Silence is Persecuting

An unfortunate turn of events has happened in American society that affects the church.  A portion of the unbelieving culture is willing to purposely put themselves in a position that causes them persecution because they believe in their “cause”.  They consider going to jail for doing so a badge of honor.  Be clear, they consider their “cause” more worthy than your belief in God, in fact, they most often consider unjustly that your belief is what has made the problem for their “cause” to have to be.

But it should be considered, that for most of the last 2,000 years, it has always been believing Christians who were persecuted because they would not stop witnessing and testifying that Jesus is the Son of the Living God and He died and rose again for the sins of the world.  There are many written testimonies all the way back to the Apostles themselves who considered it an honor to be worthy to be persecuted for believing so undeniably in Jesus. 

Yet, today it is the opposite.  Now, I do believe the church is persecuted in a very non-obvious purposeful manner today and that those efforts are becoming more and more emboldened every day and more and more purposeful.  But, the absence of a believing church boldly standing with no apology on the written Word of God and testifying in the face of an ever-changing politically correct culture is simply not found in America.  Or, where that does exist, the other denominations or sects of the same denomination, attack it.  Thus, showing how irrelevant the church really is since, from the society view, “they” can’t even all agree. 

The whole purpose of persecution is to keep believers in Jesus as the Savior from sharing their faith.  That’s it.  There is no other purpose.  Persecution exists in either prison, death, or extreme torture to hope to cause other believers not yet in prison or being tortured to stop sharing their faith.  There is no other purpose for persecution.

Consider that today, in American society, those who are non-believers and opposed to the believing church want the exact same thing that those who persecute the church want.  They want Christians to stop sharing their faith and further, to stop living in accordance to the Bible’s written standard of right and wrong, good and evil.  The American mantra is believe what you want but keep it to yourself.  It is vital for today’s church to realize that this is a non-violent (so far) persecution.  If believers in America do not share their faith or live to the Godly standard, then they are living the way those who persecute believers want them to live.

Nik Ripken says in his book The Insanity of Obedience, “Just like persecution, the refusal to share the faith denies people access to Jesus.  It was a startling thought to realize that the persecutor’s use of violence to inhibit the faith and the believer’s refusal to speak openly of Jesus yield the same result.  In both cases, people are denied access to Jesus.”  He then further calls this out in how a believing Christian actions identify them.  “When [believing Christians] witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we identify with those in chains.  When we refuse to witness, we identify with those who place the chains on followers of Jesus.”

Will you be a persecuter today or someone who could be persecuted?