I really didn’t want to join this conversation but my heart is torn. So instead of giving you a theological treatise, I would really like to know what you think of the entire matter. Here is my problem; the early church lost their lives in droves, at the hands of angry mobs, and governments that hated Christians. As I read through the New Testament (church age) I see a conflicting position than that of today. So here are my thoughts in bullet format for and against having armed guards.
Against
- As I read through the New Testament, not once do I see Jesus, the Apostles or anyone else trying to protect their lives as a matter fact they rejoiced that they were able to suffer like Christ (Acts 5:41)
- I think it is hypocritical in two ways. 1. We pray and esteem those who die for the faith and use them as pillars for the faith (including the Apostles and the early Church martyrs). We teach it to our children to get them all hyped and preach it from the pulpit but then we hire security guards to protect our own lives. 2. We don’t send our missionaries armed when we send them out. We understand that there may be a lost of life, but we send them and want them to risk their lives, but once again we protect ours. That seems to be a bit flaky to me.
- It gives mixed signals to the lost. We talk about Christ suffering in one breath and in the other, we don’t want to suffer. If I were a non-believer I would mock Christianity for such hypocrisy. Either we are willing to die for this hope like our King or we are not. If we are not, we might as well shut our doors, because we have decided the life of this world versus the promised one to come is more important.
- I think it is a slap in the face to all of those who went before us. They never, ever defended their lives, but laid it down, we might as well stop reading Christian history and stop making fun of Joel Olsteen. At least he is being honest; we will be proven to be frauds!
For
- I thought I would have some but the more I thought about it, the less biblical I became. So I only have against. Sorry.
So those are my thoughts. I would love to hear your perspective. This may be a bit heated, but I think it something we really need to wrestle through, especially in light of being pleasing to our Master and faithful to the hope we proclaim.
12 comments:
Hi Lionel,
These are very provocative point and questions. I must say that my fist reaction is yes a church should be able to have an arm guard if it deems it necessary. But after reading your post I had do some thinking.
So my question and comments are as follows,
Yes we are called to die and suffer for Christ. But does that mean that we do not take precautions to protect ourselves and our love ones? I am not sure that dying for Christ means we are not be allow to protect ourselves from those who would harm us. I mean if we are not to protect ourselves and our love ones, why should we put locks and alarms on our churches or homes?
My other question is this. How do we know when we are dying for our faith or not? What I mean is this, in the example u sited, Those Christians new that they were dying for their faith or because of their faith.
If someday we are all pick up because we are Christian and taken somewhere to be executed, that is one thing, but if someone comes to a church (or our home) to shoot up the place, I think that is something different. In the case of this recent shooting in CO, no one there new that they were going to be killed for or because of their faith, they just new that a Gunman was there to kill people who happen to be in a church building.
You gave some good example to support your point. I can only think of Paul using his Roman citizenship in Acts to stop mob of people from beating him. In that case I believe he thought it was better course of action not to be beaten at that time.
I don’t know Bro; it just seems a little different to me.
For His Glory,
Rodney
I don't have the answers. I just wrestle with the thought of wanting to proctect our lives. We live in a culture where "my rights are being violated, so I am going to speak up" versus a Christ like attitude that said "as a sheep led to the slaughter, He didn't murmur a word". But to your other question. I think it might be different if you were being robbed or car jacked; however, if I am in a church, I think the reason for me dying is because someone offended by my faith. I don't know brother. It is a difficult question. You bring up a good question with alarms and those things, I just don't know about a church setting.
LIONel,
I "got into it" with a gentleman yesterday over this issue.
Here are some of my thoughts from yesterday.
"A lack of faith is sin, so is lack of resourceful discernment. We live in a time where God has enabled men to make large advances in medicine, would it not be foolish to rejoice in that? We live in a time and place where an accused man has civil rights enabling him to be represented by another more knowledgeable expert in law. We live in a time and place that still affords, by the Grace of God, civil protection from people like the perpetrator of this crime.
