Now You See HIM
October 14th, 2004, 07:44 PM
(This article is from several months ago, but I stumbled across it today.)
http://www.christianity.ca/faith/faith-and-thought/2004/05.001.html
I am often asked why so few Christians in Canada have an active concern for their persecuted brothers and sisters around the world.
While many reasons could be cited, I am convinced that part of the cause is a direct result of a relative dearth of careful thinking concerning religious liberty and human rights in the Evangelical community. We have tended to leave the field to our mainline church counterparts and condemned them (and the issue itself) when they mistakenly confuse religious tolerance with religious endorsement.
With the spread of postmodernist thought in our society and the corresponding weakening of moral and objective truth in the minds of many, even among Evangelicals, the role of apologetics and evangelism has increasingly been disparaged as inappropriate actions for Christians in a multicultural society such as Canada's. Evangelicals must begin to do the hard work of reclaiming a part of our legacy: the field of human rights.
As I have studied the Scriptural ramifications of being created in the image of God over the last several years, I have come to appreciate the fact that human beings, by their very nature, are bestowed with God-given rights to respectful treatment, equality, diversity, communal relations, and freedom of belief. Human rights, rather than being opposed to a biblical worldview are a fruit of it. As Paul Marshall has pointed out in his book, Religious Liberty in the World Today (available from VOM), it is no accident that countries that have historically been influenced by a strong Christian worldview have consistently maintained the highest levels of religious liberty for its citizens. There is a reason why we believe that human beings should be treated with respect; they are created in image of God (see Genesis 9:6; James 3:9).
Sadly, the subject of human rights is one that many Evangelicals have tended to shy away from. To defend the rights of others seems, to some, to be somehow unspiritual. After all, it may be rightfully pointed out that Christians are called to give up their rights just as Christ did in His incarnation. The ugliness of witnessing followers of Jesus Christ fight for their personal rights (especially with each other) has brought disrepute upon the Body of Christ. Rather than saying "See how they love one another," the watching world has more often been able to comment, with a smirk, "See how they fight one another." Seeking to remedy this unfortunate situation by presenting a positive, alternative witness to a skeptical society, some Christians have concluded that we have no legitimate rights to fight for.
I believe a more appropriate approach would be to affirm that often neglected distinction between private and public rights.
Privately, Christians are not to take the law into their own hands but this does not remove the right of the State to uphold the laws of the land. In the same way, Christians may choose to give up their rights in order to accomplish the purposes of God. This does not presuppose, however, that the rights are not legitimate and that others can (and perhaps should) uphold them. Nor does this give us the excuse to not uphold the rights of others. There are times (probably more often than we are comfortable admitting) when the call to follow Christ and to conform to His image requires that we renounce the rights that we may rightfully possess. Giving up illegitimate rights can hardly be considered a sacrifice.
Similarly, to refuse to uphold the rights of others simply because we have personally chosen to renounce them is unjust and a direct violation of Scriptural commands to defend the weak and oppressed and to speak on their behalf. It is a cruel person who says, "Since I refuse to uphold my rights, I will bind you to my decision as well by letting you suffer in silence and refuse to raise a finger to help you."
Nor does the separation of private and public rights imply that Christians should not, at times, stand up for their own rights as citizens. The apostle Paul exemplified this when he felt free to either forego his rights or to use them. On at least three occasions Luke records Paul exercising his rights as a Roman citizen as a defense for his religious beliefs. The advancement of God's kingdom would seem to be the biblical criterion of whether to renounce or uphold one's rights. Unfortunately, the criterion is more often the advancement of our own personal agendas.
In the same way, exemplified by our Creator's willingness to allow false beliefs to continue to go unpunished for the present, Christians are to uphold the right for the individual or the group to be wrong. This is why Christians should find proselytism to be an abhorrent perversion of evangelism. Religious coercion is a violation of an individual's God-given right to choose one's own belief system, even if it is incorrect, morally repugnant and inconsistent with the general and special revelation of God in nature, Scripture, and Christ.
When Christianity has been faithfully practiced, its followers have allowed religious practice contrary to their own to continue so long as it does not violate the basic rights of others (e.g. child sacrifice, sexual or mental exploitation). This does not, of course, negate the importance of apologetics and evangelism. As God's image bearers, we are also His messengers, seeking to restore mankind to a rightful relationship to its Creator. Reflecting His image, even though marred by sin, we seek to win men and women to Christ through persuasion and sacrifice, not compulsion. And we will respect the rights of others to be wrong if they insist in holding on to their beliefs and rejecting the message of life and liberty.
Glenn Penner is the communications director of the Voice of Martyrs Canada. To receive VOM's free monthly newsletter, please sign up at www.persecution.net.
