A Serious Call for the Church to Lead Our Nation’s Recovery by MICHAEL SIPE for Charisma News
GNN Note – It’s time to throw off the chains of tyranny and get back to our respective houses’ of worship.
Who do we follow? They can’t jail, nor kill, us all. However, they will try.
Render unto Cesar what is Cesar’s and Render unto God what is God’s.
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I’m flipping the pages of the May 4, 2020, Time magazine, which offers up the opinions of Time‘s selection of 100 thought leaders, all of whom were tasked to share their perspectives on how we are to find hope in this season of health concerns and economic devastation. Included in the roster of wise messengers are Angelina Jolie, Shawn Mendez, Misty Copeland and Lil Nas X.
Although I don’t know any of the 100 notable contributors personally and have nothing against any of them, I was struck by the sheer hopelessness of the submissions purportedly offered to produce hope. Somehow a recommendation to watch the Great British Bake Off as a welcome distraction during these difficult times, seems uncompelling. Obviously, Time Magazine is a secular publication, but I looked in vain for the voice of hope available through Jesus’ Church. His voice was absent. As are we, His disciples.
The voice of spiritual leadership across the country is strangely missing from the public dialog. Unfortunately, that’s consistent with the observation my non-Christian friends make, that the church is invisible, irrelevant and impotent. Enough. It’s time to change all that. How, you ask?
Here’s my answer. It’s time, and past time, that we open the local churches.
The Arguments
I know this is controversial. I expect pushback. I know the arguments against opening the churches. Some come from government. Some from cultural sources. But most of them we made up ourselves out of fear of man or fear of a bug, neither of which is biblical.
“It’s hopeless. Mainstream and social media control the messages and are biased against Christianity.”
Forget it. The early church did not have media. It was grievously opposed. The message of the gospel spread person to person. At the time of his death, Jesus had a few followers. 400 years later, approximately half the Roman Empire was Christian. That’s 30 million Christians in 400 years. The Good News spreads faster than any virus … assuming people are exposed.
