Christians in America, wake up. There’s a harassment storm coming.
Church-attending, Bible-reading Christians in Colorado have already lived through the beginning of this cultural and governmental shift over the past few years. Jack Phillips, the Lakewood baker, is still fighting a decadelong battle of lawsuits and government reeducation over his Christian values. A second case, 303 Creative v. Elenis, is before the Supreme Court after a Colorado web designer sued the state for trying to compel her speech in opposition to her Christian values.
However, the coercion and retaliation Christians in the state face are not just coming from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Denver Post has singled out Christian high schools for their values regarding marriage and human identity and even went so far as to call for Catholic high schools to be banned from playing sports with public schools. A recent article in the Denverite sought to pressure the Denver Rescue Mission to abandon its Christian lifestyle requirements for employees or lose its multimillion-dollar city contracts to serve the poor.
Is Colorado getting less religious? Yes, but that’s not the major problem. Colorado, like many Western states, has always had a comparatively low percentage of residents who adhere to a religious community. In the 1980s, for example, the percentage of Coloradans who said they adhered to a religious community was 36.5%. This number peaked in the 2000s at 39.4%. In 2020, it dropped to a record low of 35.4%, which is really not a monumental drop.
The real problem is that Christian values are increasingly finding themselves in conflict with the values pushed by the state. A biblical worldview on human identity and sexuality, for instance, runs head-on into the state’s embrace of LGBT identity politics. Indeed, the framing of LGBT rights as its own civil rights issue has made it difficult for people of all religious backgrounds to live according to their beliefs without fear of retaliation. Once the public believes something is a civil right, it doesn’t take kindly to people opposing it.
Talk to any young liberal, and you get the sense they are on a moral crusade. They believe the LGBT community has suffered civil rights violations by religious conservatives for decades, and the law must be weaponized to shut down the “oppressors.” While the nonreligious in Colorado’s past were content to allow Christians to live as they saw fit, the new liberals won’t give any quarter. For them, opposition to the LGBT agenda is on par with opposition to racial civil rights.
In a recent exchange between Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and an attorney for the state of Colorado during the 303 Creative oral arguments, Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson made it clear that the state sees conscientious objections to same-sex marriage as bigotry.
“In light of what Justice Kennedy wrote in Obergefell about honorable people who object to same-sex marriage, do you think it’s fair to equate opposition to same-sex marriage with opposition to interracial marriage?” Alito asked Olson.
Olson responded, “Yes.”
If belief in the church’s traditional teachings on human identity and marriage is equated with racism, Christians in Colorado should prepare more heavy-handed government harassment.
What are Christians in the state and across the rest of the country to do?
First, wake up. These serious issues will directly affect you, your family, your school, your workplace, and your congregation.
Second, get a good lawyer. With the recent passing of the misnamed Respect for Marriage Act, the LGBT community will be emboldened to sue religious conservative organizations via a new private right of action.
Third, stand up. The debate happening in the public square is not just about the right to live as one chooses. These are theological debates about the nature of humanity, sexuality, and identity. These are questions of the utmost importance, and we must stand for truth.
Fourth, proclaim the Gospel. Traditional Christian theology on marriage and human identity is right, true, and life-giving. We must find ways to bear witness to the truth taught in the Bible and be a light in a culture that is getting darker. Research on the breakdown of marriage isn’t good: Our society is experiencing higher levels of intimate partner violence in cohabitation, a growing number of people spending their senior years alone, skyrocketing STDs, etc. A worldview that rejects the teachings of the Bible leads to confusion and suffering. The Gospel of Jesus Christ provides a way for redemption and new life. We must continue to speak the good news.
For years, I represented persecuted Christians worldwide in Washington, D.C., and at the United Nations. I helped develop the first congressional scorecard on international religious liberty. I’m aware of the real persecution of Christians. What Coloradans are facing today doesn’t match the persecution of Christians in China, North Korea, or Iran, but the growing threat of harassment in America is real and must be taken seriously.
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Jeff Hunt is director of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University.
