Disarming the World of Its Most Potent Weapon, Part 2

Colossians 2:15 plainly declares that God stripped the world of its most potent weapon—death, when Jesus rose again. The Apostle Paul describes this in terms of Jesus’ triumphing over death. Jesus won. The writer of Hebrews celebrates Jesus’ victory, clarifying that Jesus died “… that he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (2:14-15). Freedom from the fear of death, the courage to self-identify as Christians and to live in obedience, regardless of the cost—these are the spoils of Jesus’ victory. And these are the ways to mark our own celebrations of resurrection.

The Christian university students in Kenya, who received the bullets from their persecutors, and the Christian owners of the pizza shop in northern Indiana, who stood up in the face of such public reproach, have marked the course for us. Both were challenged under threat to self-identify as Christians. Both courageously confessed the truth. It is time for the rest of us to equally invest in the power and promise of Christ’s resurrection, regardless of the cost.

The bold examples of the Kenyan students and the pizza shop owners reveal a landscape of choices before us in the wake of the reproaches, threats, and outright sanctions against us for audaciously declaring: that God defines marriage as the union between a man and woman; that LGBT behavior is sin; and that we choose therefore neither to approve nor collaborate with those who run to such.  

Do not mistake the intentions of the LGBT community and their advocates in business, in media, and in government. What happened in Indiana after RFRA became law has been happening for years on university campuses in every State. Christian groups are routinely sanctioned on university campuses for refusing to cave to demands that they allow unbelievers and members of the LGBT community to become members of their group and serve as their officers. Emboldened by their success on campuses, the anti-Christian activists are determined to wipe any vestige of Christianity from the public square—even if it means taking away our freedoms or our livelihoods (in other words, the “death” of either or both).

So what can we do?

Before I begin to answer, I have to say, I am not a politician. I am a pastor. The things that follow are not intended as political moves. They simply are attempts to self-identify as a Christian, as a pastor, and as one in sympathy with Christians worldwide who fear death no longer, as they courageously stand for their faith.

First, I believe we must reassert the Church’s jurisdiction over the things that have been entrusted to us by God. This includes marriage.

Disputes over separation of church and state ultimately center on questions of who has jurisdiction over what? I believe jurisdiction over marriage belongs primarily to the Church and only secondarily to the State. The State seems to think it’s the other way around. Consequently, they empower themselves to “define” marriage, rather than to merely “recognize” it in submission to parameters outlined in Holy Scripture. Then, as already noted, they demand that we keep any disagreement with their definition inside the four walls of our church buildings. Mark my word, it won’t be long until the four walls of our church buildings fall to their assault.

If States such as ours insist on defining marriage to include homosexual unions, I believe pastors should stop performing marriages as agents of the State.

For a couple to be married, they must first obtain a license from the State. In turn, whoever performs the ceremony for them acts as an agent of the State to officiate their wedding. Once the wedding is over, the officiating pastor signs the State’s marriage license and returns it to the Country for filing. As an ordained pastor, I have performed numerous marriage ceremonies in this fashion; that is, as an officiate on behalf of both the Church and the State. I will do so no longer, since I am unwilling to any longer partner with the State and its insistence on disobeying the clear teaching of Scripture in regards to God’s standard.

When couples in our churches desire to get married, they will be able to get a license from the State and be married in the State’s eyes before a magistrate. Well enough. The couple can then come to the Church for a Christian ceremony to celebrate their marriage according to Holy Scripture. This, by the way, is what Christians in Cuba do. For more than a generation, the Cuban government has restricted Church ministry to the four walls of church buildings. Demanding jurisdiction over marriage, the godless Cuban government requires couples to tie the knot before government magistrates. When the couples are Christian, they meet their legal requirement, then they are married in the church. Out of respect for where the Church believes jurisdiction over marriage truly lies, Christian couples are not counted as married until the Christian ceremony.

Pastors refusing to continue acting as agents of the State in marriage may reveal other similar steps to be taken to reassert jurisdiction for the Church where warranted.

More in a new post tomorrow…

Disarming the World of Its Most Potent Weapon

“He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” Colossians 2:15

The most salient lesson of Easter 2015 extends from a single verse midway through Paul’s epistle to the church in Colossae: “He [meaning, God] disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (2:15). Over the last week, Indiana, the State where I grew up, and where I now live, was railed for passing its version of RFRA and then bullied into changing it. Along the way, the Presbyterian owners of a pizza shop were forced to close their doors simply for saying, as Christians, they would not choose to cater for a gay wedding. The hate speech and threats unleashed against them made the rants of Sodom and Gomorrah against Lot look like mere playground banter—all this in the days leading up to the Christian celebration of resurrection from the dead.

Other stories in the news over the past week or so underscore a palpable menacing of evil far beyond the borders of Indiana. One of them was the murder of nearly 150 college students in Kenya at the hands of radical Islamists. If you learned about this heinous crime from the New York Times, you may not have noticed that the murderers were, in fact, targeting Christians. The Times barely mentioned the Christian faith of most of the victims, and then not until deep into their article. A gratuitous nod aside, the Times quickly slanted the closing paragraphs of their article to the heroics of Muslim students who tried to help their Christian fellows find shelter from the bullets. What else went unreported? The murderers lining up students, then asking, “Who is a Christian?” Then slaughtering those who confessed.

What do the murders of Christian students in Kenya have to do with the bullying of Presbyterian pizza shop owners in Indiana? Simply this, both were challenged under threat to self-identify as Christians.

Both courageously told the truth.

And here is where the lesson of Colossians 2:15 comes into play. Death is the most powerful weapon the world is capable of wielding, but the resurrection renders it ineffective. Death is no longer able to accomplish its ultimate end, subjecting those who weaponize it instead to open shame and defeat.

So an Indiana high school women’s golf coach hatefully tweets, “Who’s going to Walkerton, IN to burn down #memoriespizza w me?” People respond instead with more than $800,000 in donations to the shop owners, ensuring rather than ending their future. Meanwhile, the coach is suspended from her job. She didn’t see that coming!

Triumph over death doesn’t always take place in this life. The terrorists in Kenya succeeded in killing the Christian students. But that’s the point. The Christian students willingly endured the reality of death for an even greater reality—their own resurrection to eternal life. Their faith in the latter gave the students courage to take a bullet, rather than to deny their faith. It’s as though the faithful students were saying, “Bullets and death? Is that all you got?”

This is where it gets interesting for those of us still among the living. We can learn lessons from both the students and the pizza shop owners. It’s time to reinvest in the disarming of our spiritual enemies and in the power and promise of Christ’s resurrection by standing up for our faith regardless of the cost. There are a few things this means in relation to the attempts of the LGBT community, along with some in business, and many in the government and media, to marginalize the practice of our faith, making it illegal for us to speak out or to refuse to approve and participate in their sin, or even to earn a living according to the dictates of our consciences before our God.

More about these in my next post…