{"id":2367,"date":"2018-10-29T13:50:05","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T19:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2018-10-29T14:35:21","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T20:35:21","slug":"7-ways-for-the-church-to-respond-after-squirrel-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2018\/10\/7-ways-for-the-church-to-respond-after-squirrel-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Ways for the Church to Respond after Squirrel Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>I am never quite sure what to make of Christian leaders and teachers who say that \u201cthey are shocked\u201d at something like the murders in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or that they \u201cno longer recognize our country.\u201d\u00a0 As a window into anger and grief, perhaps such observations are meant to express the shock we all experience when something so brutal and seemingly random occurs.<\/p>\n

But any robust doctrine of sin and evil that arises out of the Jewish and Christian traditions acknowledges the presence of evil in the world.\u00a0 And even a modicum of attention to the news demonstrates that only the narrowest sampling of world events could create the impression that such evil is not always and everywhere on display.<\/p>\n

Christian leaders do an injustice to their communities when they feed the lack of realism that seemingly suggests that people are \u201cbasically good\u201d and that all the world needs is a bit of therapy and a better social order.\u00a0 And they do even greater damage when they collapse emotionally in public, indulging their own grief, rather than speaking directly to the grief of their communities.<\/p>\n

We are all challenged and confounded by the evil that roils our world.\u00a0 We should be sensitive to more of it than we are.\u00a0 We often reserve our public expressions of grief and concern only when it hits \u201cclose to home.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Christian pastors owe their congregations and communities more:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Without indulging stained-glass language, they should speak concretely and specifically to the problem of sin and evil.<\/li>\n
  2. They should avoid speaking in only therapeutic terms, which \u2013 as important as they are \u2013 are completely incapable of speaking to the problem of evil.<\/li>\n
  3. They should prepare people to confront evil and sin in their own lives.<\/li>\n
  4. They should prepare people to confront evil and sin in their communities, equipping them to offer an alternative.<\/li>\n
  5. They should engage the resources available to the Christian community that the church\u2019s experience offers in prayers of repentance and the absolution of sin.<\/li>\n
  6. They should teach their congregations what it means to exercise the personal and communal vigilance that church is urged to exercise in dealing with what Paul calls \u201cthe powers and principalities\u201d of this world.<\/li>\n
  7. And they should nurture a vision of the church which reflects both the confidence and courage of a church which Isaac Watts taught it to sing:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Stand up, my soul; shake off your fears,
    \nand gird the gospel armor on;
    \nmarch to the gates of endless joy,
    \nwhere your great Captain Savior\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

    Hell and your sins resist your course;
    \nbut hell and sin are vanquished foes:
    \nyour Jesus nailed them to the cross,
    \nand sang the triumph when he rose.<\/p>\n

    Then let my soul march boldly on,
    \npress forward to the heav\u2019nly gate;
    \nthere peace and joy eternal reign,
    \nand glitt\u2019ring robes for conqu\u2019rors wait.<\/p>\n

    There shall I wear a starry crown,
    \nand triumph in almighty grace;
    \nwhile all the armies of the skies
    \njoin in my glorious Leader\u2019s praise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Both in word and in deed, that is the kind of church that we have been called to be at times like these, which \u2014 in truth \u2014 are days like any other day in many places around the world.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I am never quite sure what to make of Christian leaders and teachers who say that \u201cthey are shocked\u201d at something like the murders in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or that they \u201cno longer recognize our country.\u201d\u00a0 As a window into anger and grief, perhaps such observations are meant to express the shock we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2444,2658,2661,2442,2652],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-evil","category-ky","category-mass-murder","category-sin","category-squirrel-hill"],"yoast_head":"\n7 Ways for the Church to Respond after Squirrel Hill<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I am never quite sure what to make of Christian leaders and teachers who say that 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