Neither compel nor forbid. . .

The Supremes have ruled that just as the government cannot forbid religious conviction and speech, neither can it compel any kind of speech which would violate this religious freedom.  This is not a new nor a novel idea but one with a strong though not universally appreciated history.  For Americans, it had its most profound moment when the Court found that even the Pledge of Allegiance could not be compelled of those who found this in conflict with their religious conviction.  In our age of taking the knee at the National Anthem, this may not seem such a big deal but it was and is.  But for Christians it is one more important milestone in a history of resistance against compelled speech.

When the Christians were facing threat, persecution, and death over the simple issue of a perfunctory nod to the Roman caesar as a deity or an occasional snack at the pagan pulled pork suppers, they did not see this as a casual matter.  They refused such indulgence at great peril to their lives and families.  It was not simply about being allowed to worship God but about being exempt from the compelled religious acts of a government which had mixed up citizenship and religion.  In America, it has long be lauded that the non-religious were exempt from religion.  You can hold to any or no belief without peril to your standing before the law or in the marketplace.  Christians who want to turn America into a Christian nation have long been stifled in their pursuit of a righteous society by this protection.

Now, however, the same people who love to hide behind this curtain of protection have decided that Christians are not quite as worthy of the same.  Instead of religious speech, what is being compelled of Christians is agreement or accommodation with the rainbow of sexual desires and felt genders and the appropriate pronouns that go along with them.  For the Court to say no is not a small nor a perfunctory matter but goes to the heart and core of the religious protections we seek and we need.  Were it not for the makeup of the current court, it could have turned out very differently.  While no Court can prevent the subtle and even overt pressure from media and the woke to intimidate Christians into compliance, the Court has placed the protection of the Constitution over Christians before the Law.  

We must pay attention to this.  For the battles before us will not only be fought on the basis of the protection of our right to speak but also our right to remain silent while the society around us adopts positions that violate what God says and we are bound as Christians to confess without diluting or diminishing its truth.  It may never be that we are forbidden to believe or practice the faith within certain bounds, but it is highly likely that the legalists will try to use the force of law to compel us to get in line with their positions on sex, gender, marriage, family, and a host of other issues in the lens of the woke movement.