It is the fastest growing phobia in the nation. Christophobia. To be sure, the fear of Christians is not overcoming America, but it has unquestionably overcome a large swath of non-believers, or those who profess no religious belief. Within this segment of the population, there are the indifferent at one end, and the haters at the other end.
If there is any doubt that the haters are growing, consider the overheated reaction by the New Yorker to a company that sells chicken sandwiches. Journalist Dan Piepenbring accuses Chick-fil-A of “carpet bombing” New York City. What did it do to merit such an accusation? It opened its fourth store in the Big Apple.
Why the ballistic response? The company is owned by practicing Christians. For instance, they believe marriage should be between a man and a woman. What else? That’s about it.
What few acknowledge is that Chick-fil-A practices what it preaches in ways that have nothing to do with politics. Before Christmas 2017, thousands were stranded in Atlanta on a Sunday evening because of a massive power outage. Chick-fil-A, which observes Sunday by closing, quickly reopened to feed travelers. After the shootings at a gay club in Orlando, Pulse, the “gay-hating” franchise opened on a Sunday to feed those waiting in line to give blood. And on a regular basis, it donates a ton of food to the homeless.
But none of this matters to the Bill de Blasios of the world. Indeed, the New York City mayor called for a boycott of Chick-fil-A when it opened in New York in 2016. Ironically, the Christian company that he hates winds up feeding the increasing number of homeless that his policies create.
What is driving the hatred of Chick-fil-A is the fear that its traditional moral values may prove inspiring.
The Left has only one God: power. That is what defines it. To the extent that Chick-fil-A inspires people to adopt its values, it is a threat to radical secularists. Moreover, survey data have repeatedly shown that a very large portion of the “nones,” those who answer “none” when asked about their religious affiliation, are on the Left. They see Christian activists as a threat. Jews are too secular to begin with, and Muslims are too small to matter. So they focus on Christians.
Last year, a survey from Baylor University found that 31 percent of the “nones” identified Christians as a “danger to our safety.” Less than half that number said the same about Muslims. Obviously, there has been no rash of Christians assaulting the “nones,” or anyone else, so the fear is not based in reality. But it is a perfect example of Christophobia, which is spreading like a disease among a large segment of secularists.
What the “nones” need is conversion therapy. This is not about converting them to Christianity, although that would be an ideal outcome, it is about getting them to stop with their irrational fear of Christians. What makes their fear so patently irrational is the fact that Christians, as evidenced by Chick-fil-A, are more likely to help them than hurt them.
