THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 9, 1994 TAG: 9408090005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By TOM TEEPEN
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
The bellyaching of Pat Robertson and others like him about supposed anti-Christian bigotry in this country is thrown into poignant perspective when you run into the real thing.
As in Iran these days.
Life for the Christian minority there has been uneasy ever since the late Ayatollah Khomeini decided that if he wasn't God, he'd do till the real thing came along.
Now the seesaw between what passes for moderates in Iran and the radicals is canted deeply to the latter, and Christians are taking an especially hard hit.
Christians are being jailed and tortured. Three leaders have been killed. The Assemblies of God seem particularly a target. Pastors are being forced to leave their parishes.
And all this atop the usual repression. The Islamic government closed Christian schools when it took over in '79. It rarely approves the publication of Christian texts. Key jobs are reserved for Iranians who uphold ``Islamic values.''
Now, there's anti-Christian bigotry for you.
The trick the American religious right is playing is to label its politics Christian and then to cry religious bigotry whenever anyone disagrees with the politics - or when anyone points out what the scam is.
Preacher-politician Robertson sees bigotry at every turn. It was ``anti-Christian bigotry,'' he said, even to criticize him for denouncing a puppet show he hadn't seen as obscene when it had been no such thing.
Robertson has gone so far as to claim, ``Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians.'' Yeah, sure.
When the Democratic National Committee questioned the politically hyperactive Christian Coalition's tax-exempt status, the director, Ralph Reed, called the complaint ``further evidence of bigotry against Christians.''
Actually, we're talking tax law here.
In a Gallup Poll this June, 88 percent of Americans counted themselves Christian, nearly half of them evangelical or born-again. Sixty-five percent are church members, one of the most churched populations in Christendom. Churches are among our wealthiest social institutions.
That is hardly the picture of a nation in which Christians are oppressed, yet Robertson says Christians suffer ``wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group of in America.''
Americans who have been paying attention know real anti-Christian bigotry when they see it.
They saw it in the Soviet Union, especially against Pentacostals.
They see it now where Islamic fundamentalists can intimidate. In Bethlehem, long home to a large and thriving Arab Christian population, few dare admit to the faith these days.
They see it in Sudan, where Christians are being slaughtered in the civil war because of their religion.
There are, in short, Christians in this world who are truly suffering, even dying, for their faith.
The religious right mocks the very real martyrdom of Christians elsewhere by dramatically starring itself in a staged political parody of the bigotry that is harming and killing them. MEMO: Mr. Teepen is national correspondent of Cox Newspapers.Mr. Teepen is
national correspondent of Cox Newspapers.
by CNB