The foundation of Western civilization is relentlessly attacked in Europe
by Jonathon Van Maren, LifeSite:
Over the past several months, pressure on Christians has increased as the beliefs that form the foundation of Western civilization are relentlessly attacked as hateful and bigoted. Norway has just banned “transphobia”; a Finnish parliamentarian is under police investigation for defending traditional marriage; Dutch Christian schools are under attack by the government for teaching the biblical view of sexuality; a German pastor was fined 8,100 euros for statements against LGBTQ ideology. The list goes on. European Christians are increasingly trapped between the pincers of radical secularization and radical Islam.
I recently spoke with Madeleine Enzlberger of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe. Enzlberger, a native Austrian, has a background in conflict management and security politics and conducted field research in Iraq on the persecution of Christians and the promotion of International Religious Freedom Policy.
Hate incidents are rising — not significantly in numerical terms, but the general culture is taking a shift. This means that we do have political and cultural changes that do not only affect Christians but individual freedoms in general. Areas like freedom of speech, conscience and religion are intrinsically linked to each other and restrictions on one can lead to limitations on one of the other freedoms.
Currently we can identify three main areas in which Christians are facing most pressure. The first category is violence, as in vandalism, which is considered a hate crime by the OSCE, against churches or Christian institutions. The majority of the cases we report fall under this category. Sadly, we also have actual physical assaults on Christians, like the recent tragic killing of Christians in the basilica of Nice, but they are very rare. The motive and bias of the perpetrators is very diverse. Among them we find anti-religious, radical feminist and LGBTQ+ groups, or radical Islamists.
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