We should not forget that all these are by the Grace of God, and that in whatever condition our civil state, or physical state, our faithful state must always be under His Sovereignty."
Another thing to consider, given that we don't and never will, have all the "facts":
Was the church, as much as I disagree with their theology, protecting "themselves" or the innocents in their flock?
Whether they needed to use deadly force is perhaps debatable, but I don't think that protecting the flock within legal, and moral, bounds is problematic.
Giving our own lives is one thing, but what are we if we do not protect the Body?
This is a difficult issue. I will continue, no doubt, to wrestle with it myself.
But those are my thoughts for now Bro,
In Christ
For now,
I am hesitant to analyze more than is absolutely necessary.
I think of the guard. Whatever the circumstances, she acted bravely. I have seen the damage that can be done by people like me who don't have all the information to people in that position.
I have had a person's life in my hands more than once. I have looked down the barrel of a gun and seen a god-created man at the other end. Luckily, though their life was my hands, I was in the Hands of God.
That was traumatic enough. I can't imagine the strain pulling the trigger does. But I have seen it. No matter how just the events, it is sometimes debilitating.
I appreciate the tact and discretion shown here gentlemen.
You break my heart in such a good way,
Sam
Sam,
I don't know if we are protecting the flock spiritual. That is my problem. I also don't have a problem with the woman nor the actions she took. My problem is that because of the events, churches are now spending resources to keep anything like this from happening again. I think that is the problem. If you are in a church setting and someone walks in and says "if you don't deny Christ you die" and someone shoots them, then this is where I say we are moving away from a biblical resposne to those who threaten our lives for the gospel.
So let me pose this question to you. Just say there is a missionary you are supporting and he is in Iraq. What if a mob finds him and attempt to kill him for his faith but he kills them intstead. He is later deported back to the U.S because of this. Now what if he wants to go to missions trip in India (religious persecution hot spot)? Would your church fund his next mission trip?
This is my struggle. How do we reconcile what we esteem as those laying down their lives as Christ and the Apostles and our right to life (which is an American ideology not a biblical one)? Does a street preacher have the right to fight back if someone punches him for sharing the Gospel? Does a kid have the right to mock in return if he is mocked for his faith? Does a wife have a right to get upset and talk crazy to her husband because he is rude to her for her faith in Christ?
So Sam my question is where is the line drawn? I don't know, but as I stated, these are the objections that come when I think about the action some churches are taking to protect their members.
I know what you mean Lionel,
I am glad you are looking at "the big picture". Like everything. Things like this can be reacted to far too much--in both directions.
That is something we will have to address as it developes I guess.
Americans do have the idea that the right to life is something in control of man. We do have a sort of right to life, but only in the context of God's Sovereignty. Like the young man that was in my sites, God protected both of us. The young man's life, and mine, were in each other's hands only inasmuch as they were in God's. I think we will have to keep that in mind.
What an evil. What a terribly evil thing did Satan, the first murderer, do!
I appreciate your integrity. Let's see if we can't study this and maybe God will lead us to understand something more about Him through it. I thank God He put that brave woman there.
God Bless you Brother, press on.
Agreed my brother. As someone stated "I just hope they put their arms around ALL the families, because the murders family also lost a son". A tragedy indeed, one we have to lay at the cross of Christ and pray that something like this doesn't occur again.
MAN! Lionel u make a brother’s head hurt! I agree with u pretty much, I just wrestle with the when, why and how of any given situation. I think this dilemma depends on the circumstances and/or the contexts of any given situation. For example, if u are in a country like India or Iraq or wherever. And someone in that majority comes into your church or home, drags u and whoever’s with u off to be executed for being Christians. I think this is a totally different circumstance, than if u are in a country that has laws against these kinds of things and someone decides to break those laws (like killing u for your faith). If the government God has allowed u to be a part of by His Grace, allows you rights and protection in these types situations, then I think you have the right to protect yourself. In the latter example you have the means or rights to protect yourselves base on the laws of the land, but in the former example you do not.
