Today, when Christians in the United States seem to be persecuted more than at any time in the nation’s history, we admittedly don’t know what to do, what to say, how to react, whether to fight back with what we know to be true or remain meek and silent as what we know to be false is proclaimed.
We’ve been trained in our churches to be obedient, to turn away wrath and to trust in others, but we also know that Jesus was angered and took action when he found the money changers buying and selling in the courts of the temple.
In other words, we have to learn to live as Easter people in a Good Friday world, as author Barbara Johnson once put it. But we also have to figure out just how that might manifest itself in a world of terrorism, hedonism and false prophets.
To start with, if you’re a praying person, pray. For the Islamic State radical. For the president you didn’t vote for. For the company with which you’re in dispute. For the boss with whom you disagree. Sometimes, just praying for someone or something you oppose can lighten your burden.
Even President Richard Nixon, disgraced by the Watergate scandal and speaking to the White House staff for the last time in August 1974, understood the folly of holding on to hate.