Two weeks ago, an elderly abbot of a Russian Orthodox Monastery in the U.S. Pacific Northwest was punched in the head while pumping gas.
The assailant, unknown to him, reportedly zeroed in on the cross he was wearing and then said, “How’s Trump?”
“I don’t know,” replied the gentle but traditional monk, not known for being political.
Then came the debilitating sucker punch.
With political extremism on the rise in the U.S., and leftist-anarchist groups denouncing the First Amendment as a legacy of white supremacy, expect anti-religious violence to continue to be normalized as public discourse keeps dehumanizing traditional Christians.
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Normalization of leftist violence is seen in how CBS touts online a TV show that, as TAC senior editor Rod Dreher notes, “affirms and justifies the violent physical assault of a living American who was peacefully stating his opinion… to promote its own programming by rallying potential viewers to the episode.”
Dreher also cites how Villanova University Professor Billie Murray’s work theorizes a political tolerance for violence on the Left by “’challenging the violence/nonviolence binary’ and arguing that we ‘should imagine activism as combative’—this, as a counterpoint to ‘traditional nonviolent activism.’”
Middlebury College recently cancelled a speech by former Polish Solidarity activist and philosopher Ryszard Legutko because they reportedly could not guarantee his safety. Ironically, Legutko studies how liberal democracies are becoming “soft totalitarian” regimes. He too, has espoused conservative Catholic views of marriage and sex. This in part has led, we can only guess, to the Facebook rants against him ahead of his planned appearance, and a statement by protesting students who called him a homophobe, misogynist, racist, sexist, “and practically everything an ideological sinner can be today,” according to Legutko’s own detailing of the events.
Meanwhile, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen suggested that Vice President Mike Pence should resign because his wife is teaching at a conservative Christian school that opposes secular sexual anthropology, and this puts him beyond the pale of acceptable social morals. In recent years, Christian restaurant chains, bakers, and high-tech executives have fallen prey to campaigns to chase them from the economy, a kind of professional execution in a capitalist society.
