Eight years ago, September 11, 2001, America was attacked by Islamic terrorists. Shortly after, our nation went to war against those who perpetrated this evil. It has been a long and costly struggle. And today, as then, those of us who follow Jesus continually weigh that cost and wonder, “What is the Godly response to violence and injustice?” For 2,000 Christians have debated this question and different streams of our faith have answered it differently. For some, a violent response to violence is never justified. For others, war, while never desirable is sometimes, and under some conditions the better of several bad options.

On, Sunday, September 16, 2001 I addressed the congregation of North Heights Lutheran Church, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Below is manuscript of that message. We’re eight years removed from those terrible days, yet the questions still present themselves. While there are other Biblical perspectives, here is one “Christian” answer to the question, “Is war ever justified?”

Jesus’ words are inconvenient today. As the days pass and the horror of the New York and Washington attacks settle into the cracks in our souls, one bitter question still resounds: how do we love these enemies? In the first days we stumbled through cycles of crushing emotion. That first Tuesday was sat around kitchen tables, or in office cubicles in stunned disbelief. On Wednesday we stood awkwardly over our children’s beds trying to comfort their fears. On Thursday we lay awake into the night, haunting images of falling towers and weeping widows playing in our brains. On Friday we prayed, a nation so awkward on her knees. On Saturday we woke with the bile of rage fuming in our bellies: war, at once everywhere and no-where with each one of us a citizen soldier alongside the tireless firemen in Manhattan and the heroic hostages who stormed the cockpit over Pennsylvania. On Sunday, we walked into familiar worship spaces looking for some stitch to seam up the tatters. And what did we find? Jesus’ words agitating rather than comforting our souls. “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.”

The war, we are told is progressing into new theaters. But our rage is still very real. And it is good rage. Anger like ours is a sign of health, for our morally lethargic society is finally calling something absolutely evil. Some wonder, “is this God’s judgment; has our sin removed God’s protective hand?” Perhaps. But God never begets chaos. He is, even now using it to bring about his better purposes, but such carnage is nothing but the spawn of Hell. These deeds were evil and we are right to respond with anger.

But right anger is a dangerous companion. It can so easily turn and pollute our souls. Animals lash back against assault in a chemical, defensive instinct. We know this impulse, for we are, on one level, animals. But we are not mere animals. We are spirit creatures made in God’s image, called by God to rule our instincts with spirit. So we must distinguish righteous anger from vengeful wrath.

And we draw this line with love. Yes, love – the startling marriage of anger and love. Which leads then to a first question: How can I love my enemies when there is not a flicker of natural tenderness within me? In one sense this is the essence of being Christian: we can never do any command of Jesus. In fact the entire Christian life is impossible. Only Jesus can be a Christian, and only Jesus can live his will and way through me. As Dr. Morris Vaagenes is so fond of saying: “I can’t, you can, please do, thank you…”

But then, a second question: how do I love my enemies… or more accurately, how do I let Jesus love them through me? Here we find some surprises.

We bless them. Paul speaks directly: “Bless those who curse you” (Romans 12:14). Now “to bless” is something far more than to simply “wish the best.” Covenant blessing is a supernatural release of grace from one person to another, an unction that the blessed one might fulfill their supernatural destiny. Jacob (Genesis 49) “blesses” his 12 sons that they might each live out their intended purposes. To bless is to literally impart upon someone the presence of God, which will mean goodness as well as judgment. To bless our enemies is to ask that the weight of God’s fullness would be heavy upon them, and that they would submit under the pressure of His holiness, and realize the full potential of their lives.

Now to bless Muslims has particular significance. For our Muslim cousins (even those few who sanction this kind of holy war against the West) are aching for such favor from God. Their bitter hunger goes back to Genesis 21 when Ishmael the son of Abraham not granted the promise of covenant was sent away to the desert to live by his own wits and strength. And in the desert Ishmael’s children remain – the Arabs of today. The good news we bring to them is that in Jesus the same blessing of Isaac is available to all Gentiles – to Ishmaelites as well the rest of us. What they bitterly fight to gain can be theirs by faith! So we bless our Muslim cousins with the knowledge of the favor of God’s covenant for them.

We pray for them. Jesus directs us: “pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Why pray? Prayer is an act of intentional passivity, asking God to act where we can not. Before Nehemiah confronted Artaxerxes, the Persian King who held the Jews in exile he prayed. As a result, God bent the man’s intention (Nehemiah 1:10, 2:4). We might strike an enemy’s physical life, but no human can reach in to alter the heart or intent of another soul. In fact whenever one soul tries to bend the will of another, the effort ends in bitterness. God however can mold motives and attitudes, even the intentions of our enemies. In this, our greatest weapon against their violence is prayer for their souls.

