Soldiers of the—Cross??? Or Something Else?

My Lutheran confirmation Bible

Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire was bigtime. Churches were destroyed, worship meetings forbidden, clergy arrested, and followers of Jesus commanded to sacrifice to Roman gods. Margaret Nutting Ralph, Ph.D., writes that “Christians were vulnerable to persecution because they would not participate in emperor worship” and were therefore seen as unpatriotic.

Present-day countries with the highest levels of persecution against Christians are North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, and Yemen--persecution that can involve physical attacks, legal discrimination, torture, arrest, even death. It should be noted here that North Korea is a single-party state, ruled by a single “Supreme Leader.”

 

If your Christian faith is discovered in North Korea, you could be killed on the spot. If you aren't killed, you will be deported to a labour camp and treated as a political criminal. You will be punished with years of hard labour that few survive. And it's not only you who will be punished: North Korean authorities are likely to round up your extended family and punish them too, even if your family members aren't Christians.

 

That is persecution. That is what it means to risk being a martyr to your faith in the 21^st century. 

 

On February 7, 2025, however, the president of the United States signed an order to create a national task force to “eliminate anti-Christian bias.” Official statements claim that this task force will promote “religious liberty” and increase grant opportunities (i.e., government funds) for “faith-based entities.” Presumably, focus will be on Christian “faith-based entities” (we'll look closer at that in a minute), since the formation of the task force implies bias against Christians and a need to correct that bias. 

 

Christians have never been persecuted in the United States of America. On the contrary, without any establishment of a state religion—and the Founders were very clear about wanting to leave Americans free to worship or even not worship as they might choose—Christianity has managed to be the dominant American religion from the beginning of the nation to the present day. Yet being dominant is not enough for many so-called Christians today. Nothing short of imposing their own political agenda on everyone else—and make no mistake, many groups of nominal “Christians” in America have a strong and determined right-wing political agenda—will satisfy the ambitions of those who have abandoned the teachings of Jesus but continue to use his name.

 

Back in October I wrote about a book published in 1833, Three Years in North America, by James Stuart, Esq. You can go back and read what I wrote earlier, but if you don’t want to bother I’ll repeat myself briefly. The Englishman who wrote the book, as his title indicates, spent three years traveling around the United States in the early 1800s, going as far south as Mississippi (maybe New Orleans, but I’d have to check that) and as far west as St. Louis, and during his time in our nation’s capital he attended a meeting of Congress where the business of the day was consideration of a bill that would close post offices on Sunday to respect the Sabbath.

 

One argument against the bill was that it violated freedom and equality (what we since came to call the separation of church and state) by elevating one religion above others. 

 

The constitution regards the conscience of the Jew as sacred as that of the Christian, and gives no more authority to adopt a measure affecting the conscience of a solitary individual, than that of a whole community. 

 

Another argument (that I found absolutely fascinating!) was that the bill insulted Christianity by implying that its followers were so weak in their faith that they needed to be forced by government to practice it! This argument can be generalized to oppose any attempt to establish a state religion.

 

A third argument was that favoring one religion over another had not made life peaceful in European nations. 

 

One member remarked that it was “perhaps fortunate” that the question was coming up so early in the life of the nation, “while the spirit of the revolution yet exists in full vigour,” the spirit of freedom of conscience belonging to every American and not to be abridged by what we would call Congressional overreach. The Founders thought they had settled the matter in Philadelphia, and the early 19^th century Congress clearly reaffirmed the answer to the question. But now we have a president who curries favor by granting special status to the already dominant religion, pretending that it has been under attack. 

 

How fragile must be the faith of Christians who see persecution when they hear the greeting “Happy Holidays!” in December!

 

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

 

Attacks against world relief provided by Christian organizations initially seem at odds with the new protect-the-faith task force. How does it compute? For example --

 

Example #1: Relief aid around the world provided by Lutheran agencies (Lutheran Social Services, etc.) has been targeted by people in the current administration of Washington as “illegal payments.” One accuser was Michael Flynn, a Catholic, retired Army general, and former adviser to the current U.S. president. Unelected Elon Musk, a self-described “cultural Christian” (???), moved quickly to shut down payments. It is thought by some that work to resettle refugees was the blackest mark against the Lutheran relief agencies. Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, responded (read her full statement here):

 

As a faith-based nonprofit, we have proudly served legally admitted refugees and immigrants for more than 85 years. This includes Afghan Allies who risked their lives to protect U.S. troops, as well as persecuted Christians, all of whom have been extensively vetted and approved by multiple U.S. government agencies before traveling to our country. We also remain committed to caring for legally admitted unaccompanied children forced to flee to the United States.

 

Example #2: J.D. Vance, another avowed Catholic, along with Flynn, has also targeted Catholic relief agencies. With USAID already forced by Musk to cut programs in war-torn Gaza and elsewhere, National Catholic Relief, a group founded by American bishops in 1943 to help survivors of World War II, says,

 

Now, Catholic Relief Services is facing the most serious existential threat in its history in light of proposed federal funding cuts [my emphasis added]. 

 

The director of the Office of International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2004 to 2018, Stephen Colecchi, characterizes Musk’s stoppage of USAID funds as “haphazard and irresponsible”:

 

To target this tiny portion of the federal budget in such a haphazard and irresponsible way is going to cost people's lives and livelihoods. It is not a thoughtful or humane way to go about treating programs that help the poorest of the poor all over the world.

 

In Colecchi’s words, “the poorest of the poor.” In the words of a former board chair of Catholic Relief Services, Bishop Gerald Kicanas, “desperate people, living in desperate situations, struggling day by day, hour by hour.” These are the people who have been helped, whose risk of survival is now greater than ever. You have seen photographs of present-day Gaza! 

 

And yet, only the other day (everything done is “only the other day” in an administration not yet a month old, God help us!), the president ordered the creation of a “White House Faith Office” to “root out anti-Christian bias” in government and protect the Christian faith by supporting “faith-based entities.”

 

The woman named to lead the president’s new faith office is Paula White, a televangelist. I will not rehash her background or go over her many public statements (you can look those up yourself if you are unfamiliar with her) but want to highlight one single aspect of her ministry. Her teaching is that of the so-called "prosperity gospel." The message is pretty simple: God wants you to be rich! Follow me, and you’re following God! You can start down the road to riches by sending money to me so I can continue spreading the word (says the television preacher), and I promise it will come back to you tenfold. 

 

Where, I ask, is the Christian gospel in this? Where is Jesus? Where are the Beatitudes? 

 

Where is Matthew 6:19-21?

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 

Where is Matthew 6:24?

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

 

But put the pieces together, and they fit perfectly. 

The new administration in Washington has no interest in protecting the Christian faith or serving those truly persecuted (whatever faith they may profess, if any). Catholics and Lutherans are not "Christian" enough, in their warped view of a major world religion. The real sin of these long-established, traditional Christian churches is that by sending relief funds abroad, they are not directly enriching the greedy at home. 

What the billionaires now in charge really want to do is to make the world safe for the worship of mammon. Their sign is not that of the cross but of the dollar sign. Put the pieces together, and it all makes sense.