I know of very few average Americans who would argue with the idea that America is the greatest country on earth. The reasons for that are many and varied, but one of the reasons most often cited is because of the immense freedoms we enjoy. And among those freedoms that is particularly coveted by Christians is the freedom to exercise religion without fear of government interference. More specifically the 1st amendment of the US Constitution says this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It is nice to know that we can assemble every Sunday and Wednesday or any other time we want as Christians without the fear of being arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned just because of what we believe. It fits into our Christian comfort zone and when something makes us more comfortable we consider it to be a blessing. But what if that blessing was more of a curse?
It should not be a surprise to you that while those freedoms still remain intact that they have been severely compromised. American Christians are experiencing attacks today in ways that we never have before. But we have become spoiled. We’ve always been able to say what we’ve wanted and do what we’ve wanted without any significant backlash. But those days are gone as society and even government is pushing back more and more. The question is not what we can do take things back to the way they were. Realistically that’s probably not an option. The question is how Christians are going to respond to being Christians in a much tougher environment than we’ve ever had.
You see Christianity was not designed to be practiced only inside of our comfort zone. Christianity was designed to fight back against the tide. It thrives in the toughest of environments. That’s the idea behind James’ statement to “count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1:2-3). But I wonder if we have not been spoiled into an inability to rejoice in persecution. What’s going to happen one of these days when churches are threatened with their tax exemption and public scorn if they don’t shut up about homosexuality? What’s going to happen when preachers are told that preaching about certain sins is now legally considered “hate speech” punishable by law? What’s going to happen when being a Christian becomes a greater hardship in life even more so than it is now, perhaps even resulting in the threat of physical harm or imprisonment? How will we respond? Will our faith, our work, our relationship with God be worth it all? Will we, like Paul, look at all we have to suffer and conclude that “if I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities” (1 Cor. 11:30), or will we “put our hand to the plow, and look back?” (Luke 9:62).
Yes, it is in some ways a tremendous benefit for Christians to live in a land where we are free to openly practice our Christianity. But at the same time I fear it has made us soft. It has given us expectations for how we will be treated that will never be the same as they once were. And when that time comes when we are not as free to be Christians as we once were what will we do then? I pray that we “ought to obey God rather than men” and not be able to “but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:40; 5:29). If we prove to do otherwise then our blessing has never been anything more than a curse.
-Andy Brewer