When Religion Persecutes

When Religion Persecutes

In this 25th webcast on the Gospel of John, Tim King explores why religion persecutes those who are different.

In our last webcast we looked at the issue of the world and its hatred for the followers of Christ. We noted how often the text of John 15 is misinterpreted today to mean that the secular world is naturally supposed to hate the church or believers.

Once we looked at the text what we discovered was that Jesus was not at all speaking about the secular world, but was instead speaking about the Jewish world or religious world of his day it was predicted by the prophets that they would reject both Jesus and his message.
In this webcast we continue along with Jesus as he expounds upon this theme in John the 16:2-3.

He says, “I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me.”

Can you imagine how this must have hit the ears of the disciples of Jesus! If you want to talk about rejection—this is rejection!

There are two parts to this that I want to address. First is the idea that the followers of Jesus would be “put out of the synagogues.” Religion has not always been known for its tolerance this is no secret. The question is, Why? What is it about our understanding of God that would make us so unwilling or even incapable of listening to voices contrary to our own?

If I had to name the biggest hangup of religion—all religion—it would have to be the need to be right on all the issues AND that those who differed with us were not only wrong, but demonically wrong. And any good believer knows that if you aren’t right, you are wrong. And that Jesus is right and the devil is wrong. And so those who are wrong, are in the devil’s camp. And we all know what that means!

So the Jews in the day of Jesus as well as religion today, turns to its holy pages of Scripture to see who lines up and who doesn’t. We love those who line up with us and hate those who don’t. It’s really just that simple.

In his book “A Generous Orthodoxy” Brian McLaren speaks of the way we in the States have used the bible in just such a way.

He writes, “We wanted a simple, clear, efficient, and convenient plan for getting to heaven after death. Between now and then we wanted clear assurance that God didn’t like the people we didn’t like, and for the same reasons we didn’t like them. Finally, we wanted a rule book that made it objectively clear, with no subjective ambiguity, what behaviors were right and wrong for all time, in all places, and among all cultures, especially if those rules confirmed our views and not those of people we considered ‘liberal.’”

So what happens when religion runs into something foreign, something it considers “liberal”? Look at John 16 it casts them out of their assemblies.
This would be bad enough if it ended there but it gets worse. Jesus said that the time was coming when his disciples would be killed by those who would consider such acts as a “service to God.”

Imagine that, demonizing another person or people to the extent that you could join religion in one hand and war or killing in the other and form a marriage of the two—and do it in the name of service to God. It seems mad, doesn’t it? But look around you watch the television; in principle, it’s still happening some 21 centuries later. Whatever happened to the idea that Scripture was to “equip God’s people for good works”? Doesn’t that tell us how we should conduct ourselves in the world?

Again we’ll turn to the words of Brian McLaren: “It’s no surprise then that biblical Christians have thrived when we’ve used the Bible with the goal of becoming good people who, because we follow Jesus, do good works in God’s good world. And we have languished and wandered when we have used the Bible as a weapon to threaten others, as a tool to intimidate others and prove them wrong, as a shortcut to being know-it-alls who believe the Bible gives us all the answers, as a defense of the status quo—none of these being the use Paul the apostle wanted Timothy, his protégé, to make of the Scriptures. Sadly, sometimes the very people who most love the Bible have been those who have used it for these other purposes, sometimes to the neglect of its essential purpose.”

And so “what is” the ‘essential purpose’ of the Bible? Well, we see Jesus right in the middle of it in our John 16 teaching today. It’s all part of his path to the cross. It’s what John would frame as a simple story: “For God so loved the world that He gave.”

What do we love? In this critical hour we ask, do we love the world, more than we love being right and demonizing them because, in our view, they’re not?

Well that is something to think about. I hope we will pray about our role, our view of the world, the way we conduct ourselves for good works, for humanity. Until next time, let’s be a people equipped for good works, a people who love all those made in the image of God a people of love.

This webcast is the 25th program in a series on "The Gospel of John." Listeners are encourage to read along in the Gospel as a way to delve deeper into this study. The "Presence Today" show premiered in 2004 and has become the leading webcast of the fulfilled world. Shows are archived, so viewers can watch them anytime. See full story and instructions.

Viewers with slower modems may also download the program to their computer, rather than view the program online. This will help prevent the audio/video from spooling, if you watch it "offline." Either way, viewers need the RealOne Player, a free browser plug-in. Click here to learn how to get the latest player. Click the "Real Media" button below to view our Mar. 9th program.

The Gospel of John, Pt 25, Mar 9, 2005