Have conservatives gone underground in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area? This February 4 report from KPIX Channel 5 made me think our state should be renamed the Republik of Kalifornia:
Some East Bay conservatives say they live a secret life. They can never tell anyone what they really feel like in fear of their safety. Robert Ward is coming out conservative, but in a place he says is risky for those who share his beliefs. “If you witness what happened in Berkeley, actually they are so violent on top of it. I mean being a conservative in the Bay Area is like being a heretic,” says Ward. “You lead a double life. You can never tell your friends and co-workers.”
On the one hand, these Donald Trump supporters have reason to be afraid. We’ve all seen the violence by anarchistic leftists who want to eliminate U.S. borders. And remember how moral conservatives who donated to California’s Proposition 8 to protect marriage licenses for a man and a woman had their home addresses posted on the web? And how one of them, Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, was pressured to resign by the so-called “tolerant” but completely hypocritical homosexual activists?
Yet on the other hand, as our culture gets darker, there’s a greater need for people with Jesus Christ’s kingdom values to publicly shine their lights. With both soft and tough love, depending what’s needed. Truth is hard, and love is redemptive. And people who are accountable to God to “love your neighbor as yourself” (our Savior’s command) have no excuse to shut their mouths.
And from a practical standpoint, it’s a fact in modern-day America that public sympathy is aroused by public victims. Homosexual-transsexual activists, who love playing the victim, know this. Yet risking being victimized is the mark of a Christian, who can expect that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12).
Indeed, the sacrificial love and loyalty to Jesus displayed by the blood shed by the Early Church overcame the Roman Empire by showing the public there was something eternally higher than ourselves to live and die for.
In any case, some Trump conservatives going underground in the Bay Area can be scary and feel threatening. But let it be a wake-up call for you to re-energize your commitment to speak out, and to articulate facts that can change minds, and to be the light for Truth that you were called to be. For in an increasingly godless culture, there are more depressed people who wonder if there’s a purpose to life.
Be a beacon of Life, demonstrating what’s true, what’s beneficial, and what’s worth fighting for!
For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself,
lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.
You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.
Hebrews 12:3-4
Do the math for the June 2018 California primary election. If it were just one reliable conservative facing off with dyed-in-the-wool, anti-family liberals such as Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and state Treasurer John Chiang, the conservative, with only 30-35% could be one of the top two vote-getters who goes on to the general election.
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