbian couple seeking that wedding cake would've likely been shoved on to another bakery without a whimper.

Make no mistake about it: The Kleins were persecuted rather than prosecuted by the state of Oregon because they openly practiced their faith, not because they discriminated against anyone. Did the lesbian couple intentionally target the Kleins' because they're Christians? It's possible, although no one can prove that. But you can be sure that the gay community in America would never try to pull that on a Muslim-owned business. Because you know what would happen if they did.

The persecution of Christians in America such as the Kleins is tragic, and yet prophetic. Two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ warned His followers that they would face intense persecution throughout the world in the last days preceding His return. And while we've seen that persecution elsewhere in the world, it stayed away from the United States. But now it's here.

Here's what Christ said concerning the last days: "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me." (Matthew 24:9) And He said this: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." (John 15:18-19)

The apostle Paul weighed in on the subject with this: "In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." (2 Timothy 3:12-13) 

And the apostle Peter added this: "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you." (1 Peter 4:12-14)

The persecution of the Kleins isn't an isolated incident. Earlier this year, the owners of a pizzeria located in Walkerton, Indiana were bullied by gay enforcers into shutting down their business for a few days after word spread that they had declined to cater a gay wedding. Last year, (2014) the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled that Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop (Lakewood, Colorado) discriminated against a gay couple when he refused to bake them a cake for their wedding.

While none of those examples rises to the level of the type of persecution Christians are experiencing in the Middle East and Northern Africa (rapes, beheadings, torture, church burnings etc.), it's only the beginning. And once it begins, it starts accelerating like a freight train.

Liberty Institute founder Kelly Shackelford states that the growing hostility against Christians in America is alarming: There are children being prohibited from writing Merry Christmas to the soldiers, senior citizens being banned from praying over their meals in the Senior Center, the VA banning the mention of God in military funerals, numerous attempts to have veterans memorials torn down if they have any religious symbols such as a cross, and I could go on and on.

Indeed, the persecution has arrived. And it's only going to get worse. It's yet another prophetic sign that we're living in the last days.