I appreciate the work of Vice News in reporting on the ground the conflict in Ukraine this past year.
Watch this video. What’s being done by the Russian-backed rebels in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic against non-Orthodox Christians is deplorable. The world needs to know. Pray for these Christians and for Ukraine.
60 Minutes aired a report this past weekend on the Christians of Northern Iraq, and how they are being persecuted by ISIS. It is terrible and tragic, and something the whole world needs to hear about. Take a few minutes to read this report. This is an event of historic proportions: books and churches which have existed since the early days of Christianity are being destroyed. A Christian community is being eradicated.
If we think back on the actions of Hitler in Europe and reflect on what Christians should have done, we must open our eyes to realize that something similar is happening in our day in the Middle East to Christians. What will the world do? What can be done?
One American Christian, Brett Felton, came to the conclusion that the right thing for him to do, as a former US soldier who fought in Iraq, was to return there to help the Iraqi Christians defend themselves. 60 Minutes posted this video report about him. Check it out.
Brett is over there, not hunting ISIS, but training the Iraqi Christians on how to defend themselves if and when ISIS attacks, and he is standing beside them to fight if and when that day comes.
What do you think about a Christian taking up arms to fight against ISIS?
ISIS is clearly doing something very evil – something that should not be tolerated from any group of people, no matter who they are persecuting.
Considering the circumstances, and the fact that ISIS is functioning as a military group, terrorizing largely unarmed, untrained civilians, I think that what Brett Felton is doing is praiseworthy – putting his life on the line to help civilians protect their families and their ancient civilization from an evil assailant.
Yesterday I taught on the famous sayings of Jesus to his disciples, that they are the salt of the Earth and the light of the world. (You can listen to that message here).
Jesus makes his point there, that no one lights a lamp and then hides it under a basket, but they put it on a lamp stand, so it can be seen by all. Just as a city on a hill can not be hidden, Jesus’ disciples are not meant to keep their faith a secret.
Yesterday in Pakistan, 10 more Christians were killed in the bombing of a Christian church. This makes for 25 total deaths of Christians in targeted attacks over the past few days. ISIS is going around systematically targeting and murdering Christians in the Middle East. Christians in the West have little concept of the implications of Jesus’ words for these Christians!
In the West, the greatest persecution we face for not hiding our Christianity, is that people will think we are religious fanatics. But for the most part, being a Christian is still a perfectly acceptable thing to be in our society. There is honestly not a great temptation, unless you are an extremely insecure person, to hide the fact that you are a Christian.
However, if being a Christian, and not hiding it, means that ISIS is going to come for you and your family, if not hiding the fact that you a Christian means that you might face fatal attacks at any moment, then the temptation is HUGE to want to hide your light under a basket – because if you put it on a lamp stand, then you become a target.
In the Beatitudes Jesus describes the kind of people who will be his disciples: they will be meek, they will hunger and thirst after righteousness, they will be peacemakers, they will be pure of heart. When you read those characteristics, you might thing: Wow, those sound like the greatest people in the world! That’s the kind of person I’d like to have as my best friend! But, surprisingly, Jesus then says that these kinds of people will be persecuted by the world. (Matthew 5:11-12) You might wonder: Who would want to hurt these kinds of wonderful people? But you have to look no further than Jesus. He embodied all of those wonderful characteristics, and people beat him and nailed him to a cross.
The situation with Christians around the world facing increased persecution, especially in Muslim-majority countries, should be a wake-up call to Western Christians – and should teach us something about the nature of what it means to be a Christian.
Western Christianity, in my opinion, faces a more insidious form of attack than the physical attack facing those in other parts of the world. Here, our culture pressures us to make Christianity a private thing, that we are free to do, but only behind closed doors. As a result, we have ended up with a form of Christianity that is very introspective and less mission-focused.
In other words, Western society has sought to domesticate Christians, remove their claws and potty train them. They are not trying to scare us into hiding our light under a basket, like ISIS and other radical Islamists do, but rather to coax us into putting a basket over our light, so as not to disturb others with it.
We must remember the words of Jesus: that to hide our light is to betray our very design and purpose as Disciples of Jesus in the world.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be teaching on Jesus’ salt and light metaphors from the Sermon on the Mount, as part of our CounterCulture series at White Fields.
I found this quote in a book by John Stott, about the social responsibility of Christians as part of our identity as the salt of the Earth. Since salt has a healing and preserving effect, the idea is that Christians should have a healing and preserving effect on society.
There are some who would say, What’s the point in trying to make society better? If Jesus could come back any minute, and this life is short anyway, then shouldn’t all our efforts be towards saving people out of this world, rather than “polishing a turd”, to put it crassly?
However, it seems to me that it is an inherent part of the calling of a Christian to make the world a better place, if for no other reason than to “let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)
Here is that John Stott quote:
Too often evangelical Christians have interpreted their social responsibility in terms only of helping the casualties of a sick society, and have done nothing to change the structures which cause the casualties. Just as doctors are concerned not only with the treatment of patients but also with preventive medicine and public health, so we should concern ourselves with what might be called preventive social medicine and higher standards of moral hygiene. However small our part may be, we cannot opt out of seeking to create better social structures, which guarantee justice in legislation and law enforcement, the freedom and dignity of the individual, civil rights for minorities and the abolition of social and racial discrimination. We should neither despise these things nor avoid our responsibility for them. They are part of God’s purpose for his people. Whenever Christians are conscientious citizens, they are acting like salt in the community.
