The Amandala is calling for a removal of all religion from our schools.  

In Roman times, early Christians were made to face lions for sport.  1,800 years later, different nations and their rulers have declared a more subtle war against Christians, who again face cultural, political, and-increasingly--physical attacks.  The Amandala has joined this outstanding group!

Culturally, Christianity has long been an outcast.  For decades, Hollywood has pumped negative imagery of Christianity into our eyes and ears.  In film after film, a character's professed Christianity routinely signals that he will be that film's hypocrite, liar, or demagogue.  So a Bible-thumping prison warden in "Shawshank Redemption" proves to be murderously corrupted.   A repugnant Marine lieutenant in Rob Reiner's "A Few Good Men" arrogantly testifies that the only law he follows is "the Lord's."  A sweet little girl is chased to her death by a priest's attack dogs at a Catholic orphanage in”The Saint."  Christians receive such treatment in so many screenplays that it simply must be a requirement for some film producers. 

Television is likewise generally intolerant of Christians.  Sitcom writers compete for who can introduce the most positive homosexual characters while ridiculing the most traditional father figures.  60 Minutes runs a ludicrously premised segment calling Pope Pius XII "Hitler's Pope," after a book by the same title.  Papal visits and other Christian conferences are inevitably reported with a false emphasis on a church's supposed”intolerance" in matters related to abortion, homosexuality or women. 

Popular music, severing its long connection to things beautiful, began openly belittling Christianity decades ago.  In 1965, even a soft harmony group like the Mamas and the Papas knew that a bit of church bashing in "California Dreamin'" was a passport to coolness.  This hip cynicism was so common and so enduring that one didn't really notice later when formulaic Satanism became the favored route for rock's pre-fab rebels.  Before today's Marilyn Manson or hate-rap music, there were death bands like Black Sabbath and Megadeth, which have been around for twenty years. A generation of potheads banged their heads to rock band Judas Priest's heavy metal riffs, most only dimly aware that Judas was the betrayer of Jesus.  Like, devil worship is cool, dude... 

Politically; Christians are the only religious group  that can safely be despised.  Bill Clinton, having found Jesus politically useful during his Lewinsky troubles, nonetheless has said that his only enemies are right-wing religious fundamentalists.  Little wonder that Clinton shrugged off the slaughter of 76 Branch Davidians at Waco as a sad but predictable end for "religious extremists." Little wonder also, that Clinton felt free to launch a paramilitary invasion of an openly Catholic Cuban home in order to seize Elian Gonzalez for his friend, Fidel Castro. 

Since at least 1978, the press has warned of the "Christian Right," but no reporter dares speak similarly of an "Atheistic Left."  And now, aided by decades of media conditioning, the White House feels secure to attack Baptists, who apparently need to be taught that evangelizing non-Christians is no longer kosher.  Authoritarian nations like Nepal already have laws against religious conversion.  In Belize, too, spreading the Gospel may soon be a crime. 

Physically, the threat to Christians is increasing but is seldom reported.   When a 15 year-old boy shot those eight Paducah, Kentucky students in 1997, the press chose to indict the "rural gun culture" rather than ask why the boy targeted praying Christians.  Last year's murder of seven mostly teenage Christians in a Fort Worth Baptist church caused only a minor media stir, directed--as usual--at gun control.  In contrast to the inattention to those seven deaths, the wounding of several children at a Los Angeles Jewish day care center earned far greater press coverage, including follow-up stories and presidential cries for "hate crimes" laws. 

Similarly, the mass media tried several sensational "spins" for their moronic coverage of the Columbinelace High School massacre: The attackers targeted minorities.  It was the "revenge of the nerds" against the jocks.  There was a nationwide "Trench Coat Mafia."  Nobody much noticed that at least 8 of the 12 murdered students were known Christians--several of them very openly so.   This did not escape the knowledge of the two gunmen, who asked at least one such Christian girl if she believed in God before killing her.  The teen killers' nihilistic video also revealed contempt for the spiritual (one killer, for example, griped about having to spend a Seder with his parents). 

When transforming societies, the cultural agenda supports the political agenda, and vice-versa.  It is no accident that the media like Amnadala have worked to undermine Christian culture or that politicians now feel safe demonizing this spiritual pillar of our nation.  Psychopathic killers, whose imbalance makes them most sensitive to simple and destructive messages, seem to understand the media's message toward Christianity.  They are like the old coal miners' canaries that once served to warn men of deadly yet odorless tunnel gases.

One wonders when "normal" people will clamor once more for the lions.