You Just Don't Get It, Rick

In a campaign speech in Plano, Texas today, Rick Santorum claimed, “…progressives are trying to shutter faith, privatize it, push it out of the public square, oppress people of faith…”   On its face the statement is the worst kind of political rhetoric and a symptom of the divisive and petty nature of campaigns today.  Beneath the surface, Santorum’s rhetoric is far more dangerous. 

What Santorum is expressing is his disagreement with some public policy directions.  By calling disappointment in public policy “persecution,” he belittles the true suffering many Christians and other religious minorities around the world experience at the hands of their governments and neighbors.  Consider:

·         In America, conservative Christians disagree with recent administration policies on providing birth control.

·         In Egypt, a dozen Coptic Christians were murdered when leaving church because a Christian woman married a Muslim man.

·         In America, conservative Christians who disagree with the legalization of abortion voice their disapproval and campaign to change the law.

·         In Indonesia, churches in some communities have been ordered to close their doors and the pastors and members no longer speak publicly of their faith.

·         In America, Christians of many points of view disagree with the disproportionate amount of our national budget spent on the military.

·         In North Korea, Christian leaders are thrown into military concentration/work camps.

There is real suffering in this world.  Men, women and even children of many different faiths are persecuted and discriminated against and, in some cases, killed for no reason other than the fact that their faith is out of public favor.  The “suffering” of American Christians is nothing compared to the true suffering of religious minorities around the world.  Not getting your way is not the same thing as losing your life.

The very fact that Rick Santorum is free to say such foolish things while running for the highest elected office in the nation is elegant proof of just how hollow his rhetoric is.  If he really aspires to be the leader of the free world, Sen. Santorum would do well to take a moment and appreciate rather than complain about the very freedom he enjoys. 

As a pastor, I am grateful that I have the freedom to speak my mind in the pulpit each week.  My parishioners have the right to express their own faith lives without risk of persecution or prosecution.  Unlike many of my brothers and sisters around the world, my neighbors and I enjoy real and powerful freedom in our religious lives, even when we disagree with our fall out of favor with our government.

Christ was persecuted, Rick Santorum is just not getting his way.