Persecution Comes Home

Last week in youth group, we talked about how the Christian church is being persecuted worldwide -- but the hard thing to imagine is what, if any, persecution could hit us here at home. After all, we live in a land where freedom of worship is guaranteed in the First Amendment. And yet, we can't deny that the church is an easy target for liberal Hollywood, for scorn levied by the press, for insults and shunning by friends and family, and even physical attacks.

This past Sunday, a church up in Lansing, MI -- coincidentally named Mount Hope -- found themselves facing persecution in the form of an orchestrated riot/protest by a pro-homosexuality/pro-anarchy group called Bash Back. Believers found their church swarmed by people seeking to defile their place of worship with shouting, vandalism, pulling the fire alarm and even performing sinful acts on the altar (source article). Some believe this to be one of many responses to Proposition 8 in California, where the voters overturned the State Supreme Court and banned homosexual marriage.

It might be surprising to us that even our churches aren't safe from persecution, even though we read stories of extremists burning down church buildings, gunmen entering sanctuaries or leaders of the church doing despicable acts. Yet across the world, in many countries, this would probably be considered a mild form of persecution to Christians who have rebuilt their churches dozens of times after crowds raze them to the ground, or families who lose a member to prison or worse.

To stand firm in what you believe makes you a prime target -- for Satan and for the world. We are not called to be timid, apologetic worshipers, but men and women of God who follow the scriptures and stand for what they say, even when that is not popular or welcomed. We place ourselves in the line of suffering the moment we follow Jesus. Jesus even told us, in John 15:18-20, that we are to be persecuted because we are not of this world, because the world hates Jesus and us by association.

And, as Jesus told us, we were "called out of the world". It is imperative that we always remember that just because we are saved does not mean that we are more worthy of righteousness or deserving of salvation than anyone else -- we are sinners, plain and simple. When we face persecution, we face our former selves who rage against God, yet are in deep need of His love and transforming grace.

I'm encouraged by how this Mount Hope church responded to the invasion. Stunned and mortified (and I imagine their children were terrified), none of the believers fought back. Instead, the churchgoers regrouped after the event to pray for the Bash Backers. They did as Jesus told us to do: to pray for our enemies and to love them.