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When NOT To Turn the Other Cheek

10-26-15

A Reformation lesson.

The observance of Reformation Sunday also provides an umbrella over a discussion of “tolerance,” Christian charity, “turning the other cheek,” loving your enemies, and similar topics. In the United States Reformation Sunday has come to be observed on the last Sunday in October, but is conterminous with All Saints’ Day. It is a legal holiday in parts of Germany, in Slovenia (despite its majority Catholic population), in Chile, and elsewhere.

October 31 is when the German monk Martin Luther, pushed to holy exasperation by the Catholic Church’s selling of indulgences (certificates promising to keep one from hell) and other extra-biblical practices, nailed a list of his complaints to the cathedral door in Wittenberg. These were the “95 Theses” – a lengthy set of arguments indeed – and are regarded as the spark that ignited the kindling of resentment and reform within the Catholic church.

Protestantism – now myriad denominations – resulted. First followers of Luther, then Calvin, the Wesleys, Pietists, Puritans, Baptists, Anabaptists, Anglicans, through evangelicals to perhaps the church’s very first manifestations again, Pentecostals. The Roman Church remains, as do various Orthodox traditions.

The Reformation came to my mind when, as occasionally happens, a subscriber to this blog “unsubscribed.” Actually it was an old friend, and the spark for him was an essay in which I criticized recent social trends, and took President Obama to task, I think over his advocacy of homosexual marriage or abortion, contrasted to his professed Christian faith; or perhaps it was his Administration’s virtual silence in the face of Christian persecution around the world.

I thought, and think, that such attitudes and national policies deserve criticism. “Not interested in political critiques,” my friend wrote. To me, policies make politics, no avoiding it. And Protestants originally were those who Protested.

Once I asked the cartoonist Al Capp about making a distinction between commentary and pure humor. He saw none, and replied, “Every cartoonist is a commentator. Even when you draw a cat, you automatically are commenting on cats.” In a similar manner, contemporary life has tuned everything political: much affects us, and reactions are inevitable; this is politics, in a way. But everything is not “partisan” – this party or that; liberal or conservative – and many people confuse the two P words.

Many Christians cite the scriptural admonitions to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, “render unto Caesar,” and, at the extreme of these modes, to honor the “divine right of kings.” My friend objects to receiving blogs with points of view, and I can sympathize. Many of us fends off scores of these every day. I have a friend who submits magazine articles critical of the Christian Right, a shorthand term, and even has invented conversations with Christ in the manner of the Socratic elenchus. Between this and an essay mentioning policies that are counter-Christian… a distinction perhaps without a difference.

Speaking personally – which I do in these messages – I wrestle with the challenge of resisting laws, rules, and practices that I consider inimical to the cause of Christ.

Yes, we should obey laws; and the Bible says that has God has ordained those in authority, that He has placed those in authority. But, obviously, we are free in God’s eyes to resist the appeals of incumbents to vote for them, and instead support their opponents. No? Should Jews have been compliant in Nazi Germany? Were Blacks wrong to commit civil disobedience against segregation? If our Christian beliefs convince us that abortion is murder, must we remain silent? decline to work for change if we can?

God has given us brains (that is, consciences — not always the same thing) as well as hearts, and I am quick to acknowledge the slippery slope of applying the argument that we can love our own enemies but not God’s. Possibly too facile, so we rely on prayer and the Holy Spirit. But yet, challenges and contradictions confront us.

It brings me (a happy inspiration) to Reformation. The attitude that we must without deviance obey ecclesiastic and civil authority, as Christians, would condemn the martyrdom of uncountable saints past and present. What of those in the Age of the Apostles who defied Rome in order to establish Christian communities? What of those who defied their superiors to translate Scripture, and to evangelize? What of the reformers, in centuries before and centuries after Luther, who worked to return Christianity to biblical foundations?

Among others, if the Wesley brothers had been compliant clergymen, not dissenting nor resisting, where would our faith, our hymnals, our churches be today?

Welcome back to the dichotomy: one man’s “injecting politics” is another man’s “defending Christianity” or defining morality. To navigate the slippery slope recognizes the need, as we said, for prayer and Holy Spirit guidance at all times.

