Recalibrating: Government’s New Measures of What Equals Criminal Speech Includes Christian Proclamation of the Gospel. What Do We Do Now?
This past weekend, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch advised a Muslim group in California that the United States will prosecute people who use anti-Muslim speech that, as she puts it, "edges toward violence”. On 12/7/2015, she attempted to "recalibrate” those remarks to mean that "rhetoric that inspires violence” would be viewed as criminal. The idea in her follow up self-rehabilitation of her earlier remark is aimed to soothe people who correctly fear another government power-grab aimed at limiting Christian speech and action and free speech generally. The practical upshot of that follow up does nothing to mitigate what she said earlier, nor does it do anything to dial back the government’s intent to restrict Christianity in the United States.
Understand what is happening: The United States Government is explicitly telling people that any public speech that opposes Islam and may "inspire” others to act violently toward Muslims is now considered criminal. Even though no actual law exists to limit anti-Islam speech, and even though such a law would violate the First Amendment, the U.S. Government is now publicly committed to powering its machinery on citizens who speak in opposition to Islam. Let that sink in.
The government has officially labeled anti-Islamic speech as "fear”, per Lynch on 12/7/15. Lynch tags violent behavior as "giving into fear”, or in other words, giving into the gospel. Every Christian is suspect now. Don’t lose sight of this.
The problem for Christians is that the government’s new stance on anti-Islamic speech defaults into fear in their eyes. In the view of government, Christian evangelism and gospel proclamation is anti-Islamic speech ("fear”) that is one step removed from violence. Christians in America who speak publicly about the exclusive claims of truth and salvation in Jesus Christ are now viewed by their civil government as fear-mongerers who lack only means or opportunity to act violently toward Muslims. The effect of the new stance is to freeze Christians into silence about the gospel and to inflame the passions of unbelievers and Muslims against us as would-be doers of violence.
Many professing Christians will immediately side with the government, and this is a tactic of the enemy of our souls to deceive other professing believers into silence. The truth is that there is no groundswell of true Christians in America who would speak or act violently toward anyone, nor especially to Muslims. But, there is a determined remnant of true Christians who will not surrender the gospel to the demands of civil authorities who will silence them, could they do so. The voices of those who name Christ but who deny the authority of the Word of God over us must be ignored by those who actually do follow Jesus.
It does not have to be said that Bible-believing Christians who love Jesus and live His Word daily will never pose a threat to Muslims in America. Our example is the one of the Shepherd who did not open His mouth when He was wrongly accused, tried and crucified; because Jesus rose again from the dead, truth wins. Our example is that even at the cost of our own lives, we obey God, we obey the gospel, we are not deceived by the power plays of human government, and we are obedient unto our own death because we do not love our lives here. This obedience includes that we don’t pose a physical threat to Muslims or Jews or anyone.
But, the Christian gospel has always been one that inspires violence in those who hate Jesus. The simple proclamation of the gospel has provoked many to violence. Even those who call themselves Christians have reacted violently to it because they really were not Christians at all. (Ask John Bunyan.) Stand in any place and say aloud that Jesus is the only way to God, that the sinless Jesus -- God the Son -- became flesh and endured the hostility of all of us sinners, that He lived sinlessly and spoke the only truth there is, and that He was put to death on a sinner’s cross, and that after three days He rose again, and that He ascended to His Father and that He will come again (soon!!) to judge the living and the dead, and that those who believe and obey Him will be judged into life everlasting and that those who do not believe and obey Him will be judged to an eternal punishment of hell fire and rejection by God. Say that aloud and see how derisive people become. Many evangelists have been beaten, many Christians killed worldwide over the centuries and especially now because of this message. By its very nature, the gospel of Jesus opposes Islam, contradicts Mohammed and condemns the message of the Quran as a lie.
The government’s new "angle” on anti-Islamic speech is nothing new, then. It is a violent reaction to the gospel. It is a threat to employ the powers of criminal justice, complete with guns and jails, against those who proclaim the message of Jesus as the only Way, Truth and Life.
This does not surprise the true follower of Jesus. Enemies of the true faith are many, varied and full of contradiction. In a word, they are a "fog”. We cannot even identify them all. It is a futile and frustrated effort.
It is a frustrated effort because fog cannot be grabbed. It is futile because one handful of it would do nothing but create an immediate space for more immediate fog. That is the nature of any effort to name the now-completing apostasy and tyranny that is arrayed against the remnant church of this last hour.
The church that remains now must repent. We must also hunger and thirst for righteousness with nothing more to our own benefit than the promise of Jesus to fill us. We must walk and speak with nothing more to our protection than the assurance of the resurrection unto life. We must count everything we have been as dung that we ourselves might win Christ and be found in Him.
It is now time to obey Jesus and hate parent, child, sibling, spouse, stuff and security in order to know Him and follow Him. It is time to do so without qualification. We cannot rely on the equivocation of "if needed”, because it IS already necessary. Each one of us must now inwardly commit to whom we will serve. Only in this manner can the true remnant church know and follow the Truth. Ties with any part of the world order must be ruthlessly cut now. We can hold nothing as dear for ourselves, not even our own bodies.
It is now time for the few of Jesus to gather small, seek God for prolonged meetings in fasting with nothing more than the people of Jesus, the Word of God and the Holy Spirit of God and to wait upon a word from Him. Church buildings are now a liability. Lean hearts, empty hands that hold onto nothing material, mobility and flexibility are needed. God dwells in nothing made with hands, and he has fully set aside from us any notions of ties to our own structures. Jesus is our center of worship, and wherever we now meet, in pairs or more, as with Him, He meets with us as His true church.
Our failure to heed His instruction now will sweep us into the "fog”. This appears nothing like what we have been told for so many years about the time of the end. So be it. Seek God in truth and in spirit now.
