Planted by Water

I reviewed Snyders Community of the King yesterday. Below is an extract from it that I didn’t post yesterday but I think is particularly insightful; and a very relevant and important point if we consider how Christians are to engage with the world.

The temptation to accept substitute gods and counterfeit  satans is always before the Church. At various periods in history the Church has been decieved into warring against false archenemies…….In the name of opposition to these enemies Christians have been willing to put others to death; for when the Church accepts Satan’s definition of the enemy, she also readily adopts Satan’s tactics.
…..the Church  must see clearly enough both to identify the true enemy and to discern how and where Satan is working today….see the enemy behind the enemy in order to avoid false alternatives and a false definition of the problem.’
…False enemies call forth false solutions…. the church is tricked into fighting on the enemy’s turf and with his weapons. Too often the Church has let the world define the nature of the battle. 

For a number of years, some Christians identified the Communists as the deadly enemy - the ‘reds under the beds.’ Nowadays, there is the danger of demonising Muslims. It does not mean that we underestimate the challenge in these ideologies, nor that we fail to be able to explain where we believe they get it wrong; but we don’t have to join in the irrational demonising of people. There may well be a more subtle and dangerous work of the enemy in an apostate, compromised, heretical and institutionalised ‘Christian’ church than in Islam!

Secularism and pluralism also come in for a lot of bashing by Christians. Although there are dangers, I tend to feel that they can well be turned to the advantage of the gospel and its advance in our world! But I’ll leave that thought for another day!!