I'm not really sure when it happened, but I have no doubt that it is one of the best examples of a ploy by our existential enemy. Somehow, a group of people who claim to follow the man Jesus Christ as their Saviour and eternal King, the guy who hung out with and loved the dregs of society, who healed the sick and blind, who told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, have become the same group synonymous with support for America's imperialist campaigns overseas. In the minds of many all over the world, Jesus and bombs go together quite well. Think about the tragedy of this fact. Missionaries are having to overcome this stigma in nations which have been affected by the many military campaigns this nation has fought, as if their job wasn't hard enough. I speak this word to fellow Christians. Our unflinching support for our war mongering government has been a huge blow to our Christian witness. The fact that we did not speak out en masse when the scandal at Abu Ghraib surfaced, or when it came to light that our elected officials had okayed the torture of prisoners, or when the many other egregious American violations of Habeas Corpus and human rights in general became public knowledge, made us look very very bad. People think we are hypocrites and jokes, they're correct. Instead of standing up for justice and defending the right of innocent people everywhere, we get up in arms over illegal immigration and boobs on television.
My brethren, as the body of Christ, we need to remove our support from the murderous imperialism of our corrupt government. We need to refocus our gaze on compassion for the needy and oppressed. We need to treat the people of this dark and fallen world as Christ would treat them. It is by this that we can take steps toward restoring the good name of Jesus Christ in the minds of so many. Instead of dropping bombs for Jesus, we can love people for Jesus, and then we can (take a deep breath) share the gospel with them! It has been my experience that people will be much more receptive to our message of hope and salvation when their house is not exploding. Governments will war and murder for profit with or without the support of Christians, for that is what the governments of our fallen world do. But, when Christians buy into their pandering and support their campaigns of violence, it gives them much more legitimacy and makes it far easier for them to justify their evil. Our greatest weapon against them is the removal of our allegiance. We need to be allied only with Christ anyhow, it should be natural for us.
I pray that the Lord would light a fire in our hearts. I pray that the light from this fire would illuminate the deception which has been sowed in our minds. That the Lord would teach us, no matter how another man thinks or what he aims to do, he is not beyond forgiveness and needs to hear your truth. For the desperate teenager living in Gaza, who needs just one more of his friends to be gunned down to make that hopeless decision to strap a bomb to his chest, I pray we would have our heart broken for him. For our Muslim neighbors, their numbers growing more each day in this nation, who share our belief in the one creator God, who honor Jesus in a way that no other religion outside of Christianity does, I pray we would love them and share the truth with them, that they might celebrate with us one day at the wedding feast. I pray against that spirit of fear and hate, that spirit of crusade, which blinds so many of those who claim to follow Christ, and leads them down a path of blindness and deception. God, let us live without fear. No matter what our politicians say about terrorist threats, no matter what our news men and pundits say about people in other countries who we've never met, I pray we would love them boldly and without thought for our own well-being, but only for their salvation and forgiveness.
We call this nation a Christian one. I pray this would become a true moniker. Not by the legislator's pen or the soldier's gun, but by the words and actions of its people. Let us repent of our warring ways and truly show the world what Jesus Christ looks like. Amen.
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