The song many of us learned in youth will never be fully expunged from our minds, no matter how long we live.
"Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus, going on before, Christ the royal master, leads against the foe, forward into battle, see his banners go, onward Christian soldiers marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus, going on before."
I could easily segue from that song into a stirring rendition of "I'm in the Lord's Army," but I shall refrain from so doing.
These songs and others like them give us a mental picture of armor-bedecked Christians marching side-by-side with weapons of war held at the ready. But when I view the commonly accepted portrait of today's Christianity, it begs the very question of whether militant Christianity is truly Christian to begin with.
Judge not. Love everyone. Be meek and gentle. Be silent. These and other phrases like them echo not just toward Christendom but also away from it. And all of them have one thing in common: They are merely one side of the coin that is true Christianity. But if one ever flips the coin over to examine the other side as well, a far more balanced picture of Christianity emerges.
Speaking prophetically of Christ, Isaiah 53:7 says, "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth."
But the other side of the coin is in John 18. Jesus answered the high priest in a way that those standing around viewed as disrespectful. One of the men hit Jesus and rebuked him for what he said, but far from being silent, Verse 23 tells us that Jesus immediately responded, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?"
Jesus took children up in his arms; he also flipped over a few tables. He said the meek would inherit the earth; he also very unmeekly called the king a fox, an animal that was as ill-regarded as a weasel in our day. Jesus was seen as the friend of sinners, yet he pointedly rebuked sinners for things like adultery, fornication and more, and even rebuked entire cities by name.
In John 14:27 he said, "my peace I give unto you," yet in Matthew 10:34 he said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." In John 13:35 he said, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." But in Matthew 18 he instructed that, if a fellow Christian did wrong and would not get right, he was to be regarded as "a heathen man and a publican."
Ecclesiastes 3:1 brings some reconciliation to these seemingly disparate things: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Verse 8 tells us that there is "a time of war, and a time of peace."
There most certainly is a time for Christians to be meek and silent. There are also times for Christians to be vocal and militant. Not self-serving or self-aggrandizing, but good soldiers of Christ as Paul instructed Timothy to be. The good news for the world in this is that, according to 2 Corinthians 10:4, "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal."
Real Christians are never in the bombing, murdering, terrorizing, cursing business or even in the business of "shock value rudeness." We are, though, to be in the business of standing up loudly and boldly and taking a stand for God and righteousness. Isaiah 58:1 says, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins."
Jesus came to win souls., but he did not do so by constantly telling everyone how wonderful and special and amazing they are. He did so by saying things like "except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3,5) and by warning that one day he would say the words "depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matthew 7:23).
A Christianity without a militant streak is as useful as a battery with only a positive and no negative. The positive is essential; the negative is also essential; no real power is possible otherwise.
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, N.C., and the author of several books available at www.wordofhismouth.com. Contact him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.