{"id":870,"date":"2010-06-16T16:06:47","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T23:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groansfromwithin.com\/?p=870"},"modified":"2011-07-06T20:07:41","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T03:07:41","slug":"if-tyranny-reigned-how-would-church-look-different-guest-post-robert-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thepangeablog\/2010\/06\/16\/if-tyranny-reigned-how-would-church-look-different-guest-post-robert-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"If Tyranny Reigned, How Would Church Look Different? Guest Post: Robert Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><em>What a cool thing it is to connect with so many people, from so many   places, and with so many perspectives.\u00a0 This is a post that was  birthed  out of my <a href=\"http:\/\/groansfromwithin.com\/2010\/06\/03\/open-mic-a-chance-for-you-to-contribute-to-a-post\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">OPEN   MIC<\/a> blog post (BTW- still accepting submission ideas).\u00a0 I want to   hear from others, about how God is at work in their own theological,   philosophical, cultural, and social ethics journey.\u00a0 I personally do not   endorse everything that the guest contributors have to say; and it is   possible that I will outright disagree with them on some points, but I   am always open to dialogue <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.wordpress.com\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/icon_smile.gif\" alt=\":-)\"> Here is our third guest post by a blogging friend, <a href=\"http:\/\/ballymennoniteblogger.blogspot.com\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Robert Martin<\/a>.<br>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n<p>Something my wife mentioned recently made me wonder some stuff.  Here  are some questions that I think the Christian church in the USA needs  to seriously ask themselves.  Likewise, these are fair questions for any  Christian in any society today.  Please note, these are <strong><em>not political  questions<\/em><\/strong>, <em><strong>these are ecclesiology (church) and missiology (mission) questions<\/strong><\/em>.  They apply  no matter what the politics, governmental structure, economic  philosophy, or what not that you are currently living under.<\/p>\n<p>1. If your government were to fail utterly today and a tyranny  that is unfriendly to the mission of the church arise in its place, what  would you, as a Christian, do differently?<br>\n2. If there is something you would do differently, why aren\u2019t you  doing it now?<br>\n3. What is preventing you from making those changes in your life?<\/p>\n<p>I personally need to think very hard and very carefully about these.    The answers may be a lot harder to deal with that appear on the  surface.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What about you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What a cool thing it is to connect with so many people, from so many places, and with so many perspectives.\u00a0 This is a post that was birthed out of my OPEN MIC blog post (BTW- still accepting submission ideas).\u00a0 I want to hear from others, about how God is at work in their own [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,48,60,68],"tags":[269,524,527,585,586,739],"class_list":["post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-guest-contributors","category-missional","category-open-mic","tag-ecclesiology","tag-missiology","tag-missional-church","tag-persecution","tag-personal-change","tag-tyranny"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>If Tyranny Reigned, How Would Church Look Different? 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