As Sir Frederick Catherwood put it:‘To try to improve society is not worldliness but love. To wash your hands of society is not love but worldliness.’
Stott goes on to say that SALT is not all that the world needs. The world also needs LIGHT – the truth of God, ultimately found in the Gospel.
I love the way John Piper speaks about God.
If there’s one thing you can say for the man – it’s that he is certainly not indifferent about the Gospel or the things of God. I may not always agree with everything he says, but when I hear him speak about God, there is no doubt in my mind that he is a man who loves God.
Here’s some classic John Piper for your listening pleasure:
America’s largest Christian retailer, Family Christian Stores, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
This doesn’t mean that they are closing down; they are doing this in order to save their company. They are going to restructure and try to stay in business.
Perhaps most interesting though, is that while Family Christian Stores is floundering, Lifeway Christian Bookstores is expanding.
What’s the difference between these two? In short, I would put it this way: Lifeway has higher standards about what they sell and how they do business.
Earlier this year, when it came out that a certain big name pastor/author had committed rampant plagiarism, Lifeway immediately dropped his books from their shelves. Family Christian Stores, on the other hand specializes in cheesy Christian paraphernalia and selling whatever sells. I remember going into one of their stores once and being surprised to see a particular book on their shelves. My wife asked the manager why they sold that book – his response was very telling: he said he was ashamed to have that book on their shelves too, but corporate said that they had to, because they are first and foremost a business and people buy that product.
It would seem to me that the reason Family Christian Stores is struggling whereas Lifeway is flourishing must somehow be attributed to the fact that Christians actually have higher standards and are more discerning as to where they spend their money and what values they want their retailers to represent than Family Christians Stores gave them credit for.
Following up on a previous post on why Christians worship on Sunday and the correlation between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday, I recently read something I found interesting.
While many people assume that Christianity just took the Jewish idea of Sabbath and moved it to Sunday, it turns out the reason for the Christian Sunday is deeply eschatological.
Check it out:
Jewish Sabbath
Christian Sunday
Christianity was not just a rebranding of Jewish practices, but an eschatological fulfillment of them.
The Christian Sunday is more than a day of rest for Christians, it is a day of new creation. In it, we remember not only to rest from our labor, but we are reminded that with the resurrection of Jesus, we stand at the dawn of eternity – and that one day soon, the Son will break over the horizon and usher in the New Day. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have witnessed the death of death and the birth of “the life that is truly life”.
Another thought-provoking comment from my studies on the history of Christian worship:
At some time in the Church’s history, attitudes seem to have moved from an earlier sense of going to worship in order to make an offering to God (worship, adoration) to a sense of attending in order to receive something (a blessing or some kind of credit). It appears that along with this shift came an increasingly passive role for worshippers, until it seemed that simply attending was almost all that was expected. Such a development is seriously demeaning. Everything done together in worship may (and should) be viewed as an act of offering a gift to God, who is the object of reverence and praise.
Seems pretty spot on to me. I shared this quote with one of the elders of White Fields Church and his comment was that he would go so far as to say that in our consumer culture, people have gotten so passive about “worship” that they not only come with the mentality and expectation primarily to receive, but they “shop” for where they can find the best bargain.
The part of the above quote which really sticks out to me is the word “demeaning”. I think the author is right. But how do we go about shifting this consumer culture in the minds of Christian people? That is the challenge.
I ran across this article this week about Bad Church Statistics and the lies that are commonly believed as a result. I’ve copied the 7 myths part below, which is the core of the article.
I don’t know about you, but I have heard almost all of these before. I guess the sky isn’t falling quite as bad as we’ve been told it is. But, as Winston Churchill said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
Myth #1. The divorce rate among Christians is as high as that of nonbelievers.
Reality: Christians have significantly lower divorce rates than the religiously unaffiliated. Further, the more regularly a Christian attends church, the less likely that person is to divorce.
Myth #2. Christian young people are leaving the Christian faith in record numbers.
Reality: It’s true that younger people are less affiliated with church than older people, but that’s the case in every generation since scholars began tracking it. We always need to help the next generation connect with church, but the overall percentage of Americans who affiliate with evangelical churches has remained rather stable for the last 30 years.
Myth #3. The majority of American evangelicals are poor and uneducated.
Reality: This quote from the Washington Post has some truth to it. The problematic term is “the majority of” which should be replaced with “many.” On average, evangelical Christians are less well educated than mainline Protestants, Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated. But evangelicals cover a wide spectrum from poorly educated to highly educated. Themajority, however, are not poor and uneducated.
Myth #4. The prayer life of American evangelicals is diminishing.
Reality: It turns out that evangelical prayer is on the increase. For example, 75% of evangelicals today pray on a daily basis, compared to 64% of those in the 1980s.
Myth #5. Evangelicals are less active in sharing their faith with others.
Reality: About half of all evangelicals report sharing their faith with non-believers, and rates of evangelism have held rather steady over the past several decades. This evangelism rate is more than double the rate of mainline Protestants and Catholics, and is higher than most other religions. We all have family and friends who seek a closer relationship with God, plus we know of entire people groups that have little exposure to the Gospel, so let’s keep ramping up our efforts.
Myth #6. Evangelicals preach one thing about sex outside marriage, but practice another.
Reality: Actually, evangelicals have relatively low rates of adultery, premarital sex and pornography usage, and these decrease with more frequent church attendance.
Myth #7. The more educated you become, the more likely you are to give up your faith.
Reality: Belief and practice grow stronger with increased education, evangelicals included.
Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. (Hebrews 13:3)
Theology for the People 