Some Evil is Easy to Name - And We Must

 "The Democrats, the news media - if the leftists, if scientists, professors have been working secretly with the Chinese Communist Party, then line 'em up against the wall and shoot them.  That's what you do with them."

--Rev. Rick Wiles, Senior Pastor of Flowing Streams Church, Florida

A few years ago, during a season of prolific terrorist activity perpetrated by Islamic extremists, many - myself included - wondered where the moderate Muslims were who could step forward and condemn these heinous acts in service to, and in defense of, a different, more honest expression of Islam.  It would be the voices of the moderates, we believed - insiders rather than outsiders - who could best counter and quell the madness of the extremists, and serve the better cause of humankind.

 

My gentle nudging from the sidelines was, I confess, more than a little hypocritical.  I have been a roaring disappointment to colleagues and friends through the years who have chastised me for not more effectively leveraging my voice in service to the common good.  They have a point, although I maintain the conviction that I had a point - at least a methodology - as well.  We choose, after all, our words but also our platforms. 

Suddenly, however, I have to take my own advice.  If it was true for Muslims, it is equally true for Christians.  Moderate Christians are suddenly obligated to speak out against our own who are vilely and publicly ravaging the cause of Christ.  Take a moment to read again the quote at the top of this entry.  Go ahead, reread it.  Ponder it.  Take your time.  I can wait.

Let those words sink in, and filter them through the Gospel message you read in the New Testament.  Surely it doesn't take deep scholarship or hours in prayer to recognize how egregiously oppositional that statement is to the way and words of Jesus.  There is, quite simply, nothing in them that represents the witness of Jesus or the Reign of God to which Jesus constantly pointed.  

 

Nothing.  

 

They could not be further from the Gospel, and it shouldn't be hard for Christians to condemn them for the very articulation of spiritual death that they represent.  

 

Unequivocally.  

Forthrightly.

Steadfastly.

With all due humility.

Earlier this fall, flag-flapping vehicles bearing signs in support of one presidential candidate attempted to run off the road a campaign bus of the opposing candidate.  I am aware that the electoral contest was heated, but surely we can agree that such behavior is unacceptable.  Around the same time, radicals attempted to kidnap a sitting Governor, purportedly to put her on trial for treason and mete out their own form of justice.  Regardless of your partisanship, surely we can agree that such behavior is self-evidently reprehensible, unAmerican, and a fundamental violation of the rule of law.  They represent the early seeds of anarchy; the antithesis of the lofty aspirations of our nation's founders.  We ought to be able to agree on such things, but given the selective silence that ensued, we appear to be too far gone as a citizenry to manage it.

But all of that is a civil matter.  Law enforcement officials should take these matters in hand.  I have no knowledge of the faith persuasion claimed by the perpetrators of either of these earlier atrocities - or if they claim a faith tradition at all.  That's their business.

The assertion at the top of this entry, however, is a different thing.  These sentiments come from the lips of a Christian pastor - at least one who represents himself as such.  They aren't my paraphrase of his words; they are his actual words.  Spoken, I might add, with calm, cool self-assurance.  I copied them verbatim as he said them.  And here is what I would say:  they are an affront to Jesus and everyone who seeks to follow him.  Neither an American, nor a Republican or Democrat, Jesus did not live and die for such blasphemous nonsense as this.  This neither characterizes the "Holy City", nor marks the way there.  It is, to use a good churchy word,  simply heresy.  This is not what scripture teaches.  This is not what Jesus modeled.  This is not the "good news" we were commissioned to proclaim.  This is not the face of Christianity we should want the world to know.  This is the soul's sickness unto death.

 

And every Christian ought to readily say so.  Loudly, and often.

 

It ought to be easy.  

 

Regardless of political persuasion, it ought to be easy.  

Uncharacteristically for me, then, I am saying so.