Christianity Faces Two Front War

     Recently the Holy Father, Pope Francis, stated that Christians around the world face persecution not seen since the Roman Empire. In fact, the Pontiff said, that there are more Christian martyrs now than there were in the heyday of Romans' favorite pastime, slaying Christians by whatever means was available. The Vicar of Christ's statements need no more proof of their validity than for one to pay even a modicum of attention to world events.
     The persecution of Christians in the modern world comes almost entirely at the hands of radical Islam. But the flocks of Jesus must not only face physical persecution, but the political persecution of their right to freely practice their religion. Not only in places like North Korea and China, where one might expect restrictions on faith, but in the United States of America, which was founded on freedom of religious conscience.
     The imposition of Sharia Law and the imposition of Leftist ideology have in common the desire to forbid any public expression of any other faith but theirs. The narrowing of religious rights by the Obama administration is no less disturbing than the same goal of Sharia Law in the Middle East and elsewhere. But while radical Islamists use violence and the threats of violence to impose their religious will upon those of other faiths, the Obama administration has used the power of an over-bloated central government with extra-constitutional instruments like federal bureaucracies and legislation like ObamaCare.
      The actions of the Left and radical Islam are not symbiotic, but the ideology that drives both are. The Left in America and throughout the world are as single-mindedly radically dedicated to the tenets of their faith as radical Islamists are to Sharia Law. There is no more rabid a creature than a Leftist who aims to impose his doctrine on the whole of society. One might make the same argument about Conservatives, but with conservative ideology the aim is to limit the role of government in the lives of average citizens, which leads to more personal liberty, just the opposite of the Leftist's goal.
     Islamists throughout the world have tried to silence the Christian faith by beating, imprisoning, and even slaughtering those who practice it. In the United States, Leftists like Barack Obama have fought to remove public symbols of the Christian faith upon which this country was founded and built, and they have even gone as far as to force Christians to violate the very conscience of their faith. By forcing Christian businesses to participate in homosexual weddings, and to provide aborta fascias to their employees as part of their health care plan, Leftists have practiced a religious tyranny on par with Sharia Law.
      When the Holy Father made his statement about the persecution of Christians being at its worst in history, he was not simply engaging in religious hyperbole. The onslaught against the freedom of religious conscience from radical Islam and the far Left has ramifications not only for the faithful, but for all those who seek liberty in any form. If the natural right of man to be free in expressing his relationship with his creator by practicing the tenets of his faith can be mitigated or disposed by government or the practitioners of a faith not his own, then no liberty is safe from dispossession.