How often have we heard that phrase in the last 14 years since '911'? .....and especially in the last week.
Yet while the world stage is consumed by 'combatting terrorism', the church needs to be busy combatting 'error-ism'.
Error is the greatest terror. Why? Because from error grows evil.
Truth feeds righteousness but error (false teaching) breeds evil (sin).
Remember that Satan is called 'the father of lies'. His mission is to promote error and have people believe it and act on it, to their own and others destruction. He is out to destroy life.
The terror of terrorism that the world is experiencing stems not simply from 'evil hearts' but from mis-guided sincerity of people who have 'died to self' and believe they are 'living for God' to restore God's honour and God's people's honour. They are simply believing a lie and acting on it. To read more on this I highly recommend this blogpost over at honorshame.com
When my dad ended his days on this earth and went to be with Jesus some years ago, one of the legacies he left was his example of godliness and his faithful daily time with God and in His Word. But the legacy was more than just an example as he also left behind his collection of old Scripture Union 'Daily Bread' notes from many years - in particular his ones from before 1970. And in the course of things, I inherited them. They have been sitting on my shelf for a while, and I keep saying that one of these years I'll use them. Back in those days they were these thin little booklets with tiny (but very clear) print, that are just the right size to tuck into my small bible. So this year I started using them - well, what a gold-mine. The richness and depth of these is something you rarely come across. They are short and simple, yet profound and expository in style.
I have been wanting to put down some thoughts that stem from something in the booklet from some months back that looked at 2 Peter chapter 2. The notes -in part - had this to say:
"All down the ages the Christian Church has had to fight a war on two fronts. It's first enemy is called "Error", and the name of the second is "Evil". (i)Error (vs 1.2). At the end of chapter 1 Peter spoke of true prophets, whom he described as 'holy men of God'. Here he deals with 'false teachers' (v1) who twist the truth, and confuse and mislead their hearers. What makes their heresies so dangerous and indeed 'damnable' is that they are sometimes disguised as Christian. We must beware of any teaching which claims to be Christian, and yet undermines the deity or the authority of Christ."
This little paragraph so aptly sums up our world.
Whether its abortion, same-sex marriage or IS beheading people and gunning down people at concerts and in restaurants, our world is full of chaos and 'anti-life' activity built on believing lies....lies that ultimately oppose the authority of God and His word. In fact not only are the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage a matter of 'error', but as John MacArthur says these are also the greatest acts of terrorism.
But as Christians, we must not think that lies are 'out there' only, and not able to penetrate the church.
In the church Satan is much more subtle. In the church, one of the ways we 'get sucked in to error' is when we allow cultural thinking to guide our Christian thinking and we don't even realise - when we allow culture to have higher authority than Christ. When we put ourselves under the expectations of our traditions and cultural standards and/or rules for living as if they are God's standards, (no matter how noble they might appear), without carefully examining them to see if they are actually biblical, we are putting ourselves under bondage and bringing destruction to ourselves and to others, as well as disregarding God's truth.
................And there is one particular error which is alive and well in many churches, and in particular many churches in Africa.
And that is when Scripture talks about believers not being 'put to shame'. It is understood by many that this means a believer should not ever be in a position of shame in the eyes of the community - that God's people are recipients of God's favour(honour) and so God will ensure they are not ever in a place of shame in the eyes of others.
This has both cultural roots of avoiding shame and seeking honour, but also of mis-reading the context of the Old Testament, and prosperity gospel influences. ( I touched on this in a previous blog)
In the Old Testament the Jewish people were God's chosen nation among the nations of the earth - those selected by God through Abraham's family to show forth God's character and spread His truth and the honour of His name. If they were shamed or did something that God said was shameful, God's name was shamed in the eyes of other nations. They were meant to show forth who God is to the nations around them, as they lived according to God's truth in the Law.
However, as New Testament Christians God has chosen us, not through an earthly nation but through the person of Christ. He perfectly revealed to the world who God is. Yes we are part of His body, the church, to be the light to the dark world around us, but Christ has already conquered shame by enduring the cross and separation from His Father for us, and then rising from the dead and being now honoured at the right hand of His Father in heaven. His honour is already secure eternally.
Therefore, our being 'in Christ' ensures that though He endured shame on this earth and we will share in his sufferings in that way, ultimately in Him, we can never be in a place of ultimate or eternal shame.
When it comes to Judgment Day, we have the assurance in Christ that we will have no shame of sin, rather we will have our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Not only is there a mis-placed understanding about earthly shame and eternal shame but inherent in this is also a mis-placed understanding about what defines shame in God's eyes.
Pentecostal Prosperity Gospel churches are increasing in number across this continent and 'Christian TV' which is full of such teaching is freely and widely accessible to a huge proportion of households. (I have even seen a mud hut with no running water or electricity having a TV satellite dish outside - the TV and dish are run off a 12V battery).
People are told that God doesn't want them to be poor or sick. That seems to be so logical and right to a mis-placed honour-shame culture person when culturally to be poor is less honourable than rich and to be sick or disabled is seen as something shameful to be hidden.
The desire for honour and avoidance of shame is deeply ingrained and the dominant motivator of every aspect of life.
So they believe what they hear - and after all, who doesn't want to be rich and healthy especially if it gives you positive advantage in your community and relieves you of being 'looked down on' or avoided?
But then if they don't get rich or do get a chronic illness or disability they believe God has stopped blessing them and they are essentially shamed even within the church! They have not had their mis-placed cultural perspectives on shame re-defined and so they are imported sub-consciously into their Christian walk.
That was the main reason a lady came to me for counselling after being diagnosed by her Psychologist as having 'religion induced depression'. It was amazing how the depression just 'went away' once she understood the truth of God's word about His true blessing and that not being rich and not always healthy is not because God has withdrawn His favour.....
She had accepted a false theology that was negatively directing her psychological state because cultural issues of shame had never been addressed with true biblical theology.
I have also sat with those who begin to explain their rationale for making this or that decision in life, only to discover that it is based around whether or not the choice would result in being in a position of shame. They will say 'this option could not be what God wants because it would end up with me being in a position of shame in my family, and as the only Christian in my family, God would not want me to be shamed in their eyes.'
Instead of a biblical definition of sin before God's eyes defining what shame before God entails,
shame before God has become defined by what is thought to bring shame on God's name in the eyes of people according to a cultural definition of shame.
Thus we see situations such as if a girl in the church is unmarried but gets pregnant, the sexual sin can remain entirely unaddressed but the church will put the girl through a 'shaming' process for the period of the pregnancy (ie the period of time where before the eyes of people the situation is obvious).
This is all done with the sincere belief that it is how God wants the situation handled. A cultural life understanding of right and wrong is assumed as 'normal'. If we just say to 'do right' and 'not do wrong' then the cultural definitions of 'right' and 'wrong' will be the filter through which that injunction is interpreted. If 'right' is to 'not bring shame', then to 'do right' is thought to make every effort, by whatever means or manipulation, to not bring shame on God according to what they think that would be.
- This is actually not so different in belief and sincerity as the IS terrorists who believe they should make every effort to remove shame from Allah's name. It might not be comfortable to think about, but to use cultural definitions of right and wrong in the West, is no different from using cultural definitions of right and wrong in Africa and is no different from IS using cultural definitions of right and wrong, and then acting according to them with passion, self-lessness and sincerity. Though the styles and means may be different the underlying principles are the same. Let us remember that the Apostle Paul, before his conversion to Christ, was not attacking Christians because he hated God but because he believed in all sincerity that he was defending and protecting God's name.
The more we dig on this issue of shame, the more we see how deeply the mis-placed shame/honour roots permeate our world, and instead of the church correcting them, most churches have left the entire topic unaddressed, and sadly the prosperity churches are actually fertilising the mis-placed shame concepts even further.
(and while we are thinking about this....this 'shame of the church in the eyes of the world' false perspective may be part of what is driving some churches to compromise on issues such as homosexuality - its erroneous view that the Western church wants to be respected and doesn't want to stand 'shamed' or ridiculed in the eyes of their own Western world)
Western missionaries and the Western Church, in leaving the issue of shame unaddressed, have not created an empty space, but instead culture continues to define and direct that area of life....and when shame factors affect over two-thirds of life in Africa (according to the Culture Test results), then the reality is that culture not only still directs at least two-thirds of a person's life but it is fertile ground for false teaching that perports to be Christian, yet is just bringing another bondage and destruction.
We value your prayers for our part in helping Africans be free of this bondage and destruction that this and other error brings.
And...
Let's not forget to take a good hard look at our own lives, culture, church and thinking to see where we are living under the lies, bondage and destruction of mis-placed shame and mis-placed honour rather than the freedom and truth of our God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Instead let us be extremists for good, for godliness and for God's true glory!
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