Last week a friend of mine attended his high school reunion. There he had a conversation with two of his classmates who were surprised that he had become a Christian. "Where was the Church," the first friend asked, "when thousands of Africans were rounded up, shipped across the Atlantic, and sold into slavery? Where was the church, as Hitler rose to power in Germany, and shipped millions of Jews to their deaths at concentration camps? Where was the church," he continued, "when hundreds of blacks in the south marched and protested for equal rights during the sixties?"
"Give him a break," the second friend came to my friend's defense, "the Church was where they always have been. They were having potlucks, and choir practice. The church can't do anything about those things, they are merely an irrelevant social organization."
The sting of an insult, is in the truth it contains. Where was the Church?
The Church, was a lone member of Parliament in 1787 named William Wilberforce, who, despite starting as a hopeless minority, helped to pass the "Slavery Abolition Act," which abolished slavery in Brittan in 1833.
The Church was a brave family named Ten-Boom, who hid Jews in the walls of their home in Holland, and were later imprisoned themselves by the Nazis.
And many historians credit the "Black" church with being the catalyst of the American Civil Rights movement.
The tragedy of the Church throughout these events and all injustice throughout time, is that injustice and the church can coexist. Wilberforce's feat was necessary because Christians, in two societies thought to be as such, allowed slavery to be culturally acceptable. Hitler rose to power despite many Christian citizens in Germany and Europe who were either too ignorant, too complacent, or too scared to oppose him. And tragically, it was many members of the "White" Church, who the "Black" church was forced to defy in their quest for civil rights.
The triumph, is in the tremendous courage displayed by each of the examples I've listed above. They stood up for unpopular causes; in the face of overwhelming odds, dire consequences in the case of failure, and little hope for success. Their courage could no doubt have come from the same source as the will to oppose each of their foes. Namely, Christ himself.
That is not a satisfactory answer to the first classmate's questions, but I am not concerned with him. I want to rail against the second classmate's response. Not at the one who said it, but at the one it was said about. And it was said about me, and if you are still reading this, it was said about us.
The church has become such a knock-kneed, panty-waisted, organization, that we are now thought of as irrelevant, and incapable of solving any social crises. This in the aftermath of the Bush presidency, which many claim was made possible by "evangelicals." We can elect a president, but we have no interest in fighting injustice. Did you say, as I did at first, that our generation has no injustice to fight against? Darfur. The Taliban oppression of women and non-muslims in Afghanistan and increasingly Pakistan. Abortion. Did you know that presently there is more human slavery in the world than at any other time in modern history? We are surrounded by injustice. Are we too busy voting for praise band leaders on American Idol to notice. Or, is our time better spent fighting the "injustice" of a beauty pageant contestant who may not have been crowned because she expressed a politically incorrect view.
The injustices present today are here because the Church has become silent. Are we too ignorant, too complacent, or too scared to rage. It is time to rise oh Church. Christ is our captain, how can we fail? We must cease to be a collection of girly-men. We must look at the example of Christ and live it to the fullest. In the tired metaphor, Christ is the lion who lay with the lamb. But first he was a lion.
I don't know how to stop abortion. I can only point to Darfur on a map, and I have never met a slave. But I know that today's Church is not equipped to deal with any of these things. All of us go to church because we need church. And who can stand without Christ? But we must now begin to work from our salvation. We have not been called to be a weak organization, our charge is to be a beacon on a hill. I fear that God will grant my prayer, but I am compelled to, nay I must, ask him to show me the way to fight injustice. Many have put this prayer more eloquently than I ever could.
"My Lord; most humbly and on my knee I beg the leading of the charge." The Duke of York before The Battle of Agincort from Shakespear's Henry V.
"It is a good day to die. Leaders and brave hearts up front with me, cowards in the middle." Crazy Horse at Little Big Horn.
Where was the Church? Where is the Church? Here we are Lord, send us.