Persecution

His Winnowing Fork Is in His Hand

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Wheat field

I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
—Matthew 3:11-12 ESV

Last week I was shopping for groceries in my local Kroger when I was overcome by a staggering feeling. Turning into an aisle with two rows of cooler cases, I felt like I was displaced from the rest of the crowd in the store, pulled away, destined to persecution at the hands of those around me. It was a sobering, yet eerie, sensation. When I finally took it to prayer, I was reminded of John the Baptist’s comment on the work of Christ, the Savior’s winnowing fork in hand, ready to thresh the nations.

Many times on this blog I have commented that we are not ready. A passage that comes to mind so frequently is

For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.
—Ecclesiastes 9:12 ESV

Will the world soon be “caught in an unguarded moment?” Is an evil time coming more swiftly than we realize? I cannot say with prophetic certainty, but something is happening. I don’t want to blame this on two hurricanes, either. It’s more than that. It feels, to quote C.S. Lewis, as if “Aslan is on the move.”

I thought about all those people around me in the store. Chaff? I also felt like hard times were coming for us believers in Jesus, the wheat, and that we will have underestimated its ferocity when it arrives. I heard recently that Chinese Christians are praying for persecution for American Christians so that the sleeping American Church would finally get serious. Will that prayer soon come to pass?

Anyone else get this same impression recently?

More Signs We Are Not Ready

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I was stumbling around looking for an article on the Web and found this courageous piece in Chronicles Magazine entitled America's Descent Into the Third World. Paul Craig Roberts dismantles recently created jobs and finds that the upbeat economic news we hear of late resembles the Emperor's latest threads. This article is must-read for those of you who read through my series on the business world.

I wonder from time to time if our economic leaders are flat-out lying to us to keep us from panicking. Honestly. Alan Greenspan recently let it be known that he has no idea why the economy is acting the way it is. If he doesn't understand what is going on, then no one does. That's never a positive sign.

The spin our economy is getting is bizarre, too. The Wall Street Journal yesterday was trumpeting the roaring economy noting that Americans are spending more again and that GM and Ford's sales are up more than 40% over last year. But in the same edition in different articles, they also note that Americans are now saving nothing. Nada. Everything we make goes out. And the numbers behind GM and Ford? Well, they are effectively selling almost all of their cars at a loss, unable to cover their expenses. That's not a great business plan.

When you start unpacking all the "good" economic and business news, you find the kinds of statistics that Paul Craig Roberts did:

[In the June 2005 jobs report, only] 144,000 private sector jobs were created, each one of which was in domestic services.

Fifty-six thousand jobs were created in professional and business services, about half of which are in administrative and waste services.

Thirty-eight thousand jobs were created in education and health services, almost all of which are in health care and social assistance.

Nineteen thousand jobs were created in leisure and hospitality, almost all of which are waitresses and bartenders.

Membership associations and organizations created 10,000 jobs, and repair and maintenance created 4,000 jobs.

Financial activities created 16,000 jobs.

This most certainly is not the labor market profile of a First World country, much less a superpower.

We are fast becoming a country of waiters, secretaries, and janitors. This is not to say that these jobs are not needed, Your mop & bucket are ready...but only that they cannot sustain America. Roberts's later comments on white collar work are especially telling. Again, read the whole article (even if you've heard the same warnings from me already.)

The American Church's silence on this is becoming pathological. If we cannot speak to the business world, if we cannot prepare for bad times, if we cannot shout truth in the face of lies, if we cannot bring hope to those who continue to slide downward, if we cannot bring peace to the frantic, then are we really bringing anything redemptive to anyone's work life?

Just this week the guys from my small group were discussing the fact that we are all harried, stressed out, torn in a million directions, estranged time-wise from our families, and working harder than ever for less. Each man had a complaint that was different from the rest, but we were all united in the fact that our problems here went back to the same single issue that the Church in America refuses to discuss. Something has to give.

I'll leave it to readers to imagine what's next. Are we ready for it?

I’m Having Too Much Fun, Please Persecute Me!

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FussbudgetI see so many unusual trends in the blogs I read. Certain memes travel around the Christian blogosphere in a never-ending game of tag. One of the ones I have observed from the very beginning is the tendency for some of the hardline Evangelical and Fundamentalist blogs to loathe anything that smacks of being fun because “the underground Church in [fill in a country here] is being persecuted.”

This is not a post to poke fun at fussbudget Christians who can’t remember the last time they had a good belly laugh. Nor is this an attempt to diffuse the awful trial of persecuted brethren around the globe. But no matter how I try, I can’t understand the wish of some fellow Christians in America to hammer anything that smacks of frivolity or simple human enjoyment of life. I especially don’t understand their unspoken desire to be persecuted in return as if persecution garners “salvation points” that will counter all those “I laughed one time” strikes against them.

This is what the Bible says:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.
—Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 ESV

For us American Christians, our time of persecution will certainly come some day. And while it is true that too many of us have made an idol out of entertainment, this is the day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it. Tomorrow may indeed bring mourning, but today is good. Let us cherish those days while we have them.

{Two side notes:

There is a tendency in some circles of Christianity to overspiritualize our daily lives. God gave us senses and many gifts to enjoy those senses with. I do not merely possess a spirit; I am also body and soul. There is a harmony in those three, for God has knit them together for our pleasure and His. We dishonor Him if we do not enjoy life to the fullest. I see too many pinch-faced Christian ascetics who seem to hate the very air they breath. These folks couldn’t have fun if you gave them a lifetime pass to Disneyworld.

There is a tendency in some other Christian circles to contextualize sspiritual experiences merely by what we can sense and feel through our bodies, or what we express through our souls. Obviously, this other side of the coin does not represent the whole coin, either. Yet, many of the younger Christians today seem to be trapped in sensory faith or intellectual rigor. The spiritual world cannot be appreciated for what it is alone.}

I believe that we do err on the side of fun, though. Frivolity can be overblown to the detriment of our souls. A simple reading of Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish virgins should tell us the value of being sober and ready:

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
—Matthew 25:1-13 ESV

I can appreciate an argument that Christians in this country are entertainment-aholics, but the solution to this is not asceticism. There is a time to soberly prepare and a time to rest and enjoy life. The truly spiritual man can do both. He understands that today he may be laughing with friends and next week be forced to give account of his love for Christ before the authorities, his fate sealed.

I’m profoundly thankful that I’ve not known stiff persecution in my life. I’m also thankful that I’ve been able to laugh and enjoy life. One day my lot may not be so fortunate and the knock comes on the door in the middle of the night. For this I must be prepared. But I’m not praying for persecution to come—only that I might be ready.

True wisdom comes in discerning the times. To laugh at the funeral of a young adult cut down in the prime of life is foolish. To cry at a silly joke is just as foolish. May God help us if we can’t distinguish the one from another.