Originally published in the Voice of Martyrs Newsletter, March 2004.
http://www.christianity.ca/faith/faith-and-thought/2004/05.001.html
I am often asked why so few Christians in Canada have an active concern for their persecuted brothers and sisters around the world.
While many reasons could be cited, I am convinced that part of the cause is a direct result of a relative dearth of careful thinking concerning religious liberty and human rights in the Evangelical community. We have tended to leave the field to our mainline church counterparts and condemned them (and the issue itself) when they mistakenly confuse religious tolerance with religious endorsement.
With the spread of postmodernist thought in our society and the corresponding weakening of moral and objective truth in the minds of many, even among Evangelicals, the role of apologetics and evangelism has increasingly been disparaged as inappropriate actions for Christians in a multicultural society such as Canada's. Evangelicals must begin to do the hard work of reclaiming a part of our legacy: the field of human rights.
As I have studied the Scriptural ramifications of being created in the image of God over the last several years, I have come to appreciate the fact that human beings, by their very nature, are bestowed with God-given rights to respectful treatment, equality, diversity, communal relations, and freedom of belief. Human rights, rather than being opposed to a biblical worldview are a fruit of it. As Paul Marshall has pointed out in his book, Religious Liberty in the World Today (available from VOM), it is no accident that countries that have historically been influenced by a strong Christian worldview have consistently maintained the highest levels of religious liberty for its citizens. There is a reason why we believe that human beings should be treated with respect; they are created in image of God (see Genesis 9:6; James 3:9).
Sadly, the subject of human rights is one that many Evangelicals have tended to shy away from. To defend the rights of others seems, to some, to be somehow unspiritual. After all, it may be rightfully pointed out that Christians are called to give up their rights just as Christ did in His incarnation. The ugliness of witnessing followers of Jesus Christ fight for their personal rights (especially with each other) has brought disrepute upon the Body of Christ. Rather than saying "See how they love one another," the watching world has more often been able to comment, with a smirk, "See how they fight one another." Seeking to remedy this unfortunate situation by presenting a positive, alternative witness to a skeptical society, some Christians have concluded that we have no legitimate rights to fight for.
I believe a more appropriate approach would be to affirm that often neglected distinction between private and public rights.
Privately, Christians are not to take the law into their own hands but this does not remove the right of the State to uphold the laws of the land. In the same way, Christians may choose to give up their rights in order to accomplish the purposes of God. This does not presuppose, however, that the rights are not legitimate and that others can (and perhaps should) uphold them. Nor does this give us the excuse to not uphold the rights of others. There are times (probably more often than we are comfortable admitting) when the call to follow Christ and to conform to His image requires that we renounce the rights that we may rightfully possess. Giving up illegitimate rights can hardly be considered a sacrifice.
Similarly, to refuse to uphold the rights of others simply because we have personally chosen to renounce them is unjust and a direct violation of Scriptural commands to defend the weak and oppressed and to speak on their behalf. It is a cruel person who says, "Since I refuse to uphold my rights, I will bind you to my decision as well by letting you suffer in silence and refuse to raise a finger to help you."
Nor does the separation of private and public rights imply that Christians should not, at times, stand up for their own rights as citizens. The apostle Paul exemplified this when he felt free to either forego his rights or to use them. On at least three occasions Luke records Paul exercising his rights as a Roman citizen as a defense for his religious beliefs. The advancement of God's kingdom would seem to be the biblical criterion of whether to renounce or uphold one's rights. Unfortunately, the criterion is more often the advancement of our own personal agendas.
In the same way, exemplified by our Creator's willingness to allow false beliefs to continue to go unpunished for the present, Christians are to uphold the right for the individual or the group to be wrong. This is why Christians should find proselytism to be an abhorrent perversion of evangelism. Religious coercion is a violation of an individual's God-given right to choose one's own belief system, even if it is incorrect, morally repugnant and inconsistent with the general and special revelation of God in nature, Scripture, and Christ.
When Christianity has been faithfully practiced, its followers have allowed religious practice contrary to their own to continue so long as it does not violate the basic rights of others (e.g. child sacrifice, sexual or mental exploitation). This does not, of course, negate the importance of apologetics and evangelism. As God's image bearers, we are also His messengers, seeking to restore mankind to a rightful relationship to its Creator. Reflecting His image, even though marred by sin, we seek to win men and women to Christ through persuasion and sacrifice, not compulsion. And we will respect the rights of others to be wrong if they insist in holding on to their beliefs and rejecting the message of life and liberty.
Glenn Penner is the communications director of the Voice of Martyrs Canada. To receive VOM's free monthly newsletter, please sign up at www.persecution.net.
Originally published in the Voice of Martyrs Newsletter, March 2004.