Disciple or Victim?

 

I’ve been thinking a great deal about the marriage issue much lately. Watched a video of the mob riot at the end of this clip (I posted it on my profile) yesterday. At the end of my note is a firsthand account from a prayer person who was mistakenly targeted by this mob.

The culture war America is in cannot be won by political means, including the “politics of victimization”, an intriguing term I just picked up from an Os Guinness book. People who have God’s power in their lives and have been cleansed of their guilt and slime are not victims. People over whom “all things work together for good, to those who love God and are called according to his purpose” are never victims.

I am thinking a lot lately that when you sign up to follow Jesus, you surrender your rights over to his Lordship. So if I were for example, to lose my job because someone misinterpreted (or rightfully interpreted with offense) this post and rallied other people to blackmail me for my beliefs on an extremely controversial issue, what do I do? Do I call up a christian thinktank and countersue, or does divine power come in after I am mistreated without retaliating? I’m not into being a doormat, nor do I want the 10 Commandments sandblasted off our public buildings, or “In God We Trust” off our money. However there’s a lot of retaliation from the christian world especially when large ministries and churches are involved, and it seems to me like God is teaching conservative believers not to trust in the political process right now, but to pray – and pray the right way.

Regarding this disturbing video: I’m certainly not sharing it to fuel an ungodly spirit of retaliation, which we collectively default to as followers of Christ, in direct disobedience to his word. I’m posting this as a reminder to what it means to stand up for what we believe God has said in his word about how he created people, in the areas of male and female.

In the end it is a question of whom you fear more – fear of man, or fear of God? When I was in high school I did not see God healing people and know of God actually raising the dead in the here and now. Had I really cared about truth, I suppose this shouldn’t have mattered. But now that I know that God does these things (he is powerful and should be obeyed), I realize I need to take a side for what he says about creation in the context of extremely controversial relationship issues.

In a side note – Many believers my age and younger seem to be doing penance for the slavery, racism, witch-hunts, crusades, and other sins of previous generations of passive Christians by overly sympathizing with political views that undermine God’s design for life and relationships per the scriptures. I am acutely aware of this because I spent my entire high school years trying to find ways to avoid looking like an “intolerant”, “conservative” person. In the end, the only way is to genuinely care for those you disagree with, and let them react and label you as they wish.

Back to this video – Again my intention is not to create fear, but if we call yourself followers of Christ and are unsettled by this, perhaps we need to dig deeper and learn how to get some results from our church and prayer meetings. What this group in the video is doing – praying and fasting in love for people who are themselves hurting, and upset – is what we must do if we want to see true freedom.

To my friends in my prayer network to whom I’ve mentioned the need to pray for the gay community, well, let’s pray for the community! I hope incidents such as this one will get our attention, so that we can proactively pray.

Nathan

*********
…here is a firsthand account from one of the people who were praying and assaulted.