What Time Is It?

SCRIPTURE: There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7-8 NIV

QUOTE: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” — Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

THOUGHT: In a few days, July 4 will roll around again, marking the 245th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. What “time” would ancient and wise King Solomon say it is for us in 2021? Time to be silent and love? Time to speak up, hate evil, and war against ideologies that war against God? And, in fact, how and when do they work together? When is it an expression of love to speak out for what is good, right, and true? If the zeal against Goliaths and for God shows up here, what does it look like? These questions haunt me as I continue a quest for wisdom and insight into all that is happening around us.

Our freedoms these past 250 years were born hard, in bloodshed, out of a “long train of abuses and usurpations” moving toward absolute despotism. Eight years of war and 25,000 American soldiers paid the ultimate price for its birthing, a majority of them dying of disease and starvation! But we have become soft in our fight for liberty and justice.

I’m hardly political and sadly haven’t been much of a student of history. Although a journalist, I avoided the nightly news for all of my adult life until last year – it was just too depressing. How ironic.

To me, it looks like the pursuit for freedom from oppression has morphed into the demand for freedom from virtue as we’ve watched 61 million babies die in the womb, prayer removed from schools, the 10 Commandments taken out of the public square, marriage redefined, and now gender redefined and race weaponized. Ideologies of Marx and Mao have found strongholds in institutions that train our youngest, most vulnerable minds and hearts and it is bearing fruit with citizens who aren’t certain about the responsibilities of citizenship or the value of free speech (except for themselves) and imagine the way forward through forced resource redistribution.

So, when is it time to speak, to uproot and tear apart? There are those who would say Christ followers have no place getting involved in politics, but to me it seems the fight is much bigger than mere politics. I’ve heard the phrase “we’re fighting for the very soul of the country” more than once and many Christians are wondering, privately and out loud, what should we do? I’ve been an admirer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Bonhoeffer resisted through writing, speaking, preaching, and ultimately disloyalty toward leaders plummeting into the absolute despotism of which our own Declaration speaks.

For the first part of July, I’m wrestling out loud with the intersection of faith and freedom, and you are welcome to join the wrestling.

PRAYER: Oh Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you know what time it is and you know the season. Speak to us, God. To whom else would we go, for you have the words of life.