STORY: An 18th century British politician Edmund Burke wrote this famous quote: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” But this is exactly how today’s Christians act: do nothing and let secular humanists use social action to take over our society.
See the following ridiculous examples of social action by secular humanists. The Christian mayor of a Florida town proclaimed that Satan is banned within the town limits. The ACLU threatened to sue her unless she retracted her proclamation.
The Boy Scouts in US publicly banned homosexuals as members or scout leaders. The ACLU and homosexual groups sued them and tried to force them out of all schools unless they abandoned their restriction. In 2000, the lawsuit reached the US Supreme Court which ruled that the Boy Scouts have the constitutional right to such restriction. Even after the ruling, the ACLU continued to pressure school boards across the US to expel the Boy Scouts.
The Christian mayor of London, Ontario refused the application for a gay parade because she argued that her policy was not to allow parade of any kind. She was sued and fined by the Human Rights Commission.
While secular humanists use social action to suppress and defame Christians, many Christians believe that our job is only to spread the gospel and we should never be involved in any social action. What do you think?
Background:
There are many anti-Christian organizations in North America employing legal terrorism to suppress Christian influence in the public square. With the help of liberal judges, they have won numerous legal battles. In the US, conservative judges have a bare 5-4 majority in the Supreme Court which acts as the last line of defence against radical secularization. In Canada, the Supreme Court is dominated by liberal judges which have pulled the Canadian society into faster and more extreme secularization. Meanwhile, Christians retreat again and again without any defence.
Rev. Greg Bailey, national director of the Canadian Bible Society said in 1999, “The rights of the Christian community (are) being lifted from us. If we don’t put up a protest, those rights will disappear into history.”
· In 1982, a group of evangelical leaders encouraged Christians to use both ways.
· In modern times, “social justice” has been broadened to include any pursuit of fairness and equality which unfortunately are based on secular standards. For secular humanists, “social justice” becomes synonymous with the expansion of a wide range of human rights. For example, the quest for reproductive rights ended in the legalization of abortion. The quest for sexual rights ended in the approaching legalization of homosexual marriage. In the name of social justice and the excuse of the need to be fair, immoral behaviour is being justified and legalized.
· A good term has now been corrupted by its usage in a bad way. Therefore, Christians should not accept any claim of “social justice” without discernment. Christians’ definition of social justice is based on the righteousness of God and is vastly different from the definition of secular humanists.
Terms that require the hoisting of mental cautionary red flags
social justice, progress, progressive, fairness, equality, rights, tolerance, diversity, pluralism
o writing immoral laws (legalizing same-sex marriage)
o implementing immoral policies (taxing married couples more than cohibiting couples)
o financing immoral programs (using tax money to subsidize radical feminist organizations)
· In a democracy, one effective way to oppose the powerful government is to participate in social action.
· The local church can participate in social action only to defend the Biblical standard. It can speak through Christian organizations such as the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC). It can also encourage church members to participate in social action.
· Individual Christians can participate more freely but they should follow God’s guidance.
o public demonstrations and rallies: to show the unity and strength of opposition
o block voting: to coordinate voting and elect likeminded politicians
o civil disobedience: to disobey and protest against government laws or orders
o The law or institution is truly unjust or immoral.
o No clandestine activities are involved.
o The participants are willing to accept the penalty for such action.
o The call to revolt is issued by lawful authority (Jdg 6: God called Gideon to revolution and Gideon became the legitimate authority); the decision to legitimacy may be based on the extent of support among citizens.
o With justice: a just cause when the government persistently threatens or kills innocent people and rewards the corrupted.
o With limits: rebellion as the last resort, use of right means, the good achieved greater than evil effects of violence.
o With hope: with reasonable probability of success.
· Success from Christian social action is rare because of many reasons.
· Three decades ago, evangelical churches were seldom involved in social action because of two reasons. First, it was a reaction against liberal theology and “social gospel” of the early 20th century. Second, evangelicals believe that the world is irredeemable and can only be changed with the Second Coming of Christ.
· It is true that the world is not yet in that eventual kingdom (Heb 2:8) which will only arrive in the future when Jesus returns. But the question is: wouldn’t God wish to see a more just and more peaceful world now?
· The result was general pessimism towards any attempts in changing the society. However, such attitudes began to change after the 1974 when the “Lusanne Covenant” affirms that “evangelism and sociopolitical involvement are both part of our Christian duty.” They are not incompatible and are both important.
· Regrettably, Christians (though well-intentioned) are creating barriers ourselves to make other Christians falter. They are in fact cooperating with the secular humanists in silencing Christians.
· Edmund Burke (1729-1797) had this famous saying: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” A variation of this saying: All that is necessary for Satan to take over our society is that Christians do not resist. In action in the face of evil is as much a sin as wrongdoing (Jas 4:17).
· Here are some of those barriers:
· Clinton was the most anti-life president in US history. He supports abortion. He twice vetoed the partial birth legislation passed by the Congress. He tried to force the military to accept openly homosexual people but failed. He increased grants to “pro-choice” organizations and supported the radical feminist position in world conferences. He openly boasted that he would only appoint judges who support abortion.
Church attendance and voting
A 2003 survey in US shows that two-thirds of those who attend church one or more per week voted for the Republicans in the 2002 federal election. Within this group, over 90% of Caucasians and Asian Christians (excluding blacks and Hispanics) voted Republican (mostly conservative and pro-life). Of those who seldom or never attend church, two-thirds voted for the Democrats (mostly liberal and “pro-choice”.)
· In contrast, President George W. Bush professes his faith in every speech. He restricted grants to international organizations that promote abortions. He promotes religious expressions in education. He banned human cloning and allowed research only on adult stem cells. He supported and signed the legislation to prohibit partial birth abortions. He increases grants to abstinence-based sex education. He set aside $300 million for an initiative to promote marriage. He nominated pro-life judges (though many of them were blocked by Democrat Senators just because of their belief). In international conferences, the US delegation is now on the pro-life side and is opposite to secular humanist delegations sent from Canada and Australia.
· The appointments of pro-life judges in the US Supreme Court by Presidents Reagan and Bush Senior have great impact on court rulings in the US. Many of the liberal court rulings have been reversed by the relatively conservative US Supreme Court, including decisions on euthanasia, Bible clubs in schools, Boy Scouts against homosexual leaders.
· There are organizations that participate in social action, such as the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC). But because Canadians are much more secular and much less sensitive about socio-cultural issues, there has seldom been any political impact. The government has long been favouring “pro-choice” groups and “pro-choice” causes and has ignored all pro-life letter and petition campaigns.
· Recently, because of the government’s push for homosexual legislations, Canadians, especially Christians, have expressed their concerns through public prayer vigils and demonstrtions such as the one on the Parliament Hill on August 22, 2003 led by thousands of Chinese Christians.
· Canadian Supreme Court has been dominated for many decades with liberal pro-secular judges appointed by the Liberal Party. They will only lend support to anti-family and anti-life legislations proposed by the government.
· Education campaigns on the evil of abortions have reduced the proportion of people supporting abortion.
· Education and campaigns for abstinence before marriage have significantly reduced the proportion of sexually-active teenagers.
· Public opposition of homosexual marriage has reduced public support for homosexual marriage. Although many of the Democratic presidential candidates support homosexual marriage in private, none of them dared to openly support it.