So the War on Christians conference has been convened. This Washington Post (free registration required) piece highlights what you might expect to come from it: concern over sexual decadance of American Culture, abortion, a so-called attack on the institution of marriage, American religious pluralism.

But I just don’t know what to make of this: Jewish speakers likening this War on Christians to the Holocaust experience of the Jews in 20th century Germany:

Much of the conference revolved around the difficulty of Christian parenting in a culture of sexual permissiveness. Don Feder, founder of a group called Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, urged the crowd not to blame “the liberal, self-hating Jews in Hollywood.”

“Remember, the people in this audience are more Jewish than people like Barbra Streisand, because you embrace Jewish values, she doesn’t,” he said. Another Jewish speaker, Michael Horowitz, told the conference that the “Christian decency of this country” saved him from becoming “a bar of soap” in Nazi Germany.

“You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century,” said Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, just before a false alarm interrupted his speech. Several attendees called the fire alarm suspicious, though a hotel spokesman said it resulted from a mechanical problem in a distant location.

That’s just bizzaro. Boggles the mind.

This is what a war on Christians (or anyone, really, who is a member of a faith that is out of political power) looks like:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Senior Muslim clerics are demanding that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to “pull him into pieces.”

…

“Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.

I believe that this is not the heart of Islam, and that there are plenty of moderate voices who do not believe that this is consonant with the heart of Islam. But this particular expression of it is evil. Maybe we should be focused on that, huh Rev. Dobson Keyes, Brownback, Bauer, Cornyn, Schlafly, and Delay?

Now, I know that loons all over the place propose all sorts of loony bills, but this story out of KMOV in Saint Louis (behind a free registration page) caught my eye:

Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state’s official “majority” religion.

House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is [sic] pending in the state legislature.

Many Missouri residents had not heard about the bill until Thursday.

Karen Aroesty of the Anti-defamation league, along with other watch-groups, began a letter writing and email campaign to stop the resolution.

The resolution would recognize “a Christian god,” and it would not protect minority religions, but “protect the majority’s right to express their religious beliefs.

The resolution also recognizes that, “a greater power exists,” and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, “justified recognition.”

State representative David Sater of Cassville in southwestern Missouri, sponsored the resolution, but he has refused to talk about it on camera or over the phone.

KMOV also contacted Gov. Matt Blunt’s office to see where he stands on the resolution, but he has yet to respond.

Here’s the text of House Concurrent Resolution 13. I’m fairly sure this ain’t goin nowhere. That’s not the point, really. I guess this is a salvo in that War On Christians that Keyes, Brownback, Bauer, Cornyn, Schlafly, and Delay are so worried about. Joshua Holland actually thinks this is a trap in that so-called war.

Good comments from Kim over at Think Christian:

Putting aside any church-state objections for the moment, why are so many Christians fixated on cultural domination rather than spreading the gospel? Or to look at it another way, does this resolution glorify God in any way or does it rather glorify political power? What about this resolution could possibly be pleasing to God?

(Also read this interesting article on evangelicals’ historical support for separation of church and state.)

Christians were instrumental in the drive to solidify freedom of conscience in our civic life, the root of the establishment and free-exercise clauses in the first amendment (the roots of the “separation of church and state”). That isn’t limited to Christian free-exercise, but that of muslims, jews, hindus, atheists, agnostics, and what have you. Why the temptation to move towards theocracy? Why aren’t more danger bells going off?

Over at the Feminary, I found out about this nonsense:

America Won’t Be Happy!

16 March 2006

“The War on Christians” conference is coming to D.C., featuring a modified-A-list of conservative heavyweights organized by Vision America, including Alan Keyes, Gary Bauer, Sen. John Cornyn, Phyllis Schlafly, Sen. Sam Brownback and Rep. Tom DeLay, as well as some Jews — the latter apparently such a newsworthy addition that it warranted its own press release: “Jews Confront the War on Christians.” Other target-specific panels will include “The News Media: Megaphone For Anti-Faith Values,” “The Judiciary: Overruling God,” and “The Gay Agenda: America Won’t Be Happy.”

Its one thing to agree that we live in a post-Christian society, one where we no longer have the privledge of soccer games not being scheduled on Sunday morning or assuming that everyone will come to the Lenten program (perhaps no longer taking priority over a much needed break from a too stressful work week). Its another to perpetuate the trope that there is a War on Christians. Meanwhile, the actual war, which is exacting a real cost, is going on over there –>.