Peaceful as a Dove

Posted: September 9, 2010 | Author: Andrew Robb | Filed under: Reflections | Leave a comment »

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Romans 12:18

Fahrenheit 451, Avian Style

Gainesville has been in quite an uproar lately. And it has nothing to do with football (shocking, I know).

Instead, it’s all about a local church and their Qur’an burning escapades. For those of you who haven’t heard, Dove World Outreach had been planning on commemorating September 11th with a massive bonfire, full of Qur’ans.

Thankfully, in the midst of writing this, Terry Jones, their pastor, decided to cancel it, as a sort-of quid pro quo for Imam Rauf’s decision to move his planned mosque in New York.

This is a good thing, as everyone is quick to agree.

The Missing Question

The question though, is, why is it a good thing?

That is a question no one seems to be asking.

The answer lies in Romans 12:18.

Buried smack dab in the middle of a section typically entitled something along the lines of “The Marks of a True Christian” is the injunction: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

Burning Qur’ans on September 11th clearly is not an attempt at peaceful living.

We could stop there and be satisfied, having answered our original question.

But there is another question.

That is also a question no one seems to be asking.

Why ought we to live peaceably with all?

Everyone Knows That

Thankfully, this too is a question with an answer. It’s even a pretty popular answer today. And that answer is…

Love.

Love for your neighbor.

A few verses later in Romans we find this juicy statement:

For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Romans 13:9

Paul, mimicking Jesus, reminds us here that all of the Law of God is fulfilled in love for our neighbors. That’s a pretty big deal, especially when we remember 1 John 4:8 and the whole God is love thing.

Everyone knows mass burnings of the Qur’an is bad, because today it clearly is a symbol of Hate.

Clearly then, we should all join sides with the loving masses of people loving Muslims by lovingly telling them how God loves them just as they are, and just ignore all those loony Fundamentalists, because that’s loving.

Or not.

Fundamental Love

Umm… what?

Didn’t Jesus just say “Love your neighbor”, and now you’re telling me that I shouldn’t join sides with the loving people lovingly affirming Muslims  about how God loves them just as they are?

That’s correct.

The reason is that those loving people aren’t actually loving Muslims at all.

Paul, the one who commands us to love our neighbors, is also the one who tells his neighbors this:

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising Jesus from the dead.

Acts 17:30-31

The reason why affirming postmodern christians don’t love Muslims is because they no longer call them to repent. And we know, from the Word of God, that all who do not repent will be judged, and cast into the fiery pit from which there is no end of torment.

Jesus Himself (!) described hell as a place of gnashing of the teeth (Matthew 13:41-42) and where the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48). Jesus is also the one who said “No one comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6). Why then are people  telling us to love like Jesus did, but they’re not telling us to tell people the things Jesus told people?

Loving people don’t tell people they’re ok when they’re not.

What would we think of a doctor, who would not tell a man literally eating himself to death that he was going to die from terminal obesity, because he didn’t want to offend the man by calling him fat?

Instead, Christians must call Muslims, along with Atheists, Pagans, Buddhists,  nominal christians, Agnostics, and all others to repentance, as Jesus Himself did. We must join Jesus in saying with Him:

“He is the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through Him.”

We do not do this because we hate them; we do this because we love them, and fear the judgment that is coming upon them, the same judgment that was once coming upon us. When we call them to repent, we must not act as Dove World Outreach acts, full of hatred, bile, condemnation, and disgust. Instead, we call them to to repent in a manner that, so far as it depends upon us, allows us to live with them in peace, like the dove Dove World Outreach takes their name from.

We must not hate like Dove World Outreach, but neither can we love like the Beetles. Instead, we must love like Jesus Himself did.

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