A Christian Call to Arms!!!

In the past year, it's been almost impossible to avoid the issue of gun control.  Gun violence has regularly dominated the news.  President Obama has vowed to make gun control a priority in his final year in office.  And, in response to recent events, many have felt the need to arm themselves, and gun sales have recently spiked.

What is a Christian to do in all of this? 

I firmly believe we are called to arm ourselves. 

However, I believe we are called to arm ourselves in a very different way than the likes of Jerry Falwell, Jr has called upon the students of Liberty University to do. 

I believe we are to arm ourselves to suffer.

The apostle Peter once said:

"Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God." (1 Peter 4:1-2; NASB) 

Armed to suffer? Say whaaa?  Ain't nobody got time for that.

...But Muslims!
...But Hitler!
...But the Second Amendment!
...But bad guys with guns!
...But late night home invasions!
...But Joel Osteen said I could have my best life now, and I can't do that if I'm dead!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's immoral or sinful to own a weapon.  Jesus isn't going to send you to hell or strike you dead for owning a gun (after all, He did once encourage his followers to carry a couple swords). 

However, in listening to the news and chatting among family, friends, and other Christians, I can't help but notice that the primary tone of the conversations taking shape.  We want to own guns, not only because it is our right, but we want to be prepared to use lethal force so that we can avoid needless death and suffering. 

Suffering, even righteous suffering, is the furthest thing from our mind.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness dominate our thinking instead.

Preserving our life and our way of life have taken priority over everything else.  We are prepared to arm ourselves, but only in order to avoid suffering.  And we find the idea of being prepared to suffer and embracing suffering to be ludicrous and completely foreign to our way of thinking. 

Yet the consistent call of the New Testament from cover to cover is for Christians to prepare themselves to suffer, even unjustly, at the hands of madmen, and to do so with the greater purposes of God and the Gospel ultimately in mind.

Owning a gun is fine, and I'll never object to you owning one.  But instead of owning a gun, and getting all bent out of shape over whether or not President Obama is going to allow us to freely buy them, I believe we need to have a different focus.  We need to focus on arming ourselves to suffer.  It is better to be armed to suffer than to have two friends named Smith and Wesson at your side

I firmly believe in my heart of hearts that difficult times are ahead.  Violent and even life threatening times, from which none of us will be exempt, even those who own guns.  Times for which we need to prepare ourselves spiritually, because of all the suffering that may even be brought to our own front door. 

Times for which, I believe we as the church in America simply are not prepared for... but must get prepared for in our hearts.

Will you arm yourself to suffer?

"Convert Them or Kill Them" - Phil Robertson on ISIS

For those of you who may not be aware, in Iraq and Syria there presently exists an armed uprising by an Islamic army/terrorist organization that refers to themselves as "The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria."

The number one goal of ISIS is to create an Islamic theocratic state, first starting in the Middle East, and eventually spreading across the globe. They hope to cause all men and women to live under the teachings and governance of Islamic law as interpreted through their religious leaders.

Ideally, they wish everybody would convert to Islam through their preaching. You may not know it, but Islam has their own missionaries. They actively try to convert people to Islam, much in the way we as Christians have missionaries and evangelists that go around the world sharing the gospel.

However, in regard to the form of Islam that ISIS practices, whoever resists their preaching must ultimately be executed, for such a person would have no place in a nation governed by Islamic law. Even Muslims who don't interpret Islam in the exact same way they do must ultimately convert and submit to their particular views, or face possible execution.

ISIS is terribly pragmatic in the implementation of their faith in the establishing of an Islamic government, and they are pretty straight forward in their approach:

Convert them, or kill them.

ISIS ultimately views America as an enemy in their struggle, and a result, we've landed in their crosshairs. They view us as a threat to their cause, their lives, and they believe we must be dealt with.

Many of our political leaders are presently scrambling for a solution to this problem. They realize that ISIS ultimately can't be negotiated with, because there is nothing to ultimately negotiate over. ISIS wants an Islamic state, not only in the Middle East, but ultimately across all of the world. They will be satisfied with nothing less.

While Washington, DC seeks for a present solution to this great problem, this topic has become a hot point of discussion in the media. Everybody is being asked to weigh in on where they stand, and what they see as a solution.

There is one brief interview recently conducted that sticks out in my mind, and I believe it to be indicative of the attitude that prevails amongst most Christians in America.

A few days ago, the controversial Duck Dynasty reality TV star and "patriarch" Phil Robertson appeared on Fox News, and was interviewed by commentator Sean Hannity. When Hannity asked Robertson about his thoughts on the ISIS crisis, Robertson briefly said the following:

"I'm not giving up on them, but I'm just saying, either convert them or kill them. One or the other."

