Are You A ‘Religious Extremist’?

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Are you a religious extremist? For years, world leaders have been endlessly proclaiming that we need to eradicate “extremism”, but what actually is “extremism”? Many would point to the ISIS jihadists over in the Middle East that are beheading people that don’t agree with them as examples of religious extremists, and I think that very few people would argue with that. But our politicians (especially the liberal ones) rarely use the term “Islamic terrorists” anymore. Instead, they tend to use the term “religious extremists”, and that has a much, much broader connotation. In fact, if you are a Bible-believing Christian, you are probably included in that category.

Most Bible-believing Christians would never think of themselves as being similar to radical jihadists in the Middle East, but that is precisely how many of their fellow Americans very them. The Barna Group has just released a shocking new study which found that 45 percent of all “non-religious” Americans believe that “Christianity is extremist”…

The perception that the Christian faith is extreme is now firmly entrenched among the nation’s non-Christians. A full forty-five percent of atheists, agnostics, and religiously unaffiliated in America agree with the statement “Christianity is extremist.” Almost as troubling is the fact that only 14 percent of atheists and agnostics strongly disagree that Christianity is extremist. The remaining four in ten (41%) disagree only somewhat. So even non-Christians who are reluctant to fully label Christianity as extremist, still harbor some hesitations and negative perceptions toward the religion.

Even more troubling is what the study discovered about how the general population views specific religious activities. There has been a tremendous shift in society, and behaviors that were considered to be completely mainstream a few decades ago are now considered to be “extremism”.

Are you ready to take a test? Look over the Barna infographic that I have shared below very carefully. Have you ever participated in any of these “extremist activities”?…

If you have ever participated in any of the activities listed in category 1 or category 2, you are a “religious extremist” according to most Americans.

Of course every single one of the behaviors in category 2 would potentially apply to me, so I guess that would make me an “extremist” according to this definition.

This is where our society is heading. Of course “Christian extremists” are not normally put into prison in the United States quite yet, but hatred toward our faith in rapidly rising in society. Church attendance is dropping like a rock, the Christian faith is relentlessly mocked in movies and on television, and incidents of hostility toward Christians have doubled over the past three years.

And the truth is that even the federal government and the military are rapidly turning against Bible-believing Christians. For example, the slide that I have posted below comes from a U.S. Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief that described “Evangelical Christianity” and “Catholicism” as examples of “religious extremism”…

Once this came out, there was a huge uproar and some people got into trouble over this. But it should be exceedingly alarming to people of faith that U.S. military personnel were being trained that evangelical Christians are on the same level as the Ku Klux Klan.

And of course this is far from the only example of this phenomenon. In fact, Christians have regularly been described as “extremists” and “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents since the day that Barack Obama first stepped into the White House.

The following is an extended excerpt from my previous article entitled “72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered ‘Potential Terrorists’ In Official Government Documents“…

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Below is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” and “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents. To see the original source document for each point, just click on the link. As you can see, this list covers most of the country…

1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”

2. Those that advocate for states’ rights

3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”

4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”

5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”

6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”

7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”

8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”

9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”

10. “Anti-Gay”

11. “Anti-Immigrant”

12. “Anti-Muslim”