The Ministry of Reconciliation

‘All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.’  2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Reconciliation isn’t something Christians have done well, over the past two thousand years.  Christians have persecuted and murdered Jews, gone to war against Muslims (sometimes massacring any Jews they came across on the way to the Crusades), tortured our fellow Christians whom we suspected of being heretics, and committed genocide against or enslaved followers of tribal religions. 

Even now – 190 years after Britain passed the Slavery Abolition Act, and 158 years after America ratified the Thirteenth Amendment banning chattel slavery – there are still white supremacists, particularly in America, who believe that black people are fundamentally different from white people and should be, if not kept as slaves, at least segregated from white people and forbidden from intermarrying with them.  And many of them believe that they are good Christians for thinking this way, perhaps the only true Christians, and that liberal ideas like social justice and equality are Satanic propaganda. 

On internet sites such as Quora, I see a lot of abusive messages, purporting to be from fundamentalist Christians, which taunt or insult gay and trans people, atheists, or scientists.  Admittedly, many of these messages probably aren’t from actual theists, but from someone adopting the persona of a caricatured fundamentalist Christian in order to post incendiary messages which will draw a lot of angry responses deriding anyone who believes in God as stupid.

Nonetheless, this caricature wouldn’t work if there wasn’t an element of truth in it.  Particularly in America, there do seem to be plenty of Christians who identify being a Christian with being far-right, racist, pro-gun, anti-universal healthcare, anti-environment, and anti-science.  Yes, most European Christians, and plenty of American Christians, aren’t like that.  But if most non-Christians’ image of Christians comes from news reports about Donald Trump’s supporters trying to reinstate him as President by force, rather than from their neighbours who volunteer at the local Salvation Army food bank, they are likely to assume that this is the norm.

Jesus told his disciples to go out into all the world and tell people about him, not just to go on quietly living virtuous lives without talking about their beliefs.  For Christians in the 1^st century Roman Empire – and for Christians today in countries where Christians are a persecuted minority – the problem was that it could seem too dangerous to go on worshipping Jesus at all, let along publicly admit to believing that a man who had been put to death by the Romans as a dangerous rebel was God’s anointed king. 

Christians in free, western society aren’t likely to face persecution.  The risk here is that, if we try to ‘evangelise’ in an obnoxious, arrogant and ignorant way, we are more likely to put people off Christianity than lead them to faith.  In 2001, a customer at a restaurant in Kansas left a waiter a gospel tract disguised as a $20 bill instead of a tip.    For context, American waiters aren’t paid a living wage.  They are paid a tiny amount – in this young waiter’s case, just $3 (£2.36) per hour – and expected to live on the tips they receive.  Not surprisingly, defrauding a worker of his wages, which is condemned in many books of the Bible including Leviticus, Deuteronomy and James, is unlikely to make anyone want to become a Christian.

By contrast, I read a genuinely encouraging news story recently about Christians who had been subjected to violent attacks by their neighbours in their Muslim-majority village in Ethiopia.  They wondered how to keep their children safe and ensure that they got an education, when Christian children would be likely to face discrimination in Muslim-run schools. 

They could have opened a Christian school, but this would have entrenched the ‘us and them’ situation in the village still further.  Instead, they opened a secular school which offers free education to all children, whatever their religion, so that children from different faith backgrounds could learn together and become friends.  Projects like this give me hope that, even while the most privileged Christians whine about being ‘persecuted’ by not being allowed to discriminate against gay people, some of the Christians who actually face persecution are still taking the ministry of reconciliation seriously.

Father God,

Thank You that Your love is for all people: that Jesus was sent into the world not to reconcile You to us (for You already loved us), but to reconcile us to You by showing God’s immense, self-sacrificing love for us.  Thank You that he did not need to come to learn what it is like to be a human, but to show humans how close God is to us, and to show humans what it means to be a human child of God.

Help us to know what tasks You are calling us to in the ministry of reconciliation: whether to evangelise, spreading the gospel message, or to campaign against war and injustice, or to build friendships and communities.  Help us to know how to talk about You when talking to followers of other religions, and when talking to people who don’t believe any religion.  Particularly, help us know how to talk about You when talking to people from groups that have faced discrimination from the Church.  Help us know when not to talk about God, but to show Your love through our actions.

I pray for people who post comments on social media taunting or threatening atheists.  You know which ones are just doing this to ridicule Christians, and which ones are sincere Christians who really believe that this is the way to encourage people to believe in You.  I pray that You will help them grow in wisdom, in empathy, and in honesty.

Thank You for projects that work to bridge the gap between different groups.  I pray for educators around the world working to help children grow up knowing that whether they are Christian, Muslim, or atheist, first and foremost they are human beings and so is everyone else.

When we evangelise, help us to do so from a standpoint of respect for others, not arrogance.  Not all of us are suitable to be teachers, but for those who are, help them always to be ready to listen and think and learn.

Amen