Robert Jeffress appeared on AFA’s “Today’s Issues” program yesterday to discuss “why should atheist celebrate Christmas” and the overall “War on Christmas” in general with host Tim Wildmon.

During the course of the discussion, Jeffress admitted that the supposed persecution of Christians in America is nothing like what is faced by Christians in repressive nations around the world, but still insisted that the War on Christmas “is not a phony war” and is, in fact, part of the same persecution that Christians are suffering in other nations.

Wildmon wholeheartedly agreed, asserting that “the road to more serious persecution” starts with things like the War on Christmas “when you start marginalizing people and marginalizing their faith, and that’s what some of the secularists are attempting to do with the Christian faith in America”: