• Thankful to wake up this morning (9/11) and see nothing in the news of a tragic nature. I sometimes wonder how many people didn’t sleep last night, or maybe most of last month, because they were watching over the rest of us.
• As background for the discussion with Dr. Derek Halvorson, president of Covenant College, next Monday at 6:00 p.m., here are a few thoughts on the changing landscape of holding faith in Christ in the United States.
• I found a particular statement from this article clarifying (and this one), namely the idea that faithfully following Christ may now be regarded as equivalent to racism.
Both articles are about InterVarsity Christian Fellowship being recently “de-recognized” on California State University campuses. In historical perspective, it’s a remarkably naive action at a university, of all places, since Scripture undergirds so much of western civilization. The Bible and who we are as a nation and culture are inseparable.
• As followers of Christ, whose citizenship is in heaven, we’ve had a good, long run in this country. And, of course, we still enjoy remarkable freedoms and have a great deal for which to thank God. Yet it’s wise to begin considering what it looks like for the Church to take care of her own — her own children, her own property, her own domestic ministries, her own institutions of higher education, her own health care facilities (many of which originated with the Church), her own future. I don’t mean you ought to run out an buy camo and a weapon while the elders shop for real estate in Idaho. But, the fact is, none of us has really considered (we haven’t had to) what life looks like if federal and state governments classify biblical ethics as hate speech. This is what has happened in California, and is now being tested in the courts around the country.
• One minor example close to home. Right now, the money I spend on housing, and caring for my home, is not subject to Federal tax. It’s the government’s way of recognizing that ministers used to live in manses (houses) provided by the Church. I’ve often wondered how long that exemption can last. There are numerous circumstances parallel to this, including the Church’s own tax-free status, and that of many ministries we support.
• Sound frightening? It’s not. Jesus not only knew this would be the case, he virtually promised us persecution. Yet the night before he died he said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (Jn 14:27). Later that night he added, “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you” (Jn 16:1-4). Imagine being a recently-converted Jew and being persecuted within the borders of your own, dear Israel by members of your own synagogue, maybe the one in which you grew up. Imagine being executed by people you knew as a boy or girl. Could Jesus possibly be serious when he says, “do not let your hearts be troubled”?
• It’s good for us to peer shrewdly into the coming change, but it’s pointless to do so without faith. Our overarching reality is not the action of the federal government but the promise of Jesus Christ who, while you have been reading this note, was numbering the hairs on your head, keeping track of which ones are coming up grey, which ones fell out and won’t be coming back. That’s in Luke 12 (slightly embellished by me) immediately after which Jesus translates his meaning with two little words we must always remember: Fear Not.
– Pastor Eric