We forgive them. In the prayer Jesus taught us we utter: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass…” Forgiveness is imperative! In fact if we do not forgive, even the worst offenses against us, we ourselves are not forgiven (Matt. 6:14). But what is genuine forgiveness? It is not a warm emotion. It is not mustering the will to “like” our foes, or overlook their offense. Biblical forgiveness is a legal matter, a covenant agreement. When we forgive we release a justified charge against another and in the process turn the prosecution over to God. He will exact the justice. Paul says it this way: “Leave room for God’s wrath.” And so we shall. By forgiving, we step aside and let God lift his leveling hand. And He does and will. For all his ways are just, and unlike our imperfect vindictive forces, His wrath is strategically redemptive.

We overcome them. Evil begets more evil. But when we intervene to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21) we turn evil deeds to an end their perpetrators did not intend. Joseph wept before his brothers saying “you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Paul (Philippians 1:12) claims that the injustice of imprisonment was turned to good because he redeemed the situation and made it an opportunity to share the gospel with Roman soldiers.

But how is this love for our enemies? When we do good in the face of evil we stop some of the affect of wickedness. We cover some of their guilt and lesson their eternal accountability for havoc wrought in God’s order. The heroic deeds of firemen, the blood donated, the financial gifts to families have birthed good in the world that was not here before September 11. And thus heroic love intended for helpless victims turns out, ironically, to be merciful love for the terrorists, for it dims their shame.

We stop them. Love has many faces. And there are times when we must lift a hand and halt the evil. Revenge belongs to God (Romans 12:19). Still, at times we must institute force to stop the chaos of wickedness. Jesus himself was not above using force in his ministry. He did so in the temple when he turned the tables of usury (Luke 19:42). This proves true, even if that force involves death. “Turning the other cheek” is a personal strategy for love. In corporate arena’s love takes on more complicated expressions. In the original language the commandment is “thou shalt not murder” not “thou shalt not kill.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer made a choice to join an assassination plot against Hitler, and he called it love, love for the victims but also for Hitler himself. How? C.S. Lewis, echoing St. Augustine who wrote of “just war” says that love must sometimes act forcefully. If we believe in an eternal judgment then stopping an evil person, even by killing him, can be merciful, for it stops him from further polluting the world and thus incurring darker damnation upon himself and those he influences. Worse things than death can beset a human soul.

Since September 11, 2001, all this dense theology is suddenly starkly relevant for us. We are a nation at war. But we are not the first to face this question of right violent resistance. Every generation of followers of Jesus has wrestled with the reality: some of you in the Second World War, in Korea, in Vietnam, in the Gulf, or as police officers or reservists today. Our purpose, as Christian-Americans is 1) to prayerfully and faithfully support our government and 2) to stand as a prophetic voice reminding our government of the love and mercies of God. Even in the midst of military fury we must insist that militant actions be driven not by vengeful wrath, but by aggressive, persistent, creative love, love in forms that on the surface may not look familiar, but are nonetheless vigilant mercies.

]]> http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/when-love-means-war/feed/ 1 http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/the-thirsty-rock-of-the-middle-east/ http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/the-thirsty-rock-of-the-middle-east/#comments Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:20:15 +0000 stownsend http://prodigalmagazine.com/?p=2652 “How have I ignored this situation?”

Five years ago, Lynne Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago asked that question when she saw the AIDS crisis firsthand in Africa. On a warm October evening in Amman, Jordan, she asked that same question again, this timeabout the growing danger the Middle Eastern Church faces.

Miles south of Amman, the climbing cliffs dropped a cool shadow on the river of bodies as they entered the narrow ravine, escaping from the harsh Jordanian sun hanging in a clean, blue sky. Necks craned skyward at the sheered steepness, anticipation pulsing through the dry desert air. Finally, there at the end of the chasm, hewn into the rock wall by rude tools, was a monstrous façade: a dozen ornate pillars, majestic statues and a giant door, all in one continuous piece. It was the treasury of Petra, the city of rock.

Petra had been an impenetrable stronghold that enemies had attempted to breech, but they had failed against the towering landscape. It was only when the antagonists cut off the city’s water source that these undefeatable people gave up their territory.

