Resistance is Futile?
Or is the only guaranteed path to futility failure to engage?
This started out as a letter to a friend who responded to my invitation to engage in an effort to resist tyranny. It expanded into this post, because there was a sameness to the replies of several friends who responded in a similar way.
My friends don’t want to get involved in efforts to restore our freedoms for several reasons. Are such efforts doomed to failure? Can they succeed but only after we who resist have lost too much, including shed blood? And isn’t it more important for Christians to concentrate on building the Kingdom of God?
OK dear friends. I agree that we as a nation may be beyond saving, and that plans to resist the tyrants won’t work. And while you may be right that this plan won’t work, I’m pretty sure that whenever a bully or a tyrant wants to harm you, you’re going to have to fight, and there will be no avoiding it. Those who torment us thrive on fighting, so our option is not whether to fight or not, but only in choosing how and when to engage. And if we put it off for too long, the enemy only gets stronger and more determined to bring us down.
So what should we be doing then?
Whether we are past saving as a nation or not, I believe we have a duty to resist tyranny and promote the good. And if we are trying to do that, we will be more effective, not less, if we call people to repent of their sinful self-serving ways, and turn to Christ as both LORD and savior. Tactical Civics™ is one organization - perhaps there are others - that is Christ-centered and devoted to encouraging citizens to embrace a new way of life - one of devotion to Christ and the call He has placed on our lives to employ our gifts, talents and resources to serve rather than be served, as Christ himself came to do.
At Tactical Civics™, we say boldly that we are Christian missionaries, and we begin every public gathering with fervent, heartfelt prayer and close it in Jesus' name. By taking that bold stance, they are strengthening all of us as believers, and making it more likely that we who call ourselves the Church will have a unified voice in opposition to tyrants who make up laws that defy the law of God, which is the Bible, and the highest law of the land, which is our Constitution.
We who are in the fellowship of believers in the world long for the day when we will all be one together with him ‘who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.’ Until then, achieving any kind of unity requires that we love one another more fully and purposefully, and that we learn to abide our differences for the sake of a higher calling. We are called to take a stand against the forces of evil. A long march together, as Christian soldiers, is a cause that many of us can unite on. And now is the time!
There is a chance that in my lifetime, an impossible to ignore tidal wave of Constitutionally aware, highly motivated and mission centered citizens will be like locusts swarming the halls of power and demanding justice. By unifying against wickedness and oppression in Jesus' name, we will be able to take back, little by little, some of the levers of power and authority expressly given to us by the Constitution, and that have been illegally taken from us by the criminals currently in charge. And then rather than wielding that power for personal gain as they have, we will diligently work to keep it from people like those wielding it now.
You feel a call from God to build his kingdom. That’s indeed a holy calling, and worthy of full devotion. But a lone ranger kingdom builder will have a much harder row to hoe than one who hitches a team, or gets his neighbors to come and bring their own hoes. One log set aflame will soon go out. Pile others on, and they become a bonfire. We were made for community, connectedness. Consider the Aspen. From outward appearances, a stand of trees, similar in appearance but separate. But beneath the surface, there’s an interconnected root system! The reality is that they are all part of a whole. That’s how we were designed too.
We have to unite on something. But what?
Satan has been able to splinter the Church into a zillion tiny embers, all disconnected from each other and wondering why Jesus' church seems to struggle so. What if we were able to unite against an enemy in Jesus name? What if by making common cause with people we differ with on lesser doctrinal issues, we could finally take our place as servant leaders - leaders devoted to our God and to our Constitutional Republic?
Could we build a society rooted and grounded in faith that God made us, made the world, and put us in it to work it and manage it? Would we be able to save our Republic? Would we become, once again, a beacon of hope for the rest of the world? Can we restore not only our Constitutional Republic, but also our Christian heritage?
I believe the answer is yes to both questions. We can become that shining city on a hill that John Winthrop wrote so eloquently about. Jesus' people. People who love each other. People who are willing to die for each others' right to worship God and to live out their faith as responsible law-abiding citizens.
But whether these things happen in my lifetime or not, we are called to engage in the struggle. In the largest context, the struggle, as stated in Ephesians 6:12, is against the rulers and authorities and the cosmic powers over this present darkness. But that struggle, and the struggle to regain our freedoms under God and the Constitution, are not mutually exclusive.
Let’s take up our crosses and follow Christ. And let’s march as Christian soldiers in His army, as fellow citizens of these United States, and as citizens of Heaven.