Why I chose censorship

After meeting with our Board, I just gave the word to pull down a blog post and eliminate the free speech of a friend who wrote an entry that was very controversial. If you know me, controversy doesn’t bother me that much. I’m an equal opportunity offender. Much of God’s truth is controversial and offensive in our current era. What caused me to censor that article was the knowledge that articles with catchy titles are often not the best way to delicately deal with divisive issues, with President Trump’s presidency being the most divisive issue of our day. Furthermore, there needed to be some other things said that weren’t said in a post like that.

While we talk about relevant issues, Crossroads is not “political.” Numerous politicians on the right and the left have tried to get the “Crossroads vote” and that will never happen. Our mission is to bring people to a relationship with God and politics is more often than not a barrier to that.

There was much truth in the censored post regarding support for our elected officials. Those truths are…

1. God is in control.
2. Elected leaders of all stripes deserve our prayers.
3. Elected offices deserve our respect and grace.
4. We should speak with respect, grace and civility at all times, especially when discussing our President, even when he seems unable to do the same.
5. Laws that do not explicitly conflict with scripture should be obeyed.

While all this is true, there were also additional true things which should have been said.

It is important that Americans be more civil and humble toward our elected officials than we currently are. People on the right and the left are failing miserably in the area of honoring authority. However, not all authorities in every time period and circumstance should enjoy the absolute respect, obedience and subjection of their citizens. There are plenty of leaders in world history that were clearly way outside the will of God and needed to be rebelled against.

I would like to think that if I were alive when the Third Reich was having their way with Germany and then the world, that I would have been one of the people who would have stood against them or even lost my life in standing against a tyrant as the Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer did. I would like to think that I would be one of the many white pastors who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of my favorite movie characters of all time was the pastor in “The Patriot” who left his church to violently fight against the tyrant King George of England. I believe God would support all of the rebelliousness above and that the Bible would inform my position.

Please understand that this is not a post accusing our President of being a tyrant. Nor is it about accusing him of being a racist. I’m also not saying that we should support everything he says or does or that we shouldn’t speak out or confront it when appropriate. What I am saying is that all elected officials should be subordinate to God or at least His ways and that Christians are to put God first not our elected officials nor our political preferences.

Posts like the deleted can raise more questions than they answer. That’s part of why I censored it.

If I say much more in this post, it may raise more questions. That’s why I’m ending it.