I sometimes wonder how effective the church really is in touching or changing the world around it? Having written my article on Abortion and injustice in South Africa (28/9/2005), after Sunday I was wondering how much the church is in step with itself?! I was amazed that my own church had no clue of International Life Chain Sunday! "Oh, we don't keep track of all these international days like Arbor Day, etc." Life Chain Sunday did not even have meaning here.
Abortion was not mentioned in church on Sunday; in fact, it never gets mentioned in church. Our church does not get involved in that kind of stuff. Of course, easy justice is easy to get into. It is the difficult stuff, the controversial stuff that is not so easy to handle. It is also so easy to preach pop-sermons that pat people on the back. Sermons that make you stand up in church to make some kind of commitment to pray more, or sing more, or believe more or <insert your own thing here> more. However, sermons that are exegetically true to the Bible that make people seriously take stock of their lives and their community are not that easy to preach. These are the sermons that may anger people and even cause them to leave, taking their well-earned money with them.
The church needs to stand up against injustices like abortion and proclaim them as grave sin from the pulpit. Standing for justice does not make one an automatic Liberation Theologian! Standing against injustice is not politics! It is true religion! "Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute." (Ps 82:3)
Why should the world listen to the church if the church turns its back on injustice?
The fact that so few in the church knew about International Life Chain Sunday points to the fact that so many churches are still only interested in their own little huddles! "Do they speak in tongues?" "They don't? Sorry, we cannot associate with them since they will bring our super-spirituality down!" "They do speak in tongues?! Sorry, we cannot fellowship with them because they obviously don't love the Bible as much as we do!"
The church, based on the fundamentals of the Christian faith, should start standing together across the world and as a united front come against atrocities like abortion. The only way this can be done is to see that God is working all over the world in the church at large and that our little huddle is not the only "church" God is using! With the internet and email, it amazes me that some people still have no contact outside of their own little huddles!
Again:
Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers?
Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
Ps 94:16
Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
Ps 94:16
Just thinking...
No comments:
Post a Comment