Three impediments to proclaiming the mighty acts of the Lord today

The theme for this year’s Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity was ‘Called to Proclaim the Mighty Acts of the Lord’, which is taken from the First Letter of St Peter. It is a powerful theme, reminding us as it does of the great commission our Lord gave his disciples at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel, telling them to make disciples of all nations. It prompted me to think about what forces are at play today that make more difficult our task of proclaiming the mighty acts of the Lord.

Three things occurred to me. I do not suggest they are the only ones, but I do think they are important ones; and all are issues which transcend denominational boundaries and which, if we were to set aside our human divisions and work together more closely as Christians, would help us all to be more obedient to Jesus’ command to make disciples of all people. These three are: militant Islam; strident secularism; and the religious indifferentism that afflicts so many Christians today.

Militant Islam

It should be obvious to all that militant Islam is a terrible scourge in the world today. We have only to look to the two horrific incidents of terrorism that took place in Paris since the last week of prayer for Christian Unity to know that. We also have the near daily news reports of the savage atrocities taking place in lands under the control of militant Islamic forces, which in turn have led to the vast influx of refugees from those places into the Western World, as further proof – if further proof were needed.

Alongside of its more general threat to Western society, we have to keep in mind the profoundly anti-Christian bias that is held by adherents of militant Islam. Not only do they wish to destroy our society, they wish to destroy our religion as well. We see this happening in the parts of the Middle-East that are under their control where they martyr, enslave, or drive out Christians. What is happening there has been described by political leaders such as Hilary Clinton and religious leaders such as Pope Francis as genocide.

This persecution is not confined to the Middle-East. The Christian advocacy group Open Doors has identified Christians as the world most persecuted group in the world today; and in forty of the fifty countries where that persecution is most severe the perpetrators are Islamic extremists. We must help these our brothers and sisters with both our prayers and material aid. There are many reasons why we have to do this.

We must do this out of justice, for it is not right that anyone suffer persecution for their religious faith. We must do it out of solidarity, because the Church they belong to is our Church also. We must do so out of basic self-interest, for what they do in these places these extremists hope to do in our lands, and if they go unchecked there, they will use those lands as a launching pad to attack the West. And we must do so because to allow such a situation to continue, one where there are places where it is not safe for Christians to even let others know they follow Jesus, makes it impossible to proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord in those places.

Strident secularism

The next issue is strident secularism. Secularism in its current form is a very disingenuous philosophy. Its adherents present it as being in some way neutral, while at the same time promoting a very specific agenda, one that is in many ways hostile to religion. It is not for nothing that Ireland’s atheist and humanist societies, groups which have a vision for this land that does not include religion, have among their stated goals that Ireland should be a secular state.

Particularly disingenuous is the manner in which secularists argue that people of faith should leave their faith at the door, as it were, when it comes to public debate, and claim that anyone who allows their religious faith to inform their public actions amounts to an attempt to force their religious beliefs on others. This is false for many reasons, but I will mention just two.

The first is that it leaves out of the equation the fact that Christian morality is, and always has been, in perfect accord with what is called by philosophers ‘natural law’. A Christian does not oppose murder only because the Bible condemns it, but because we know innately that murder is wrong, that it is an act of grave injustice to deprive an innocent person of their life. Scripture does not give us an arbitrary set of rules; rather the law of God conforms perfectly with the law of nature. And this should not surprise us, for both have the same divine author.

The second reason is that it is completely unreasonable for those with a particular belief system to assert that those whose beliefs differ to their own should have to keep silent, while at the same time maintaining that their own beliefs, in this case secularism, should be given free reign, and indeed given priority in all debate. We must, of course, resist vigorously all attempts to silence us; for if we allow ourselves to be silenced, how are we to proclaim the mighty works of the Lord to the World?

Religious indifferentism 

The final issue is what I have termed religious indifferentism, those who are lukewarm in their faith – something that is condemned in the Revelation to St John. Far too many know little of their faith and practice it only half-heartedly. They would expect to be married in their local church, have their children baptised there, and when the day comes have their funeral there. But they will otherwise during the course of their lives spend little time in prayer, attend Sunday Mass or some other divine services sporadically, read the Bible seldom if at all, know no more about the teachings of their faith than the average educated Westerner might just have picked up from cinema and television, and lead lives that are virtually indistinguishable from the atheist living down the road from them.

How can such a person proclaim the mighty acts of God? No one can give what they have not got; and just as if you have no food you can not feed a starving man, if you know nothing of the faith you can not share it with those who are spiritually hungry.

This last issue is perhaps more serious than the first two, for its existence makes dealing with those others more difficult if not impossible. The fight against militant Islam is as much a spiritual battle as a temporal one; and if we will not arm ourselves with the spiritual strength that comes from our faith in Jesus Christ it is a battle that we will lose. And if we will not educate ourselves with the God-given wisdom of our faith, how can we expect to oppose secularism and prevent it from driving faith into an ever smaller corner of society.

These issues are serious challenges for us as members of the Church of God; but they are not insurmountable. Nothing is, for truly when it comes to fighting that which makes it hard for us to proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord God is on our side.

When it comes to militant Islam we must pray, both for the persecuted and those who persecute that their hearts may be turned from their evil ways; and we must urge our government, in Ireland and Europe, to take action. When it comes to secularism we must refuse to be silenced and put forward our views with pride; and we must pray that those who are in positions of influence, particularly those we elect to represent us, will have the courage to speak boldly on our behalf.

And when it comes to indifferentism, we must realise that evangelisation begins on our own doorsteps. It must take place within our homes, among our families, in our communities. For if we do not have the courage to proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord to those whom we love most, how can we hope to proclaim it to others? This is a task for all people of faith, regardless of their specific traditions, to work on together for the greater glory of God so that all those who are brothers and sisters in Christ will joyfully together proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord.