Growing numbers of voices are telling Christians \u201cKeep your views to yourself!\u201d \u201cStay out of the public square!\u201d Well, what if we did?<\/p>\n
Frank Capra\u2019s classic Christmas movie \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d showed a despairing George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, learning how the world would be without him. Well, perhaps we need a similar cinematic telling for all those currently telling Christians to stay out of the public square and to keep their thoughts about marriage, religious freedom, and the dignity of human life to ourselves. And maybe a few wobbly-kneed Christians need to see it too.<\/p>\n
Just like George Bailey was stunned to discover what Bedford Falls would look like had he \u201cnever been born,\u201d I think it may be similarly shocking to see what the world would look like today without Christianity\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n
For one thing, we wouldn\u2019t have thousands of volunteers working in prisons to help incarcerated men and women return to their communities as productive citizens. We\u2019d certainly see fewer hospitals and free clinics. After all, I\u2019ve seen a lot of Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and Catholic hospitals, but I can\u2019t remember any Buddhist, atheist, or New Age ones, or for that matter food kitchens, or rescue missions, or adoption agencies, or disaster relief organizations, or entrepreneurial training programs. And good luck sustaining free, public education to the millions of students once religious schools shut their doors. When Christians \u201ckeep it to ourselves,\u201d everybody loses.<\/p>\n
Though many in the media don\u2019t get that point, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof does, and good for him. \u201cIn liberal circles,\u201d Kristof recently wrote, \u201cevangelicals constitute one of the few groups that it\u2019s safe to mock openly. And yet the liberal caricature of evangelicals,\u201d he continues, \u201cis incomplete and unfair. But I\u2019ve been truly awed by those I\u2019ve seen in so many remote places, combating illiteracy and warlords, famine and disease, humbly struggling to do the Lord\u2019s work as they see it, and it is offensive to see good people derided.\u201d<\/p>\n
To make his point, Kristof points to just one example. On a recent trip to the war-torn nation of Angola, he met medical missionary Dr. Stephen Foster, who has been working there \u2014 without the world\u2019s acclaim \u2014 for 37 years. The white-haired doctor, who is now 65, has stood firm against six-foot cobras, enraged Marxist soldiers, and horrible health and working conditions. One of his sons contracted polio; a daughter survived a cerebral hemorrhage. As Kristof relates, his son Rob says, \u201cFor a while I blamed my dad and his high-risk dedication to others. Today … I am no longer bitter or resentful. If me getting polio meant that thousands of lives were either saved or immeasurably improved by my father\u2019s work, then so be it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So we should keep our faith to ourselves?<\/p>\n
Or consider those like Dr. Kent Brantley or other Christian medical professionals, who courageously fought and are fighting Ebola at great personal risk. Should they leave the public square and stop acting on the basis of their beliefs? Are the guardians of so-called \u201ccivil rights\u201d willing to go in their place?<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s true that sometimes we Christians undermine our witness by wrong words and deeds, but it\u2019s also true that we\u2019ve brought a lot more to our neighbors and communities than many folks realize.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, for instance, a University of Pennsylvania researcher found that urban congregations, such as First Baptist in Philadelphia, provide millions of dollars in services to their communities in everything from marriage counseling, to helping people off drugs and alcohol, to providing K-12 education.<\/p>\n
So like Bedford Falls and George Bailey, our society really will miss us if we are cowed into a privatized faith that keeps religion safely inside the four walls of our own churches. Christianity is not only to be believed; it must be lived \u2014 and not just for our own benefit, but for the good of our neighbors. And now of all times, we must increase our work of restoration in our communities. But that doesn\u2019t mean be silent. Like Jesus, let\u2019s be about the business of sharing it, both in word and in deed. Even when others tell us to keep it to ourselves.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Growing numbers of voices are telling Christians \u201cKeep your views to yourself!\u201d \u201cStay out of the public square!\u201d Well, what if we did? Frank Capra\u2019s classic Christmas movie \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d showed a despairing George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, learning how the world would be without him. Well, perhaps we need a similar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3634,609,117,2588,1745,216],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}