executing 33 Christians<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn western culture, Christians are often seen as perpetrating violence, discrimination, and other power moves. These criticisms are too often (not always) deserved, as they reflect back to us the tendency of the western church to engage in culture wars and protect the ground gained. And it doesn\u2019t help when Christians claim to be \u201cpersecuted\u201d when someone says \u201cX-mas\u201d or tries to teach them about evolution.<\/p>\n
What the casual observer in the west hardly ever hears about, however, is how Christians\u00a0elsewhere are often the target of violence in the most extreme sense,\u00a0perpetrated\u00a0either by the government or by groups toward whom the\u00a0government\u00a0turns a blind eye.<\/p>\n
As we see now in North Korea, some rulers are afraid enough of Christians to want to kill them. Observers of western Christianity are too often simply annoyed enough with Christians to tune them out.<\/p>\n
Back to Wright\u2019s fourth speaker. What does it look like for the church to turn the fourth speaker up higher, to call to account this evil regime\u2013and not only because this nut job is killing Christians, although that is heinous, but because he is killing\u2013period\u2013and doing many other things that dehumanize people whom Christians believe are made in God\u2019s image?<\/p>\n
Many Christian groups and churches\u00a0are<\/em> actively\u00a0involved\u00a0across the world\u00a0in working tirelessly for what the Bible calls \u201cjustice\u201d and \u201crighteousness.\u201d I wonder, though, what it would look like if working for justice and\u00a0righteousness\u00a0is what Christians were\u00a0primarily<\/em> known for\u2013rather than what they are actually\u00a0<\/em>known for: raging, handwringing critics of evolution, abortion, the myth of global warming, same sex couples, and the\u00a0democratic\u00a0party.<\/p>\nRemember that Jesus guy\u2013our leader\u2013was treated with injustice by a powerful regime, brutally tortured, and then executed in the manner of the day. These 33 North Korean Christians have more in common with Jesus than many of us do\u2013including myself.<\/p>\n
Why aren\u2019t we known<\/em> across the board as the people who rage against abuse of power and the suffering that comes from it? Why aren\u2019t we the ones that others look to and say, \u201cI\u2019m not really on board with what these Christians believe, but I know I can count on them to not stand for it when they see people suffering at the hands of corrupt and unjust rulers\u201d?<\/p>\nAgain, I know many Christians the world over (individuals and organizations) have devoted their lives to alleviating suffering and calling power structures to account for what they are doing in God\u2019s world. But why aren\u2019t we known\u00a0primarily\u00a0<\/em>for what would be a very Jesusy thing to be known for?<\/p>\nDon\u2019t blame media bias. Christians are\u00a0complicit\u00a0in creating it.<\/p>\n
If anything, reading about what is happening in North Korea has reminded me that\u00a0things that often occupy our time, things that get us all hot and bothered, are of very little\u00a0consequence in comparison.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each year my New Testament intro students watch a one hour video of N. T. Wright explaining the Gospel in a lecture entitled \u201cKingdom and Cross: The Forgotten Message of the Gospel.\u201d Wright uses an analogy of four \u201cspeakers\u201d in four corners of the room that need to be balanced so the entire musical score […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebiblefornormalpeople.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Kim-Jong-Un.jpeg\" "\\"Kim")
<\/a> in a lecture entitled \u201cKingdom and Cross: The Forgotten Message of the Gospel.<\/a>\u201d Wright uses an analogy of four \u201cspeakers\u201d in four corners of the room that need to be balanced so the entire musical score is heard in its fulness, as it is intended to be.<\/p>\n