I am reminded of David’s petition to God, in Psalm 109, that He punish and discomfit those who accused and disagreed with him. And – on Reformation Day – I cite the words of Martin Luther, the priest who defied the Pope; criticized his fellow, corrupt, churchmen; published 95 scathing critiques; publicly burned the Papal Bull (arrest warrant) against him; refused to renounce his writings; was caught up in the “politics” of the day and went into hiding to save his life; and, commanded to renounce his views, declared: “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

From his great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”:

Though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God has willed His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo! his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him.

That Word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours, through Him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever!

+ + +

I have heard the Battle Hymn of the Reformation performed, in many venues large and small, including on the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth, in the cathedral chapel in the city of Augsburg, Germany, where he defended his faith. And I have sung it myself uncountable times, frequently with tears in my eyes. But few performances have the impact of Steve Green, singing it a cappella before 70,000 men at a Promise Keepers gathering.

Click: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Category: Christianity, Faith, Politics

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

7 Responses

  1. Georgene says:

    Dear Rick,

    As a Catholic Christian who tries to, as Steve Green says in the video, “be in the flow of communicating God’s heart” I thank you for your keen wit and words. Often time I feel the tug and pull you describe, and wince as I have to stretch to “wrestle with the challenge of resisting laws, rules, and practices that I consider inimical to the cause of Christ.”

    I, for one, am glad that you choose to stand and deliver challenging messages that prick the soul. It’s what we must do to answer God’s call to the vocation of being a Christ-ian.

  2. Thank you, Georgene! Abortion is one of the uncountable issues that came to mind as I prepared this essay. Render unto Caesar? The list of dilemmas we face is long… abortion (starting with an A) we can name first. Few are more serious to us, but all are serious in the Kingdom, just as all sins are sins in God’s eyes. Prayer and guidance, prayer and guidance… Thank you again. Good bless you!

  3. JimmyV says:

    Thanks for the article, however your history of the Reformation is not correct. Basically, ML et al did not defy civil authority, but formed an alliance with it against the Church and the peasant class. ML’s ideas were stuck in the mud, until he was able to convince the civil authorities that they would have more power and control if they broke with Rome. These princes sowed the seeds of their demise by fasely claiming that the Pope (office) was not established by Jesus (devine right). To which the upper class quickly asserted that the Kings and princes did not have devine rights.

    It is why today we have a “religion” of government for most in the EU and many in the US, that is accountable to neither God (and His Church) nor man (the governed).

    Also, the Holy Bible was translated into the vancular hundreds of years before ML …

  4. John Peccavi says:

    Above all, we must think and trust our consciences because the religion professionals sometimes get it wrong. That’s why I started The Christian Mutineers blog (http://christianmutineers.tumblr.com/), to encourage Christians to think for themselves.

    Sometimes, we also have to speak out, lest our silence be considered agreement.

    John Peccavi

  5. GregoryMary says:

    Rick, May God give you all you need to come to the fullness of truth, in fact go to James 1:5-8 and ask the Lord for HIS Wisdom, and then trust that HE will give it to you. It seems to me that you have a sincere heart, that desires the truth. Email me and let us start a conversation for your soul and those you love. To the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful & Immaculate Heart of Mary, GregoryMary

  6. Bridgette Ehly says:

    This reminds me of Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples after the Supreme Court made homosexual marriage legal.
    My liberal friends in Louisville called her “a stupid redneck,” and “an embarrassment to Kentucky.”
    “It’s the law of the land,” they insisted, as if the opinion of a handful of unelected judges is the supreme law of the universe.
    What strength it must have taken for her to resist social and economic pressures to do what she believed was immoral. I wonder how many will lose jobs, go to prison, perhaps even be killed in the coming years as Christian faith is seen as heresy against the “divine” law of government.

  7. I agree down the line! We must be prepared for the coming storm — no, it swirls around us — and what is ahead.

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About The Author

... Rick Marschall is the author of 74 books and hundreds of magazine articles in many fields, from popular culture (Bostonia magazine called him "perhaps America's foremost authority on popular culture") to history and criticism; country music; television history; biography; and children's books. He is a former political cartoonist, editor of Marvel Comics, and writer for Disney comics. For 20 years he has been active in the Christian field, writing devotionals and magazine articles; he was co-author of "The Secret Revealed" with Dr Jim Garlow. His biography of Johann Sebastian Bach for the “Christian Encounters” series was published by Thomas Nelson. He currently is writing a biography of the Rev Jimmy Swaggart and his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis. Read More