Christian Terrorists in Turkey and … Michigan

Until about two weeks ago, American Pastor Andrew Brunson been held in a Turkish prison without charges. Now he has been indicted for being a member of a group led by exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen which the Turkish government says is responsible for a failed July 2016 coup attempt.

CBN News reports:

The American Center for Law and Justice, which is helping Brunson’s Turkish attorney, says the charges effectively make sharing the gospel an act of terrorism.

“Turkey has literally taken the position that Christianization is terrorism,” ACLJ Senior Counsel Cece Heil told CBN News. “They have no specific evidence that Pastor Brunson has committed any crime. The fact that he is a Christian, and specifically a Christian pastor, is what they are equating as terrorism.”

“They use terms that he ‘acted as an agent of unconventional warfare while under the mask of being in an evangelical church pastor.’ Some of those activities that they claim are terrorist acts are humanitarian aid, education, and training,” Heil added.

Meanwhile, Christian anti-abortion activists in Michigan are being hailed by a local prosecutor as being a “threat [that] the community needs to be protected from.”

According to the Oakland Press News:

A group of pro-life supporters have been sentenced to probation and are prohibited from picketing abortion clinics following recent convictions for trespassing and interfering with police at a West Bloomfield facility in December.

Bloomfield Township’s 48th District Judge Marc Barron handed down the sentences Wednesday afternoon to Monica Migliorino Miller of South Lyon, Robert Kovaly of Hastings, Patrice Woodworth of Minnesota, Will Goodman of Wisconsin and Matthew Connolly of Illinois for the Dec. 2 incident at the Women’s Center on Orchard Lake Road, where they offered roses, prayed, sang and urged patients in the waiting room not to terminate their pregnancies. They were led out by police, arrested and charged after refusing to leave the clinic when asked to.

During the trial, Michigan District Judge Marc Barron prohibited the defendants from mentioning abortion or their pro-life views. He then sentenced them to “12 months probation, eight days of community service, court fines, and restitution to the abortion center. He also ordered them to stay 500 feet away from every abortion center in the United States and refrain from contacting each other.”

Prosecutor Larry Sherman had no problem with the harshness of the sentences. According to Sherman, the activists have “shown no remorse, demonstrate no potential for rehabilitation, and continue to pose a threat. … The community needs to be protected from them.”

The hostility to Christians in Turkey and Michigan is no surprise. While the immediate context of the hostility in these cases are diplomatic games between countries and abortion laws, respectively, the ultimate reason for the hostility is unbelievers’ war against God in their attempts to dethrone Him.

Since almost the beginning of time, man has chafed under the rule of God. In fact, the nations have raged against Him so greatly that we murdered His only Son whom He had sent to become our King:

Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.” (Psalm 2:1-3 ESV)

Acts 4:24-28 explains that this passage from Psalm 2 was a prophecy of Christ’s crucifixion. But as Jesus explains in Matthew 25, the plain to execute the son of God backfired. It was in fact His death, to pay for the sins of those whom God has called as His children, that raised Christ to glory and readied Him to take the throne:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’  Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31–46 ESV)

By God’s grace, believers today walk as repentant, loyal–but sinful–subjects in Christ’s kingdom. Unbelievers, though, are still in rebellion against Him, denying the eternal punishment they face and unwilling to repent. As I have written before:

We murder over 1 million of our children every year, trailing only China, Russia, and Vietnam—countries that have made every effort to eradicate God from the culture. Not to be outpaced by the communists, America is rapidly moving toward replacing God with government as the supreme authority in the land. Along with this has come the inevitable anathematizing of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the public square and denial of the existence of inalienable, i.e., God-given, rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thus many in America treat Christians trying to save a few of these babies as terrorists while refusing to mention Islam and terrorism in the same sentence. And do the pretty much the same to those sharing the gospel.  Unlike in Turkey, we aren’t putting Christians in jail for being Christian–yet. But we are fining them and shutting down their businesses if they don’t comply with society’s standards and making it very difficult for them to share their views on college campuses.

The good news is that Christ is King and is ruling over His kingdom and that He is calling more and more loyal subjects out of their rebellion into service to Him. Despite what we might see around us, the culture is growing to more and more reflect Christ–just as His people are. We’ve moved from a few thousand Christians at Pentecost to billions today. With billions more to come. Believers–even as we wage war against the culture with the Word of God–can rest that our future in Christ is secure.