American Martyrs

American Martyrs.

This phrase has been running through my mind since hearing of the massacre of Christians in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The news felt like it blew a sucking hole in my own chest that stayed throughout the whole of the day and into the next. Not too long ago, my own little church was made up of about fifty people. Multiple generations of my own family attend there. It could just as easily have be us. 

This feeling doesn’t really fit with the media talking points about lax gun laws or the Second Amendment since I live in Canada--a supposed utopia of non-violence--where few people carry guns. I was in high school when Columbine became the buzzword for mass shooting. How many times in its immediate aftermath did I hear my fellow Canadians say, “Only in America. That would never happen here.” It proved to be hollow comfort when a week later a teen took a gun to his own school in the small town of Taber, Alberta (pop. 8400) and shot at three students, wounding one and killing Jason Lang, the son of a Taber pastor, before he was wrestled to the floor and disarmed by a teacher.

‘Only in America, where guns are as plentiful as the gun nuts’, was proven to be the foolish and despicable sentiment that it was. Guns are heavily restricted in Canada. According to the law, the Taber shooter shouldn’t have had one. He also should have trembled before God at the thought of committing such an evil act. But he didn’t. Laws, be they governmental or moral, are breakable. That’s what sin is. When the ‘only in America’ explanation failed, the media moved on to discussing motives--video games and bullying--as though such things made surrendering to an evil temptation more acceptable. At Jason Lang’s funeral, his father, Rev. Dale Lang, did something much harder than surrender to the temptation to sin. He forgave his son’s killer.

That story has receded into the mist of memory as other atrocities take up our collective attention, from 9/11 to the current onslaught of terrorist acts. “Church shootings” is now also a thing. Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Tennessee’s Burnet Chapel Church of Christ, and now First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, can count their own as martyrs for the sake of Christ. These churches are outposts of my family. They are made up of brothers and sisters whom I have never met, but we share the same precious blood. They are now counted among those who lost their lives for the word of God and the witness they bore; those who cry out from the alter in heaven, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?”

I shall leave the exploration of the layers of motivations to the investigators, but what none of us who are part of the Body of Christ should deny is that these are not senseless acts of violence. These are not random victims. These were targeted acts of persecution. While the shooters themselves may not be aware of the demonic powers that influenced them, we should not be oblivious to the enmity that is directed at those of us who are in Christ. We do not need to be missionaries in foreign climes to find ourselves abhorred for His sake.

The issue is not the availability of implements by which to harm. Cain murdered Abel because murder was in his heart, not because he’d been bullied, played video games, or been radicalized on the internet or had guns available. From fists to firearms to vehicle to weapons of mass destruction, the issue is evil in the heart of mankind. It has always been thus, and until it is dealt with at the cross, it will continue cut its bloody swath through the pages of human history.

Those of us in Western countries with a Judeo Christian founding have been--for a time--largely shielded from the outright violent persecution that our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world experience on a daily basis. But as our nations increasingly decry the godly precepts that established their strength and prosperity; proclaiming themselves to be post-Christian and too scientifically sophisticated for such foolish beliefs as “God”; we will face increasing hostility. One only needs to briefly peruse social media to observe the way that celebrities and cultural figures can revile the dead as ‘having the prayers shot out of them’ in order to note that we are truly aliens in a hostile world.

Martyrdom and persecution is a frightening prospect for us all, but we should take heart. The very persecution that seeks to stamp out the gospel, always serves to spread it rapidly. The fires that are meant to obliterate the Church, always serve to refine and strengthen her.  Not a single one of those lives lost--from the smallest in the womb to the elder who should have been honoured--will be wasted. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. (Psalm 116:15) Joseph’s words to his brothers echo through the generations and proclaim the truth of what can only be true by the grace of an almighty God. “What you intended for evil, God has used for good.” This is our faith. Take heart, He has overcome the world.