I find Robertson's solution to the problem of ISIS to be rather revealing, and troubling at the same time. I fear too many follow his line of reasoning, and it goes along the following lines:

We know Jesus Christ has called us to fulfill the Great Commission, that is, to take the Gospel to all the world, and make disciples of all nations. We know all men are in need of our risen Lord and Savior. We know ISIS acts the way they do because like us, they are sinners in need of a Savior. We know they need to be born again, and apart from such, they will continue on in their present spiritual condition.

But in desiring to see all men saved, we recognize an immediate problem with groups like ISIS. They have no interests whatsoever in the Gospel message. Indeed, not only are they uninterested in hearing the Gospel, they are outwardly hostile to Christians, and are engaged in actively persecuting and murdering anybody who follows Christ. They simply will not tolerate the existence of Christians in their Islamic theocratic state. They don't believe in co-existing.

Being that there seems little hope in converting groups like ISIS, we quickly realize there only remains one practical means of stopping them from advancing, and that is to declare war against them, and kill as many of them as we possibly can. Our solution is ultimately this:

Convert them, or kill them.

But if you stop and think about what I just said, you will realize that our philosophy towards ISIS of converting them or killing them is the exact same philosophy that they are using in regard to us.

ISIS sees America as "the Great Satan" and believes we are beyond hope of being converted to Islam, and that we are actively trying to interfere with their mission of establishing an Islamic theocratic state. Likewise, we as Christians in America see ISIS as the embodiment of evil, inhuman, and demonic. And as such, we believe there are few practical steps we could take that could ever result in their conversion. They are beyond being saved it seems. Feeling hopeless and fearful in regard to stopping the jihad they are waging, we feel the only hope we have in stopping them is to declare war on them and kill them before they kill us.

Therefore, both of us agree the only solution to our problem is to kill the other group.

And while such may be the theology of Islam, carefully searching the Scriptures, I have a hard time believing such is also in keeping with the theology of Jesus, and the faith once and for all handed down to the saints.

The teachings of Jesus demand that we pick up our crosses instead of our swords, and follow Him. It demands that we love our enemies, even at the cost of our own lives. And if we literally give our lives over to death for the sake of Christ, we are to consider ourselves blessed. A resurrection awaits us. A kindgom has come and has been established that will know no end, and it conqurers and establishes justice and peace in the world through the weakness and foolishness of the cross, instead of the might of brute military force.

Standing on the line.

When I saw the above picture, taken on Jan. 24, 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine, I became angry.

I became angry because I feel that many Christians in America simply cannot identify with what is going on in the above picture. In the very center of a violent and deadly protests in Ukraine, some orthodox priests stood between protestors and police and prayed. They didn't stand on the side of the protestors. They didn't stand on the side with the armed government officials.

These priests literally "stood in the gap" between the two sides, lifted up the cross, and interceeded to God and cried out to God for peace.

Everybody else took sides.

Take for example, Roman Catholic cardinal and archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan. Not that I care all that much about the leanings of most Roman Catholic officials. However, I think his attitude is prophetically telling of that of the church in general in America. He's reported saying: “We Catholics in the United States cannot let these brave Ukrainians, whose allegiance to their religious convictions has survived 'dungeon, fire, and sword,” languish. They deserve our voices and our prayers.'" He added: "Nor can we as American citizens fail them, as we call for our government to stand with them."

Instead of standing in the gap, lifting up the cross, and interceeding to God and crying out for peace, the archbishop has called on American's to not fail the citizens of Ukraine, and exhorted us to pick sides. The end outcome of such a behavior, ultimately, will manifest itself in further conflict, and perhaps even war.

In an age where men draw lines in the sand and tell everybody to pick a side, these priests dared to stand on the line that men drew. They didn't choose a side. They chose God. They chose the peace that Jesus Christ came to bring, and offered it to the rest of the world. It is a peace which many Christians in America, who are so used to picking sides simply cannot indentify with, because their minds cannot divorce their identities from nationalistic and patriotic ideals. It's the type of peace that keeps men from killing other men.

In the words of the late Art Kazt, Christians in America are "far too American." And that is why we as American Christians cannot identify with these priests. This is what makes me so angry.

As a reuslt of not knowing the peace Christ came to bring to this world (which we limit primarily to warm fuzzy feelings), and not having out identities grounded in our understanding that we are citizens of the kingdom of God, we go along with the rest of this fallen world: We choose sides.