“How do we reconcile what we esteem as those laying down their lives as Christ and the Apostles and our right to life (which is an American ideology not a biblical one)? I think it depends on the circumstances.
“Does a street preacher have the right to fight back if someone punches him for sharing the Gospel?” I think that if he is in a county that allows him the right to protect himself then yes he his right to do so.
Does a kid have the right to mock in return if he is mocked for his faith? No, because this is not against the law and i think this is totally different from someone killing or seeking to harm you.
“Does a wife have a right to get upset and talk crazy to her husband because he is rude to her for her faith in Christ?” No because she is to win him with her Christian character. Also it is not against the law, but abusing her would be against the law and so she or we have the right to protect her.
My answer to the missionary question is this; I would not fund him again because he new what may happen to him if he goes to that country to share the gospel.
“My question is where is the line drawn?”
I not sure, but now you have some more of my thoughts.
I must say bro these are very challenging questions and I have never ever really thought about this before. Thanks for Blessing me!
Good post! I'm reminded of some of the mission areas we have been to.
In Venezuela, it's always prudent to build the security walls that protect people and their property. However, I've never seen any of the churches with guards, much less armed ones although there are plenty of armed thieves about.
In Sudan, the men we sent there to minister in the south noted the people meeting in bombed churches. In fact, there were very few buildings left standing. They cooked, slept, schooled, etc. outside. The people there weren't armed and they faced random attacks by roaming troops from the north. Nevertheless, the Christians there always seemed to have great joy - just like my beloved Genesis...
The girl I'm holding in my user picture in the dump is a sister in Christ named Genesis. I'm constantly challenged by the fact that she had great joy and lived in a garbage dump yet I see so many people in the United States who have homes with more than one room, clean kitchens, cars, beds, furniture, closets full of clothing - and have no joy.
I guess the question is, what do we value? Do we value our physical bodies that are going to die only to be resurrected anyway? We have unarmed guards in our nursery at church. This is to prevent abduction. We value our children and take our responsibility to bring them up in the admonition of the Lord seriously. But there is a better day coming and we don't witness very well by valuing this temporary life too highly.
Thanks brother Jim, I really appreciate your insight, given the fact that I know you have a heart for Christ, been in the Marines (so sad, should have been Army), and finally have been involved in missions. Your words are always full of wisdom and hope. God bless and I need to check out the site.
Brother Lionel, interesting discussion! Nice to see real discussion born out of soul-searching/Scripture searching, too. We men, of course, never know what kind of situation we might find ourselves in, knowing only that our paths are marked out by God. There are two (maybe more) distinct classes of "situation" here as I see it: 1) the clear "death for our faith" situation where true martyrdom is involved. The story of the missionaries martyred in South America back in the 50's always come to my mind here. Killing those natives in "self-defense" was not the way God intended for those men to leave their testimony. I think most of us wonder "what would I do?"...praying that (and knowing, by faith) that God would give us all that was required in such circumstances. 2.) Everyday life: walking from the car to Walmart with my wife....being attacked by robbers, etc....is it the "Christian" thing to do, just roll over, allow thugs to assault your wife or children, and/or yourself out of a sense of "non-violence"? I am not convicted of this. Just as in the church shooting scenario. That was the random work of a deranged mind....all persons were potential victims, not potential martyrs. A bit out of practice, but I am confident that I would have made a serious effort to take out the killer to defend the other people at risk....and I have no qualms about thinking that way. I don't want to kill a man who has broken into my house to steal my TV or whatever. If he's on his way out, good for him. If he threatens my wife or family, however, he's fair game. I am not, at my advanced age, overly concerned about my own life. I am more at peace in the hands of my Savior than ever in my life.....but I am still going to defend others when the situation arises. (Enjoying your blog, brother.....good work!)
Hey Pastor Ed, thanks for the comments. I struggle so much with this, trying to find scriptural balance, between protecting my family and experience the "silence of the Lamb". I know that was Christ's earthly ministry, but I just wonder where the balance is you know? Thanks a lot brother. God bless and Happy New Year.
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