 It was a fascinating history to the group of fifty Americans speckled with several Europeans and about 20 from Iraq, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries. While the Friday hiatus was a welcome trip, it was not why so many had gathered in Amman on a still-warm October week.

 During the two days before and the day following the Petra visit, Church leaders from both sides of the Atlantic met in a quiet conference center to talk about the crises facing Middle Eastern Christians, issues that Westerns have too long ignored and, at times, perpetuated. “We began (having these conferences) because of a concern that the Church was not being helped by our ignorance in the West. We had people who were evangelical who thought that every Arab was a terrorist or a fat oil sheik or something and didn’t know that we’ve had Christian churches here for 2,000 years or that we’ve had missionaries here for 200 years,” said Ray Bakke, who is chair of the board for Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding, the organization that hosted the event.

 ”We felt we should come together with 50 to 70 people… who would come as a listening group.”

Those who came to listen had no shortage of sights, facts and heartbreaking stories to take in. Dr. Bishara Awad is the founder of Bethlehem Bible College in Israel, an institution focused on raising up Christian leaders in the Middle East. He opened his session by briefly telling a story that defined his life. At age 9, he helped his mother drag a limp body to their kitchen. The wound in the man’s forehead made plain the truth that he had been hit and killed in the Israeli crossfire. The man was Awad’s father. But in the years to follow, his widowed mother taught him not to seek revenge but, instead, to forgive.

group middle east

It is a unique story, because in the Middle East, forgiveness is far from the minds of most.  Palestinians are being driven from their land and are exchanging their thrown rocks with bullets from Israeli troops. And in return for bullets, Muslim extremists are building bombs. And westerners are seeing bombs on the news and assuming they know everything about Islam.

But Dr. Nabeel Jabbour, an author and teacher, says there is much more to Islam than hijackings and jihad. He explained that Muslims fit into several categories, from the secular, non-practicing bunch all the way to the extremist sect, but many fall in between. Ultimately, his message was that Christians must view Muslims as individuals in need of salvation.

 When one morning in 2001, buildings in New York crumbled under the impact of fully fueled 767s, Jabbour struggled with strong emotions, among them, worry. He wondered, “Are Christians who have been praying for the 10-40 Window going to react by saying, ‘I hate Muslims. I don’t want to pray for them anymore. Let them go to hell; they deserve it’?” 

Jabbour shared a story a woman had once related to him. While driving, this woman pulled up to a light behind a car with two stickers fixed to its back window. On the left was a full-color American flag. On the right was a black and white picture of Osama Bin Ladden framed in cross hairs. The message was printed out clearly: “WANTED DEAD.” A couple weeks earlier the woman would have applauded the message, but for the past weeks she had made a commitment to pray for Muslims, and the sticker embarrassed her. The woman had allowed prayerful compassion to rule her heart, and Jabbour encouraged attendees to also join in prayer for the lives of Muslims. If Christians treat Muslims as enemies, said Jabour, “it will no longer be the Great Commission, it will be the Great Omission.” For Palestinians – Muslim and Christian – “omission” is a painful word. The Zionist movement has taught Americans and Christians to throw their weight uncritically behind the Jewish people in support of the Israeli state that many believe will fulfill biblical prophesy. Some Zionists believe Jews are heirs of salvation simply through heritage and are exempt from the need of redemption through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice.

Author and educator Rev. Colin Chapman says Christians must have other priorities than the reoccupation of the Jews in Israel. “Our message to the Jewish people must be that it is in the person of Jesus the Messiah that their hopes have been fulfilled, not in their return to the land and in the creation of the state of Israel,” he said. “When I see how Jesus has already fulfilled so many of the hopes and dreams of Israel in the Old Testament I can see how… the followers of Jesus today can… both hunger and thirst after righteousness, justice and be genuine peacemakers in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

But peacemaking is a difficult thing. America has played no small role in supporting Israel’s return to the land of their heritage. In doing so, however, they have displaced the Palestinian people, making their land allotment as diminutive as their rights. In one discussion at the Sounds of Hope conference, this dislodgment of the Palestinian people from the land they had occupied for centuries was compared to the injustices colonials dealt the Native Americans.

Bakke shared a conversation he had once had with a Jewish Rabbi. He had asked the Rabbi about the current state of the Israeli nation from a theological perspective. The Rabbi replied, “Every people, to be a whole people, must somewhere in their history be stewards of power. We Jews have always been victims of power. The state of Israel is our first opportunity to be stewards of power.” Then with a big tear rolling down his cheek, he concluded, “If God is just, he will have to remove us one more time for what we have done to the Palestinians in this land. We are treating them the way the Nazis treated us.”

