4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NIV)

In December 2004, Voice of the Martyrs reported that China had once again arrested house church leader Zhang Rongliang, and they were looking for Xiao Min, whose crime was writing worship songs. Since his conversion in 1969, Zhang had already spent 12 years in prison and endured electric shock torture.1 In its 2004 religious freedom report, the U.S. State Department spoke of a Saudi school teacher, who was given three years in prison and 300 lashes for leaving Islam.2 In many places around the world, state coercion in religious affairs continues with a vengeance.

Of course, Christians are no strangers to such strong-armed tactics. The Reformer Ulrich Zwingli drowned Anabaptist Felix Manz in Zurich’s Limmat River, and Catholic Queen Mary burned over 200 Protestants at the stake in 16th-century England. Zealous believers seem all too ready to advance and enforce their orthodoxies through government oppression. But that was not the New Testament way.

In the tenth chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul defended his ministry against critics who charged that he was unimpressive in person (vv. 1, 10). Paul retorted that the Church depended upon “divine power” (v. 4) and not upon worldly prowess to make her mark. He also assured the critics that there was no future in resisting this power, and that their days of influence in the Church were numbered (v. 6).

In the course of his response, Paul presented a central principle of church work—persuasion, not incarceration, flagellation, or extermination. To extend the reign of Christ, believers are to demolish arguments (v. 5), not arguers, to take captive every thought (v. 5), not every thinker.

When heresy is bubbling up all around, it can be tempting to pass a law against it and call the police. After all, truth needs defending, so why not use every means at hand to defend it? There are two problems with that: (1) As Paul explained, the Church does not use every means possible, and (2) God is defending the truth by anointing His truth tellers with spiritual power. For that reason, Christians need not fear for the survival of the gospel in a hostile environment. After all, Paul wrote these words under political circumstances so dire that he and several of his fellow Apostles would be executed by the state. Yet the Church grew. He never cried, “To arms for Christ!” but spiritual and social strongholds fell nonetheless.

Some may suppose that religious liberty is the brainchild of secularists who want to minimize the presence of sound doctrine in the land. Believers may support it only because it protects them against tyranny should they find themselves in the minority. But there is a deeper biblical reason for guaranteeing religious freedom for all. Though state coercion is appropriate for many things, such as the protection of life and property, it is not an evangelistic or ministerial weapon. Though secularists try to limit blunt preaching through laws against so-called “hate speech,” the Church must not retaliate by urging laws against heretical speech. Of course, laws designed to muffle the Bible must be opposed, but the answer is not to criminalize skepticism. Besides, why would the Church even need to do this, when she has biblical persuasion through divine power at her disposal?
 
Footnotes:
 
1  Todd Nettleton, “Top House Church Leader Arrested in China,” Voice of the Martyrs Website, December 10, 2004, http://www.persecution.com/news/index.cfm?action=fullstory&newsID=317.
 
2  Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, International Religious Freedom Report 2004: Saudi Arabia, U.S. Department of State, September 15, 2004, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35507.htm.
 
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 First Baptist Church of Perryville is located 1 and 1/2 miles east of Route 222.