Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi so believed in freedom for an oppressed group of people that they were willing to get arrested for it.
And the question for you and me is what do we so believe in that we’re willing to be arrested for it?
I’ve got my detractors, but nobody is trying to arrest me. It barely qualifies as “persecution.” They look at my efforts to follow a non culturally-defined Jesus and they lob blog bombs from afar.
Mostly, I figure they’re on my side – trying to defend Jesus and his kingdom.
The only problem we’ve really got is that they’re doing it in impersonal ways, using the anonymity of the Internet. Not talking man-to-man, maybe not asking clarifying questions. They hear me mention Gandhi, and they say, “He quotes Gandhi; he must be New Age.” So a guilt-by-association thing happens. Or they see someone who goes through the ministry I run doing something that looks strange, so they figure I must be a cult leader.
That’s fine with me. My theology is conservative, and my fruit is out there for inspection. We set people free to follow Jesus rather than control them. And having detractors is normal if you’re following Jesus. We’re going to be misunderstood.
From my point of view, it’s not productive for two people who love Jesus to have Internet fights. There’s a lot of collateral damage when you fight in public. The people I meet around the world who are trying to follow Jesus, for the most part, are lovers of people. Jesus didn’t worry about the haters and critics. He seemed to stir them up. And of course, getting arrested was going to happen.
America is no longer a Christian nation. Jesus followers are starting to get persecuted, if not arrested, for the way they live. I say it’s about time.
Traveling from South Sudan this week, Uche was almost arrested by the authorities for no good reason. In Pakistan, Emmanuel is constantly putting his life at risk as he brings Jesus to Muslims. They are following Jesus in hard places.
And the question they would ask you is, “Is what you’re doing worth getting arrested for?” It’s a good question for us to meditate on.