 According to Chapman, the theology behind Israel’s reoccupation is a matter with which every Christian must struggle. He said how each person responds will reflect their biblical interpretation, theology, view of contemporary international politics, interfaith relationships and proclamation of the Gospel. The credibility of the Christian Church, said Chapman, is at stake.

 In the middle of the Middle Eastern conflict remains a hurting outpost of believers. In Iraq, Christians flee from slaughter, cutting the number of believers there in half… and then in half again. In Palestine, Christians struggle for their rights, and they struggle to forgive. In Israel, Messianic Jews fight to overcome stereotypes of Arab believers. And across the sea, a “Christian nation” is too often ignoring and too often misinterpreting the events taking place in the cradle of Christianity.

Interview

Perhaps Armenian Orthodox Archbishop Mar Avak Asadorian of Iraq summed up the urgency of the Middle East crises best: “If the present state of affair continues in the region of the Middle East and Iraq, then the Eastern manifestation of the Christian Church – the churches that saw the birth of the Lord and worshiped him in his own tongue, giving millions of martyrs throughout 2,000 years – yes, these churches, are already at peril. (This is) a matter not to be taken lightly, otherwise we are going to lose the Eastern manifestation of the Christian Church.” It was a call for help that some hadn’t heard before. “How have I ignored this situation?”

Hybels asked at the close of the conference. “What’s happened this week is that I’ve seen the pain… I’ve heard the anger. I think Christians and the Church in the West have really betrayed (the Middle East Church) by our lack of concern, by supporting global policies that have very much hurt the Middle East as a whole and our Christian brothers and sisters here.”

 What was apparent to Hybels was apparent to many at the conference that week: As basic as water to an impervious city is unity and support within the global Body of believers. Just as the Middle East Church needs the support and prayers of the western Church, the West needs the cradle of Christianity to be a beacon of God’s faithfulness to a broken people. Fifty westerners went home after the Sounds of Hope conference to share with others what they had heard and seen in the hopes of helping them understand the urgency of the situation. But after all the speeches, the discussions, the sharing, the question Hybels left lingering at the end of an interview is, perhaps, the question that would most help in the Middle East Church’s crises if many more were to ask it in one voice: “What am I to do now?”

I spend a lot of time on the internet, maybe too much time, but during that time I stumble upon a lot of websites that have helpful tools that can help a Church, Church ministry, or organization. Some of those tools are available right from the web without having to download anything or even pay. These are some tools that I have seen used and/or have used myself that could be helpful to your Church or Church ministry. 

TweetGrid 

TweetGrid is a multiple twitter search engine. Now you might be asking yourself, “How could this help my Church?” How can it not? Most Churches are now building online communities or have a growing online community, and many of the pastors/leaders are usually involved in social networking which helps in marketing a Church, finding your target audience, and minister to their online communities.  

By using TweetGrid, ministry leaders can use the grid-like search engine and enter in multiple search terms having to do with their ministry as a way to target online readers, the lost, the latest news/or political buzz, or anything that could help their ministry in any way. I have used it, and was able to find content and people who were interested in what I had to say(on my blog). 

Jing 

So you’re asking how could “Jing” help out a ministry? Simple, Jing allows you to share images and screencasts quick an easy with other people. This is more helpful between staff members of a Church ministry, rather than outreach itself, but still a helpful tool. Jing allows you to capture images and videos(up to 5 minutes of video) and either save them to your hard drive, upload them to Flickr, Youtube, or Tech Smith’s Screencast,com service with free space. 

This is an example of an image: http://screencast.com/t/C5oDaMad8JN 

This is an example of a video: http://screencast.com/t/m6F6aauUb 

When your upload is done, Jing automatically pastes a copy of the link to your clipboard in which you can give to anyone to view. Once that person clicks on the link, they will be automatically redirected to Screencast.com or whatever service you’ve used and view the image or video. 

You can also add text, boxes, and highlight areas of emphasis to help your viewer understand the capture more. This tool is extremely useful when I am design a sermon slide, or some kind of flier for my church, because it allows me to easily share something with my pastors rather then sending an email or file and downloading and waiting. It saves time, effort, and is extremely useful. 

These two tools are extremely useful for the Church. I have found that they have either made life just that much easier in it’s respectable case. ]]> http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/2-new-web-tools-for-the-church-tweetgrid-and-jing/feed/ 0