This post isn’t for the vast majority of church-attending Christians. Most Christians think of their Christianity as having a Christian family, attending churche services, playing a musical instrument, putting up a Christmas tree. But if you look at what they consume in entertainment, it’s indistinguishable from non-Christians. This post is about the minority of Christians who take it seriously.

So, if you’re on social media, or if you have a blog or a podcast, did you know that people can be so offended by your conservative or Christian views that they will come after you?

Take a look at this article from Caldron Pool:

A family doctor has been suspended from medical practice in Australia after sharing his Christian beliefs online.

Dr Jereth Kok was investigated by the Medical Board of Australia last year after they received two complaints about posts he had shared on social media.

Despite not knowing Dr Kok, the complainants allegedly searched through ten-years of his personal feed before taking exception to his views about a broad range of political topics, including abortion, sexuality, “LGBT” issues, and gender “transition” treatments.

“The material is very diverse,” Dr Kok told FamilyVoice during a recent interview. It includes political and theological discussions with other Christians on Bill Muehlenberg’s blog, the most recent from 2012.

“It includes posts and comments I’ve made on my own personal Facebook page, and ‘memes’ and articles that I’ve shared there; including articles by the American political commentator Matt Walsh, and the satire site Babylon Bee,” Dr Kok explained.

“I never dreamt that publicly sharing a Matt Walsh or Babylon Bee article would be career-ending; hindsight is a wonderful thing,” he said.

Dr Kok’s list of offences also included sharing a Facebook post from National Pulse, Editor In Chief, Raheem Kassam, which highlighted the evolution of the arguments used to justify abortion over the last half-century.

Also in question was an opinion piece Dr Kok had penned on the subject of transgenderism for Christian magazine Eternity back in 2015.

Hired a private investigator:

[…]It wasn’t until nine months after the initial complaints were made that Dr Kok learned he was under investigation and that the Board had hired a private investigator to run a dragnet over the internet for content he had written.

Got fired:

On a Friday afternoon in 2019, while consulting with patients, Dr Kok was suddenly given notice that he was to be summarily removed from practice to protect “public interest.”

The following week, Dr Kok attended a 15-minute hearing where he was informed his registration was suspended, meaning he could no longer provide care or speak to his patients.

Dr Kok has said despite there being a legal obligation to provide regular updates, he hasn’t heard from the Board in over a year – not a single update during the 30 months of investigation.

During this time, Dr Kok has not been provided with an opportunity to properly respond to any of the allegations that led to his suspension.

Significantly, the allegation that Dr Kok was providing compromised healthcare to “LGBT” patients was not brought forward by any of his patients or colleagues.

No LGBT patients ever complained:

“I’ve practised medicine for over 15 years,” Dr Kok said. “I’ve looked after many people who would identify as ‘LGBT.’ None of them has ever complained about rudeness, discrimination, etc.

He’s been fired and his family has no income:

Following his suspension, Dr Kok was left without a job, and his family without his income.

Many other doctors affected:

Since his suspension, Dr Kok has been made aware of more than half a dozen doctors who have been in trouble with the Medical Board for expressing their personal opinions about similar topics away from their practice.

“They have been after a doctor for speaking at a pro-life event, a doctor who campaigned against ‘Safe Schools,’ several who have said things on Twitter against abortion and gay marriage, one who left a comment about euthanasia on a website, one who said that gender transition therapies are damaging for children,” Dr Kok said.

According to Dr Kok, each of these doctors have been put through similar investigations, been given warnings, had conditions placed on them, or forced to undergo ‘sensitivity training.’ At least one other has had his medical career effectively ended.

I thought it might be useful for me to say something about this, because most people who claim to be conservative or claim to be Christian might never imagine something like this happening to them. But conservatives and Christians who read a lot of good evidence from scholars often are more passionate than cultural conservatives or cultural Christians. And that’s why we often speak out like the doctor in the story. I want these informed conservatives and Christians to use an alias. I would also their more casual brothers and sisters to be aware of the risks and keep the secrets of their allies who speak out more boldly.

If you know anyone with an alias, protect their secrecy. Team Secular Left is filled with people in lifestyles that don’t exactly major in sobriety, chastity and self-control. They get very angry when anyone makes them feel bad about being progressive or rebelling against God or both. Lacking any God-grounded moral compass, they find it easy to use power to silence, coerce, threaten and assault those who disagree with them. The stories of this happening are everywhere. We all need to be a lot more serious about the need for aliases and to guard the identities of those who use them.