Gittles, Shalom, and welcome! I’d try some of my 30-year-old Swedish on you, but I think you deserve better! (Besides, I don’t have the Swedish fonts installed on my PC.)
I know it used to be that every person born in Sweden was automatically a member of the Lutheran church. Is this still the case? I can see very easily how the situation in Sweden could become the situation in America, except for our First Amendment freedoms. The First Amendment starts out, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…” One thing most Americans don’t know or understand is that the First Amendment non-establishment clause wasn’t about the government not promoting or supporting religion. The debate at the Constitutional Convention was about **which **religion Americans would follow. Each of the original 13 Colonies had a specific religion that was supported by the colonial government – Congregational Church in one colony, Lutheran in another, and so on. During the Constitutional Convention, the debate was fierce: which of the state religions of the colonies would become the national religion? In the end, the matter was dropped, and it wasn’t resolved until the First Amendment was ratified. In effect, the First Amendment put the issue back into the hands of the individual states.
In addition, each colony had laws that prohibited people who were Jewish or who followed “the Popish faith” from certain things, like owning land or holding public office or voting. This was usually summarized as “Jews, Catholics, Muhammadans, and Infidels”, and the swearing-in ceremonies for public office usually had some clause that the person was not a member of one of these groups. Maryland was established by Lord Baltimore to be a haven for Catholics, so they could own land, etc. This lasted for about 50 years, until the Protestants became the majority. Then the same restrictions against Catholics were enacted.
As people moved westward, the new states that were formed dropped the state support of particular religions, and also eventually dropped the “Jews, Catholics,” etc. restrictions. Now, people think the First Amendment means that either the government cannot work with any religious organization, or must work to support all religions equally. That gives us situations such as what happened in San Francisco, where a concrete traffic barrier was left in a park after some construction. (This was one of those barriers that’s about a meter tall, shaped like a beehive.) For two years, people complained about the barrier and wanted it to be removed, and for two years the park administration did nothing. Then, the park administration learned that some Hindus had discovered the barrier and decided it was a representation of one of their gods. These Hindus were praying around the barrier and decorating it with flowers. Within 48 hours of learning of this, the park administration sent equipment in to move this barrier, only to be blocked by the Hindus. I can’t remember how the situation was resolved, but it shows how frightened Americans can be when someone accuses them of government support of any religion.
Keep pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah, my friend. G_D is always merciful and your prayers are being heard.
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I know that there are many places in the world, where Christians are still being persecuted (some things never change). We must pray for them.
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