Yesterday I was sent an email by some friends forwarding an email doing the rounds about a petition in the US calling for Christian broadcasting on television to be banned. The petition was, apparently, gaining much support with nearly 300,000 signatories and was calling for people like Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen to be silenced on the airwaves. The email encouraged recipients to sign a counter petition in order to defend ‘religious freedom’.

As I read I had a sense that this possibly was a hoax – though a small part of me wanted to find the original petition and sign it as I’ve never been that keen on Joyce Meyer anyway! But being the procrastinator that I am I let it be and moved on the next distracting thing on my screen. A little later I was glad I hadn’t bothered since another friend emailed confirming my suspicion that the threat was a hoax after all. Apparently there is website you can go to check the latest hoaxes circulating on the internet – and there are some bizarre ones out there, including one saying that the letter ‘z’ may be dropped from the alphabet!

But this wasn’t the first hoax that has been emailed to me by Christians concerned about restrictions on Christian freedom. It is a relatively common occurrence. They’re all done in the spirit of ‘standing up for religious freedom’ reflecting considerable fear that persecution is getting closer in the west.

But here’s a question: are these people standing up for freedom or standing up for privilege? And do they understand that neither is necessarily the same as standing up for Jesus?