On this holiest of weekends, there is more evidence that Christians are under assault on all fronts from emboldened secular forces on the left. To list just a few headlines from the past couple of days:

Archbishop Joseph Naumann, Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, is under attack for saying that President Biden should stop claiming to be a “devout Catholic” when he’s actively promoting and funding huge numbers of abortions. Frankly, that not only sounds quite reasonable, it also sounds like exactly what a Catholic Archbishop who’s a chairman of a pro-life committee would be expected to say. I guess my “outrage trigger” just isn’t sensitive enough for these times.

The gay and lesbian group GLAAD is fervently embracing the concept of blacklisting people for their religious beliefs and for not 100% embracing their personal views on sex and politics. And as with many shameless totalitarian censors, blacklisters and inquisitors down through the dark days of history, they’re not much concerned about whether the people they’re trying to destroy are actually guilty or even if the accusers don’t even have their own facts straight.

In a reminder of how important it is that we guard our First Amendment against those that are trying to destroy it, a Christian actress in Great Britain was fired from a production of “The Color Purple” after someone dug up a four-year-old Facebook post in which she said she personally believes in the Biblical view of homosexuality. The Twitter mob made her the object of an organized hate and terror campaign, demanding that the theater fire the “homophobe.” There were even death threats against her. She was fired, dropped by her agency, and blacklisted by the local theater industry. So she appealed her firing to an Employment Tribunal on grounds of religious discrimination.

A spokesperson for a Christian group defending said it should have been an open-and-shut case, since the arguments against her included that her beliefs "were not worthy of respect in a democratic society and of legal protection.” However, the judges not only ruled against her, they also ordered her to pay the other side’s inflated legal costs of $480,000, despite the fact that in that court, both sides are supposed to pay their own costs. It was described as a heavy-handed punitive measure, designed to bully her and all Christian into thinking they can be discriminated against and they’d better not dare to protest.

At the University of North Texas, a conservative Christian group tried what they thought was a fun Easter event by hiding plastic Easter eggs around the campus with positive, non-controversial Bible verses inside. The angry leftist contingent reacted with predictable OUTRAGE and fury, protesting that it’s offensive because not all students are Christian (and would they attack a Muslim or Buddhist event because not all students are Muslim or Buddhist?), organizing to stomp the eggs, and (of course) urging one of the Christian students to kill herself. (Note: our writer Pat Reeder is a UNT honors alumnus, but he says that if these little jerks aren’t expelled, he renounces all ties with his former school.)

With so many of these stories every day, it can be disheartening to fight them. It seems easier just to shut up, keep your head down and let the targets of the left’s crazed wrath twist in the wind. But this is one of those times when you should ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?” Would He want you to keep quiet about your faith and not defend it, or stand up for those who are under assault?

I think the answer can be found in 1 Peter, 3:15-16: “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”