I grew up in an Evangelical Christian home where hyper-opinionated, fear-based media was considered part of a healthy diet and fear was a key ingredient. I was raised to believe the walls were coming down on this planet, and that Christians were target number one. The implication was that it was best to stay close to the people and beliefs I knew, to hold tight and pray hard. Plug into that same sort of media today and you will see little has changed when it comes to employing fear. Consumers are greeted with a barrage of alerts and other perceived attacks on Christianity. The internet piles on, with end-times newsletters forecasting yet another development on the path to Armageddon and scary emails warning of the latest threat to religious freedom. Not only are most of these reports fictitious, but corrosive to an authentic faith in Christ.
You may have heard about the guy who was arrested, fined and jailed in Arizona for hosting church in his house. Certain media outlets went into a frenzy—and then the facts of the case came out. The man had constructed a detached 2,000 square foot space dubbed a "game room" (though it looked just like a traditional sanctuary), which he was using to host upwards of 80 people for two church services each week. After noise complaints from neighbors, traffic congestion and 67 civil code violations that went ignored, the man was eventually arrested. The facts offer a stark contrast from what was being suggested by headlines. The government did not barge in to arrest a family worshiping quietly in their living room—they used a last-resort tactic on a man claiming innocence but engaging in disobedience.
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