Bullying the LDS Church?

SLC made the news this week as the City Council endorsed an act guaranteeing civil rights protections for homosexual and transgender persons. The bigger news was the endorsement of the legislation by the leadership of the LDS Church.

Now, a fax is being distributed in SLC, and perhaps elsewhere, claiming that the LDS Church had no option but to give their support for the act. According to the fax, "The LDS Church had to Stand [sic] as an "Entity" and protect itself. (publically [sic] they cannot come out and say this)". Further, the fax proclaims, "SHAME on UTAH GAYS for persecuting, harassing, using intimidation tactics, and staging scenarios to corner The LDS Church into endorsing their movement and to use the LDS Church as a backbone to sway the LDS voters and legislators to vote for thyeir laws!"

To this, I would make the following points:
-- It is preposterous for anyone to claim that the Utah homosexual community has enough power and numbers to bully the LDS Church into doing anything! That would be like some small group in Rome being charged with bullying the Catholic Church into doing something the church did not approve.
-- At the time the legislation was being considered, the LDS Church issued its statement of support by affirming it always supported equal civil rights for people. The fax is essentially saying that the Church lied about its support as a politically motivated and expedient move.
-- The fax claims that "All anti-discrimination laws containing sexual orientation in them, [sic] are made with the sole intent to promote the acceptance of homosexuality and other sexual behaviors as a lifestyle to the children." It seems that these laws are to protect people from being fired or being thrown out of housing solely because of their sexual orientation. Further, this claim suggests that some child can be forced to become a homosexual.

Crypto-Christians

No, this is not part of the plot line of the next Dan Brown novel. It refers to a world-wide phenomenon of people who embrace the Christian faith, but, because of the threat of persecution, remain hidden among the general population.

Historically, adherents of various faiths, including Christians, have had to resort to extreme tactics to guarantee their safety. One needs only to think of the Jewish population in Spain in the 14th century or Christians in Japan in the 17th century to recognize that it has not always been safe to be a member of a particular religious group.

In a July 14, 2009 article in the Christian Century, Philip Jenkins writes:
The phenomenon of crypto-Christianity is likely to become much more common in the coming decades. Defensive tactics are scarcely needed when the vast majority of Christians live in self-defined Christian nations, but they become acutely relevant when millions of believers live in deeply hostile environments, in societies that are (for instance) predominately Muslim or Hindu.

The numbers of such clandestine Christians are not precisely defined, as you would imagine. Estimates put the size of this bloc of Christian belivers at 120 million. If this is true, writes Jenkins, crypto-Christians would constitute one of the world's largest religious groups.

It is extremely interesting to me that these groups of hidden Christians exist in an age when active, practicing Christians are almost extinct in Europe and are on the decline in America, the last bastion of religious adherence in the West. What does their existence say about the religious tendencies of human beings? What does their persistence in the face of persecution say about the nature and character of the religious enterprise in the West? Do they speak for the need of greater religious acceptance in all countries? Would they be as faithful if they were allowed to worship openly?