A Pinch of Incense
Author: Tony Wagner - Townsend
A Pinch of Incense
Tony Wagner - Townsend
From the middle of the first century and continuing sporadically through the end of the second century, Roman law required all those living under Roman rule to burn incense before an altar of the Roman Emperor. The emperor was considered a deity and agreement with this was considered a national security issue, making anyone who refused a risk.
This left the Christians in a quandary. They were told that they could just go along, showing that they would live under the emperor’s rule, leave, or suffer the punishment of death. This divided Christians with some fleeing, others going along, but over and over, the Bible says that you shall worship no god, but the one God. This caused many martyrs, including Polycarp, the first follower of the apostle John entrusted with carrying on John’s testament, and Pope Fabian.
All they had to do was to burn a little incense and bow. Just a small compromise, a show of some tolerance towards other deities.
Today, our “pinch of incense” is being required to help celebrate gay marriage, being dutifully quiet as our government teaches our children how to perform homosexual acts, decides to change their sex, allows boys to claim to be girls which allows them to use the girl’s facilities, or teaches a modified history that aligns with a new ideology. All of these things are abhorrent to Christianity, but if you resist, your livelihood and your security will be threatened, you may be investigated as a terrorist, a political/national security risk. We know that these are the risks because of how Christians were treated when they put their foot down and refused to comply. These new rules are nothing less than a direct threat to all Christians and Christianity as a whole. Where are our first amendment rights?
These comments are not a condemnation of either the LGBTQ community, or our Townsend school district, but rather only against those in the LGBTQ community who act out in this manner and those government officials that support them. Also, as far as I can tell, the Townsend school district has done an admirable job of resisting the current, ongoing pressure to follow the government-supported changes that other Montana school districts appear to be succumbing to. There has been only one possible issue at the school and that issue appears to have been taken care of by the school.
Please support both HB 359 and SB99 to help Montana rid itself of these federally promoted wrongs. Call your district Senator and State Representatives to make sure they are supporting these bills.
To me, this pressure against Christian beliefs seems to be even more offensive than demanding the acknowledgment of another deity with a pinch of incense, they are demanding that Christians fully align with a deity more evil than any Caesar.
