Applied Faith
September 12, 2021
I forget where I saw it now, but someone said something to the effect of, “is it real faith if it doesn’t work in difficult situations?” The principle can be applied in other areas—“do we really hold to this moral ideal, if we give it up when it costs us something.” I might say that it is real faith/we do hold to the moral ideal, but it maybe isn’t a strong faith/strongly held belief. It’s still unfortunate, but not the end of the world.
Anyway, I bring this up now because it’s really important to the question of what faith is and does. I suggest faith goes beyond mere belief in the existence of God and Jesus, and that it involves belief in the paradigm altering event of the resurrection, and the promises of God more generally. This is all good and well, but doesn’t say much until we put flesh on it. So let’s put flesh on it.
Twenty years ago, America experienced immense tragedy. We were assaulted without warning by people who had no regard for human life and the suffering they were causing. Americans were scared, enraged, and traumatized. What does faith say about this?
On the whole, America responded with rage. We went to war. I was young, but my anthem was still Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).” America got sucker punched, but we’ll get up and make whoever was responsible pay dearly! What can’t be traced to rage can be traced to fear. We passed laws to keep us safe. We gave the government lasting power to act against terrorism with little to no oversight. It happened once, but we’ll make sure it never happens again!
I’m not interested in critiquing those who responded out of rage and fear. That response is incredibly natural; we did what we did. But we should learn from the past, assess the fruits of our response, and try to discern if God would have had us respond differently.
For the past twenty years we have been at war in Afghanistan. Best as I can tell, most people think the war was questionable at best, or an outright mistake at worst. In the heat of the wake of 9/11, it seemed like the only option. I don’t think many voices spoke out against going to war. Looking back, we should have done something different.
The vision of the prophets is of a world where there is no middle-east crisis. It’s a world where the knowledge of the Lord fills the earth, putting an end to violence. God forbid another tragedy like 9/11 should befall any country, but should it happen in our lands again, may we have the courage to speak up for peace when the conversation is only about rage, violence, and fear, lest we find ourselves in another War in Afghanistan. Even if no one listens, our speaking up is part of helping the world be exposed to the knowledge of the Lord.
—John Coffey
