A United Church For a Divided Culture
By Ben Cox
Before writing this introduction, I’d opened the Winston Salem Journal in hopes of relaxing. But that’s impossible to do when reading about our polarized politics and the increasing chaos rampant in our nation.
A World of Evil
News of two heinous crimes weighed on me as I began to write. I read about the man who mailed more than a dozen pipe bombs to high-profile Democrats and the gunman near Louisville, Kentucky who killed a 69-year-old man and 67-year-old woman because he didn’t like the color of their skin.
And then, at 2:08 PM that afternoon on October 27, I got a group email from Rev. Cindy Banks, who leads an interfaith group here in Boone. She was alerting local church leaders of the deadly attack that killed 11 people at The Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Her email was followed immediately by our local rabbi’s raw and vulnerable reaction to this news.
All three of the men who committed these horrific atrocities have common characteristics. They’re all filled with rage, anger and hatred, and they all live in a nation where kindness, civility and being able to reason through our differences has become nearly impossible.
So what are followers of Christ supposed to do in light of the turmoil in our nation?
We MUST HUMBLE OURSELVES AND PRAY so we can follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to do everything we can to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).
Boone Says No to Hate
Christian leaders in Boone did that by reaching out to our Jewish friends, to “mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15). A candlelight prayer vigil arranged with the Temple of the High Country’s Rabbi, Stephen Roberts, and local pastors started on the steps of the First Baptist Church tat 5:30 PM on Monday, October 29. It ended at the Temple of the High Country after a 30-minute silent walk down King Street. A banner carried at the head of the procession read: “WE SAY NO TO HATE AND YES TO LOVE. LOVE GOD. LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.”
Rev. Cindy Banks, who spearheaded this event with the Rabbi, opened the vigil saying, “We gather to mourn and to denounce anti-Semitism, racism, and hate of ‘the other…...We come together in the strongest way possible to say NO to hate in all its forms and YES to love. We come lending our bodies and our presence in this witness. We come to ground ourselves in the LOVE THAT SURPASSES UNDERSTANDING, and to extend that LOVE to our NEIGHBOR. We come to pray. We come to remember. We come to reflect. We come to sing. We do not come to protest this night. We come to witness.”
Finding My Voice
In Rev. Banks’ original email, she challenged us to discern how to address these events to our own specific congregations, to find our voices and use them.
Unlike many who she was addressing, I’m not currently leading a congregation, but one way I find my voice is by helping followers of Christ share theirs.
I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities to get to know and love so many different people in this region through the marketing business I bought 12 years ago. Many of my clients are sincere, committed followers of Christ who end up telling their stories in the pages of The Journey.
Our stories are geared to demonstrate how the power of God’s love can change a person from the inside out, enabling them to take on the character, nature and disposition of the Lord who saved them. To whatever degree we allow that to happen is what enables us to become a force for good in an evil world.
Jesus is the Answer
Rev. 12:11 tells us that another way we overcome evil is “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their (our) testimony.” The testimony of a follower of Christ reveals a difference between Christianity and other faiths. That’s because true Christianity was never meant to be about us trying hard to be good enough to please our perfect Creator. What it’s supposed to be about is surrender and receptivity. In our hearts we raise our hands in surrender and open them and our very souls to receive! We receive as we place our faith in what Christ did for us when He was crucified for our sins. When we do that, the sin barrier that has kept us at a distance from the only love that can save us is removed.
I believe that the authentic Christian experience has more to do with relational reality than religious traditions. Thus we aim to communicate that in the stories we select. Though the people whose stories we tell are amazingly diverse in the Christian traditions we come from, we’re united around the common belief that God is love and Jesus Christ is God! Therefore, He is the ultimate answer to all that ails our divided culture, our divided churches and our broken world.
The stories we tell here demonstrate God’s divine intervention into people’s lives. We share them with a desire to unite our hearts, prayers and energies together acknowledging that we need Divine intervention to heal our brokenness and the things that divide us. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us all!
This article was originally written for the Winter 2018 Edition of The Journey magazine