Sunday, November 4th, was the International Day of Prayer for the persecuted church. Each time this day comes around in the year, Christians rally to the cause like moths to a flame. The church responds in a similar way when talking about abortion or prayer in schools. In response I fell cynical and conflicted about that cynicism. In this essay, I attempt to explain why.
I grew up deep in the heart of the bastion of independent Baptist fundamentalism, Bob Jones University. As I have described before, my alma mater, many years ago fixated on a particular form of Christianity and despite external changes, has yielded not an inch, refusing to acknowledge past mistakes, repent, and grow through the processes. These years spent in that toxic situation have affected the tint of the glasses through which I see the world, something I must acknowledge when considering topics such as the ones I mentioned above. Some songs, phrases, and ideas my mind consistently associates with that toxic culture and even though the songs, for examples, may contain solid theology, I can no longer sing them without feeling the taint of how they were used.
When we first started attending North Hills in 1995, God used the Biblical, expositional preaching of Peter to open n my eyes and show me how to mine the Scriptures to find the truth, how to use the Scriptures as the lense through which I look on the world and the people who live in it. Primarily, this plays out in the way I see other people. Through the year, the things I have learned, I now look at other people as image bearers worthy of respect, compassion and love. I struggle still since I still live in the fallible, sin-filled world but pray for God’s help to return my view of others to that of His and how He sees His children.
When days like the International Day of Prayer come around, I struggle with the disconnect I see. On one hand, I see brothers and sisters living a life of faith in the face of persecution Jesus promised would come. On the other hand, I see comfortable American Christians who support and pray for the persecuted over there while supporting the exclusion of those people from our own comfortable country. I look at the faces of many of my students knowing that they are beautiful, Image-bearers equal to myself in every way while many who profess Christ declare with ease that they should suffer for the actions of their parents, never able to access the same blessings, many in the United States partake in simply because of the location on their birth, something they had no choice in, just like these children.
Whenever I ponder this disconnect, God directs my attention away from the judgment of others and to my own actions. Like Jesus’ admonition to take the long from my own eye before addressing the speck in my neighbor’s eyes, this reflection caused me to see just how easily I can be distracted from my own self-focused attention by the act of judging of others. While writing this entry, God exposed my own sin, how often I turn my attention to my own issues and cares, failing to acknowledge that my actions affect others and more than that, that others around me, especially those closest to me, have needs and cares that if I am too self-absorbed, I will completely miss.
Going forward, although I will continue to hope and pray for real change for those things I mentioned earlier. I hope and pray that each time I become uncomfortable with the inconsistencies that He will direct my attention to Him and becoming more like Him in my awareness of the needs around me.
Can you enlighten me as to the meaning of this: “On the other hand, I see comfortable American Christians who support and pray for the persecuted over there while supporting the exclusion of those people from our own comfortable country.” Specifically, I’m interested in what you mean by “over there,” “exclusion” and “those people.”
“Over there” – other countries
“exclusion” – failing to include
“those people” – people of color, specifically Latinx as made clear by the next sentence in which I discuss my students. (At the time I wrote this post two and a half years ago, I still taught at Lakeview.)
While I do not mind further clarifying these words, in context they make perfect sense. The sentences immediately before and after mention the people and actions to which I refer in the particular sentence you isolated.
I am also interested to know what you the American government should do to resolve the exclusion that you are concerned about.
Uncle Stephen,
I have twice stated explicitly in our email exchanges that at the present moment I do not have the mental, physical, or emotional capacity to engage in a conversation that will ultimately bear no fruit. It is clear that we disagree significantly on these issues and that further conversation will convince neither of us to change those opinions.
I wrote this post two and a half years ago out of reflection that I engaged upon and described in the beginning paragraphs of the entry. I looked at my amazing Latinx students and how so many others treated them, specifically thinking back on the blatant racism shown towards them at the first Youth in Government conference we attended and which I described in a post from 2017. In this reflection, I mused about the reasons for the discrepancies and then directed that reflection towards myself and how I could best change my own actions going forward knowing that the only person whose actions I control is myself.
I did not write this post to accuse anyone but rather to perhaps make them think. Ultimately, my primary goal with this post was simply to process the thoughts in my head in some sort of coherent manner.
I respectfully ask, once again, that instead of trying to nitpick my arguments looking for the speck, that you refrain from engaging in these arguments that I have no desire to have with you. You are family and I respect and love you because of that. Please consider this the last time that I will respond to comments or emails such as this because I wish to be able to have some sort of healthy relationship with you. Feeling like I am constantly attacked with my words ignored or twisted in meaning makes it incredibly difficult to even be in the same room with you. I do not wish for these earthly issues to irreparably harm our relationship.
I am asking, to what countries, or kinds of countries), are you referring by “over there”? Specifically, who are “those people ,” and what, in your view, constitutes “supporting [their] exclusion”? It’s quite fitting for me to ask for two reasons. First, in the phrase, “and pray for the persecuted over there while supporting the exclusion of those people,” the immediate and obvious antecedent of “those people” is “the persecuted over there.” But if you meant people from countries in Central and South America, it’s not evident which of those are part of “the persecuted” for whom prayers are offered. Second, before and at the time you wrote this post, and even to this day, much of the discussion on immigration has been about the so-called “Muslim ban.” So, it’s reasonably plausible that you included that category.