Several Democrat senators have used the confirmation hearings of the most exclusive club in America to lay down an unconstitutional requirement for qualification to public service.

At a hearing in June, Sen. Bernie Sanders questioned the fitness of Wheaton College alumnus Russell Vought for the post of deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.  Mr. Vought had written an article in which he said Muslims "do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned." 

Sen. Sanders accused Mr. Vought of religious bigotry, saying, "In my view, the statement made by Mr. Vought is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world."

Last week, progressive lawmakers showed more of their disdain for Christians during the hearing for President Trump's Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals nominee, Amy Barrett, a law professor at Notre Dame – and a devout Catholic.

"Whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).  "And I think in your case, professor ... that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern[.]"

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Ms. Barrett, "Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?"  The implication is that being an "orthodox" Catholic" disqualifies you from being a judge.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) condemned the nominee for speaking before a "hate" group – the Alliance Defending Freedom, Christian attorneys who litigate religious freedom cases.  Obviously a dangerous group.

This line of questioning – or perhaps more accurately, this "inquisition" – amounts to a religious-based exclusion of Christians simply because of what they believe.  There were no accusations of harmful behavior or violence toward anyone. Apparently, faith is enough to draw the ire of today's Democrats.

It should be pointed out that the claim of exclusivity – i.e., that one's religion is true while others are false – is not unique to Christianity.  Islam is well known for holding that view, except that sharia law, unlike Christianity, demands not that you love the nonbeliever, but that you tax, enslave, or kill him.  However, the Senate will not interrogate Muslims on their beliefs, because that would constitute "Islamophobia."

Our Founding Fathers were well aware of the dangers of religious bigotry.  They wisely included in the Constitution a provision to protect us against it.  Article Six says, "[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."  Have these senators ever read the document to which they took an oath?

They are so caught up in a growing societal trend of hatred for Christianity and what it represents that they seem unaware of their dangerous bias.

Kim Davis, clerk of probate for a Kentucky county, spent a week in jail because she refused to sign a marriage certificate for two lesbians.  She claimed that it would violate her conscience and her commitment to God.

Aaron and Melissa Klein, who own a small family bakery called Sweet Cakes by Melissa, were fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a "wedding cake" for a gay couple in 2013.

Hundreds of such cases now dot the legal landscape of our country.  If law and politics are downstream from culture, the senators who were willing to impose a religious test in open defiance of the Constitution are reflecting adherence to a toxic culture.  A virulent new bigotry is coursing its way through our nation, overriding the highest law of the land.  It would seem that we are in not a post-Christian era, but a distinctly anti-Christian one.

In August 2012, a young man tried to commit mass murder at the Family Research Council.  The would-be killer was later convicted of domestic terrorism.  He told the FBI that he chose to attack the Family Research Council because the Southern Poverty Law Center had designated the FRC an anti-gay hate group.  The SPLC continues to put Christian organizations that support marriage or oppose abortion in the same category as the KKK.

This growing hatred of all things Christian is a consequence of the sexual revolution, which created the politics of promiscuity and called for a world without the God who says "no."  As the repository for traditional sexual morality, Christianity is viewed as the mortal enemy of the "gay rights" movement, the abortion industry, and the new transgender obsession.

Those who were once thought of as hardworking, God-fearing people living lives of Christian decency and common sense are now slandered as "deplorables" and "extremists" by the elites of the Democratic Party and the media that enable them.

The entertainment world, sports, colleges and universities, major corporations, government bureaucracy, and even members of the United States Senate have bought into this cultural hedonism.  There is no room for Bible-believing Christians in their new world.

It is often said that Christianity thrives in persecution.  If so, then it may be about to see its very best days in the United States of America.  Is suffering the slap in the face that will awaken the church from its infatuation with comfort and compromise?

It seems likely that we will soon know.

E.W. Jackson is a Republican political analyst, a nationally syndicated radio host on American Family Radio & Urban Family Talk, and presiding bishop of The Called Church.  He was the 2013 Republican nominee for lt. governor of Virginia and is founder and president of S.T.A.N.D. (www.standamerica.us).