3 May 2006

A look at how the Church becomes offensive in this struggle with the principalities and powers - "Christ and Violence" by Ronald Sider.

...Is it correct to say that we should witness to the state and other principalities and powers but not take the offensive against them? I think not. I doubt that the absence of offensive weapons in Ephesians 6:10-20 means that we are merely to defend ourselves against the powers. Everyone agrees that we are to witness boldly to the powers. But surely that is an offensive act, not a defensive one. One can take the offensive with words just as much as with actions. Ephesians 6 calls us to arm ourselves with the truth, with the gospel, and with the Word of God. The kinds of words we are summoned to speak to the powers surely involves taking the offensive unless one wrongly supposes that bold proclamation is merely a defensive approach.

To speak of the vision of the Reign of God is to speak in a way that will be offensive to the powers and principalities. Offensive vision is a vision of truthfulness that the powers cannot permit. The Good News is always offensive because it calls forth an alternative life that the powers and principalities cannot accept for they must relinquish their power as they have it. The voice of the martyr - the witness to the Good News - is a voice of one crying out in the wilderness and the one who will eliminated as long as that voice continues to cry forth with a witness that does not go along with the ways of the world's powers. Again, that tension that will not go away - the truthfulness of the Good News of the Reign of God - must be lifted up in all the arenas of our lives so that the powers are exposes for what is really their concern...more power in the same old way power has always tried to rule us.

Connection: This may sound far fetched and not applicable to each of our everyday lives. But please, don't let that thought win over your thinking. Each of us in small ways can carry this banner of truthfulness. This is another reason to be exposed more and more to the vision of God's Reign.

Stir us up, O God of All Truthfulness. Stir up our hearts that your light of life will shine forth from us and we will be aware of when and where your truth is found in others. The light of your love brings into our lives a truthfulness that cannot be conquered or coerced from us. Praise to you, O God. Amen.