As if the view from Hollywood wasn’t bizarre enough, Rosie O’Donnell is back. The newest face of ABC’s The View, Rosie said last week that “radical” Christians in America are just as much of a threat as radical Islamists who highjacked jetliners and flew them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. An insulting claim to say the least, if not totally absurd, and ripe with irony.

While Rosie frets about “radical” Christians, churches across America fight to keep the forces of radical liberalism and pro-gay activism at bay. The impact of those pushing a “tolerate us at any cost” message, such as Rosie espouses, has been profound. And you don’t have to look very far to see it.

This past summer, the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted 298 to 221 to allow local and regional bodies to ordain gay-identified ministers to the church’s ministries after grueling debate and heated controversy. The denomination’s new complex proposal now allows presbyteries to bypass the current biblical ban on “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy.

The Episcopal Church has had its share of controversy as well. In 2003, the American denomination caused uproar when it consecrated its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. This past June, the division intensified when Katharine Jefferts Schori, who voted for Robinson’s ordination, was elected to lead the Episcopal General Convention.  As a result, dozens of churches are leaving both the Episcopal and Presbyterian Church (USA) denominations.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is struggling to keep the Episcopal Church and the world Anglican Communion unified despite deep rifts over this issue, had an interesting response. Previously supportive of homosexual relationships, Archbishop Rowan Williams recently denied that it was time for the church to accept them. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, he stated that the church should be welcoming rather than inclusive: “I don’t believe inclusion is a value in itself. Welcome is. We don’t say, ‘Come in and we ask no questions’. I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviors, ideas, emotion.”

Williams now backs a resolution saying that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Bible and has said, “Ethics is not a matter of a set of abstract rules, and it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. That applies to sexual ethics.”  I know from personal experience that he is right.

While an individual’s faith is deeply personal and meaningful, religion as a whole also plays a significant role in society. To demand that church institutions align with politically correct views - whatever those may be at the time - is a mistake.

Yet, that is the world in which we now live. Consider the recent story of a Christian thrown in jail for passing out literature at a public event in England. The reason? According to the Daily Mail, a spokesman for the South Wales Minorities Support Unit confirmed that the man had not behaved in a violent or an aggressive manner. He was arrested simply because his pamphlets contained Bible verses condemning homosexual activity.

Recently I was given the booklet, We Have a Choice: Humility or Humiliation, by James Robison.  In that powerful booklet he said, “We cannot continue to deny that evil is a reality, while tolerating and defending it as a mere difference of opinion.”  The attack against Christianity by the mainstream media, Hollywood and activist organizations is real, calculated and in need of our focus.

So while Rosie imagines a nonexistent threat of “radical” Christianity, many of us see the real one.  For those of us within the Body of Christ, there has never been a more urgent time to speak loudly, truthfully and compassionately.