Letter from America

Soon enough, the remembrance parade of September 11 will pass. Right now, as I write, American TV companies and media outlets (and churches, be it said) are gearing up to remember September 11. It's a tricky feat. There are innumerable sensibilities. And the date is still too recent to be able to draw helpful or accurate conclusions about the American response to the terrorist atrocities.

Of course, from a European perspective, America's reaction to September 11 is increasingly looking revengeful. The sabre rattling currently going on with regard to Iraq is controversial, to say the least. In America, statistics of popular support for an invasion of Iraq were until recently highly in favour. Now, even in America, war fever is beginning to give way to the long game and the need for the gathering of allies and all that. There are doves and hawks in the administration. Donald Rumsfield urges immediate action, Colin Powell urges caution, and Bush listens and speaks eloquently.

September 11 is in the process of be-coming an iconic moment in American history. Analogies with Pearl Harbour are regularly made. And emotions run high.
All this is inevitable, understandable, and debatable. What should most interest Bible-believing Christians is: 'What does God have to say about all this?' Or 'What does the Bible say about all this?'

Prophetic role

It would be perhaps too quick to answer 'Nothing'. Despite some of the more fanciful eschatological representations, the manifest destiny of America as a country is not clearly taught in the book of Revelation.

On the other hand, there are, though, various useful pointers on how to deal with such crises, and such moments of national significance.

The first is the necessity of maintaining the prophetic role of the church. When countries lurch towards war there is always a temptation for the church to passively coalesce to the dominant national spirit. There are times when it should actively support certain moral actions. It should never passively go with the dominant feeling without checking the pulse of contemporary affection against the monitor of the Bible.

There is, surely, a prophetic role for the church in this, as in any age. Our pulpits need to be 'aflame with righteousness', in Alexis de Tocqueville's vivid phrase. We need to call a spade a spade. Brethren around the world are suffering for their witness. Time may not be long before the real, biblical church will need once more to be willing - even in the West - to so stand by the truth that its distinctive message is inevitably persecuted.

Love

The second is the requirement of love. Theological conservatives are not the best at preaching about love. This should not be the case. If we believe the Bible and teach it clearly, the priority of compassion is simply inescapable. Compassion is not the preserve of theological liberalism. Perhaps because of the pressure of the relativisation of moral truth, for many of us in the Bible-believing church today love and compassion have become emotionally connected to wavering about truth. The apostle Paul never had such a problem; the church is to 'speak the truth in love' (Ephesians 4.15). If holding out my hand to a brother of a different race is going to get me in trouble then hold it out I must, even at the risk of breaking friendship with others. Love, not network, is the controlling principle of moral action for the Bible-believing Christian.

Listen

The third is the ability to listen to the Spirit. I am one of those people who equate the teaching of the Spirit with the message of the Bible: 'He who has ears to hear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches', John writes in the letters to the seven churches of Asia at the command of the risen Lord Jesus. We listen to the Spirit by discerning the voice of God as he speaks through the Bible. However, this does not flatten our sensitivity. Jonathan Edwards, a theological conservative if ever there was one and, (less well-known but still true), a cessationist in terms of the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, believed that the primary task of each generation of believers was to follow the Spirit and work as he directs.

We need to have our ears open to how the word applies to our changing times. The world is a-changing once again. Previous mantras of orthodoxy and connection will need to be revised. Previous strategies will need to be updated. Old ways of working will need to change. And it is only as we spend time on our knees with the Bible in our hands that we will have any hope of hearing what the Spirit says to the churches.

Josh Moody, Connecticut

© Evangelicals Now - October 2002
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