11-4-19<\/p>\n
\u201cIf being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes such aphorisms \u2013 what I call bumper-strip theology \u2013 pack a lot of implications and wisdom.<\/p>\n
In many place around the world, being a Christian is illegal, or nearly so. I can tell that this blog is read in some of those countries, perhaps to the peril of those readers.<\/p>\n
Will such a thing ever happen in the United States, in Western Europe? Many of us think so \u2013 it has happened in societies that were once like ours \u2013 and at the moment, if belief in Christ is not yet illegal it is however improper or at best impolite in many places and situations.<\/p>\n
When the leader of ISIS recently was killed, we were reminded that one of his countless victims was the young American missionary Kayla Mueller. The Christian woman had been held in captivity for 18 months, a sex slave of al-Baghdadi himself. The man whose Washington Post<\/em> obituary called \u201can austere religious scholar\u201d and a shy man behind spectacles, repeatedly raped and tortured Kayla, according to eyewitnesses like Yezidi sex slaves even younger than Kayla.<\/p>\n That description of Kayla says more about al-Baghdadi \u2013 and the Washington Post<\/em> \u2013 than it does about Kayla. Almost.<\/p>\n What is scarcely said in the news stories is that Kayla was repeatedly asked, and frequently beaten and tortured, to renounce her Christian faith. This she never did \u2013 by ISIS\u2019s own frustrated reports \u2013 and it gained her torture, rape, beatings, and death. Photographs of her bruised and lifeless body were e-mailed to Kayla\u2019s parents by ISIS.<\/p>\n She lost her life. By her confession and faithfulness, as a contemporary martyr, she secured a place in Heaven, we can believe. Kayla was not alone, I am sure she would maintain. Every day, Christians around the world are being persecuted, tortured, and killed for their faith.<\/p>\n We smugly think that things in this world are growing brighter and better. Not everything. There were more Christians killed simply for being Christians in the 20th century than in all the combined centuries since Christ, including the iconic grotesqueries of Nero.<\/p>\n This week we noted \u2013 did you? \u2013 Reformation Day, the commemoration of Martin Luther\u2019s challenge to the Church of the day. He nailed 95 complaints about corruption to a church door in Germany. It spread beyond Wittenberg\u2019s town square; past the triangle of land formed by Hannover, Berlin, and Dresden; through Germany; to Rome and other territories of the Vatican; through the Christian world\u2026 and even unto today.<\/p>\n Luther had not intended to leave the Catholic Church \u2013 he was an ordained priest \u2013 nor establish a denomination, much less see his protest<\/em> turn into Protestant-ism<\/em>. Yet the \u201cworld system\u201d that had corrupted the people and practices of the Church transformed widespread dissatisfaction into open revolts.<\/p>\n Luther\u2019s reliance on \u201cScripture Alone\u201d \u2013 that is, not mankind\u2019s rules or new doctrines not found in the Bible \u2013 was a revolution of the spirit, conscience, and faith. Indeed, Luther was not the first anti-Romish reformer: previous theologians had similar heartfelt critiques\u2026 and had been martyred.<\/p>\n Fired, exiled, imprisoned, tortured, killed for their consciences. Luther was to be the next. Hunted and excommunicated, he was hauled before a council in the city of Worms, Germany.<\/p>\n All his writings \u2013 books and pamphlets, sermons and essays \u2013 were laid on a table, and Luther was ordered to renounce them. Outside the castle, at night, the Church was burning his books.<\/p>\n \u201cRenounce them?\u201d he said in effect, \u201cHow can I, when they all quote the Bible and rely on Scripture?\u201d<\/p>\n Further, he argued that they were the result of his conscience, and \u201cno man, no council, no Pope\u201d can force me to act \u201cagainst my God-inspired conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n It was made clear that he would suffer death if he did not deny his writings. He said \u201cI will not and I can not.\u201d<\/p>\n With his life on the line, and conscious of the blood of martyrs before him, in the hushed council, Luther firmly said, \u201cHere I stand. I can do no other.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHere I stand. I can do no other.\u201d Those simple words, spoken in that obscure German town, have rather thundered like mighty artillery through the ages. Indeed for 500 years they have been spiritual and intellectual bombs. They inspired the translations of Bibles into languages of local peoples. They ignited a rediscovery of Scripture. They freed believers from relying on human intercessors when praying or petitioning God. They inaugurated the spread of literacy. They were the underpinnings of democratic movements around the world.<\/p>\n Luther was not murdered; he was secreted away by German princes who likewise \u201csaw the light.\u201d Thrown out of the Roman Church, he married and continued to write and preach. Others who knew him, and many who never met him but were \u2013 and still are \u2013 electrified by his words, followed.<\/p>\n \u201cHere I stand. I can do no other.\u201d These are the words, perhaps word for word, that the missionary girl Kayla Mueller spoke.<\/p>\n God forbid \u2013 which clich\u00e9 is my hope, but is not a certainty \u2013 that any of us will be in the position of a Martin Luther or a Kayla Mueller. It is not an abstract warning: every day Christians are in those positions.<\/p>\n When you have the opportunity, are you however too shy to speak the Name of Jesus? Do you hold back from sharing your faith with a stranger, or a family member, knowing that they might be on their ways to hell? When politicians, from school boards to the presidency, offend the Truth of the Gospel, do you think, speak, and act in opposition?<\/p>\n Do you \u201cstand\u201d? Will you stand? Can you do no other? If being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n
\nCorrection: she saved her life.<\/p>\n