Christian Faith Driven Out of New York Schools

It’s happening again. The world is coming against Christianity. This time you can see it in the fact that New York City can now block religious services in public schools.

Of course, the Conservative Right is jumping all over this and using that dreaded P-Word. That’s right – PERSECUTION!

Rally the troops!

Sound the alarm!

They’re attacking the faith again.

Okay, I’m being a little facetious. I get tired of people tossing around the “Christian persecution” line. It flows too easily off our lips. Any time someone does something to a Christian or church that prevents us from doing what we want we play that persecution card.

It may be legislation attempting to do damage to the Church. But it may not be. I would be curious to know who else rents school facilities in New York City and what the criteria are for accepting or denying requests from outside organizations that wish to utilize school facilities.

I will say that the organization which helped push this through, the New York Civil Liberties Union, is wrong in their assessment of the situation. The executive director of NYCLU stated:

“When a school is converted to a church in this way,” she added, “it sends a powerful message to students and the community at large that the government favors that particular church.”

When I was a pastor in California the church I was at rented the multi-purpose room of a local middle-school. There was no sense of favor from the government. The students and teachers got no message sent. In fact, since we were only there on Sundays (and cleaned up very well after ourselves), the students and faculty would really have NO knowledge we were even there. This seems to be a case of a biased liberal agenda crying wolf.

But even if this legislation stays and Christian organizations are removed from utilizing public school facilities, we need to understand that our conflict with the world is to be expected. We’ve enjoyed so much favor that we’ve forgotten that the faith was born under adversity. Throughout history, the Church has thrived under adversity. It’s when we get comfortable that we move away from God.

So hang in there, baby. We might get pushed around, but that’s okay. Jesus told us to expect trouble. We can deal with it. The Church has survived for thousands of years, even without the public school system giving us a place to meet.

We’ll be okay.

Follow @chrislinzey