This is an appeal based upon the unrest that’s happening in our country and how Christians are handling their communications online and with people around them.

<p>This is an appeal based upon the unrest that’s happening in our country and how Christians are handling their communications online and with people around them.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

CORE Evangelism School

Dee Casper

An Appeal to Christians

God in heaven, I want to thank you for the fact that you've been good to us.

You've been so good to us and Lord, we live in a world that is so broken and it can be so easy to just feel powerless in the midst of this crisis, in the midst of all of what's going on with coronavirus and race issues and natural disasters and politics and personal battles, spiritual warfare.

Lord, there's just so much going on right now, economic struggles.

And I just pray as we have some time together this evening, Lord, I just pray that what is shared would make sense.

I pray that it would be helpful, that you would challenge us tonight, And God, I just pray that what I share would be exactly what you would have and nothing more and nothing less.

I don't have the wisdom that's needed to do this.

But I have a burden you placed upon my heart and that's all I have is my availability and a burden that you placed and so God just do for these people what I cannot I pray and I ask this in Jesus name amen.

Alright so clearly there's a lot going on in our world right now that has a lot of people hurting and grieving.

People are mad, people are frustrated on multiple ends of the political spectrum.

Some people are upset because they think that people are making too big a deal out of this.

Other people are upset because for years, no 1 has made a big deal about this.

And I've actually been trying to get away from social media.

I would like to do life without social media, but the nature of the work that I do and the ministry opportunities that there are, I mean, some of you who know me know that I've been harping for years that we need to use media for God.

But I've been trying to get away, but it's just like God keeps pulling me back for solely posting ministry things and then to just stay off, except for those moments.

But because of recent events with the coronavirus and what's happened with George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and the situation with Central park and the dog and the whole scenario.

Like it's just been a, I laugh because it's ridiculous.

Like there's just so much going on and it's just, it's, it's weighing on me.

I feel inadequate to really do the topic justice, to really speak into the pain and the confusion and the frustration that people are feeling.

And as someone who's call is to minister and to educate, it's been difficult for me to know how to enter into this field in a way that is helpful, that isn't polarizing, because you can't make everyone happy.

And I think someone phrased it this way, that you're not chocolate, you can't make everybody happy.

Like it's 1 of those universal things that generally just brings happiness to people.

And so in the midst of that feeling of powerlessness, but at the same time feeling incredulous on the things I've seen that have taken place in our country, it's caused a lot of internal conflict for me.

I've posted some things, but I just feel like there's something more I need to address that's more of an overarching issue that I see that always seems to rear its ugly head in circumstances like this, in election cycles, in moments of race relations, in moments of political conflict, in moments of religious conflict.

I just see this similar thread in all these moments that deeply, deeply troubles me and I feel like I need to say something about it.

So I, for quite a while when this stuff started to hit the fan with Ahmaud Arbery first and then the other situations since then, I've generally been the type that I don't use my influence.

I didn't look to be a public figure, but that has happened.

And I've been very intentional in not using my influence to share my opinions on matters of politics or church politics because my opinion really isn't worth much.

I'm 1 person with 1 opinion among many and my objective has been to be missional, to be evangelistic, and to focus on ministry and nurturing and other things.

But I have made a mistake in recent weeks in this particular state of affairs and race relations of lumping this particular circumstance into the same category as a political issue.

Now, there are people who are politicizing it, but it's not a political issue.

It's an issue of basic humanity and fairness and justice.

And I failed in that regard as a leader as a public figure and not communicating earlier on these matters.

And so I just wanted to apologize for that for 1 And I want to be more intentional in being more intentional and proactive in the midst of people's wounds.

Sometimes as Christians and as leaders we can be so afraid of what people will think and so guarded that we end up being so afraid to do anything that we end up doing nothing.

And our window of opportunity when a wound was open ends up being overlooked and it passes us by And I don't believe that that's the way that God would have us handle circumstances like this.

So I failed in that regard as a leader, and I want to own that.

And I had many conversations with friends and friends in the black community, like just asking for wisdom and advice.

I didn't want to speak into a circumstance that I really can't speak to because that's not my life, that's not my story.

Now I've lived amongst communities and have been integrated in other ways, but I cannot fully know, and nor do I think we should ever say, I know how you feel.

But in that phase of analysis paralysis, I didn't act as quickly as I would wish and so I just wanted to address that first of all.

But my biggest concern in what I'm seeing right now, I'm not going to speak to the big picture issues in this video.

I've already posted on what my views are on systemic racism and other issues in our country.

But my main issue right now is what I'm seeing from Christians on social media.

I would expect this from political pundits.

I would expect this from CNN, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fox News, the Drudge Report, and all of these things.

I would expect this from these entities to hyper-politicize these circumstances, to use them for our own gain to push our own agendas but I don't think we should be expecting this from Christians unfortunately I think the world does expect it from Christians because as Christians, we're terrible at stuff like this.

We try to fix things and correct people and fix people.

We've not generally been the best at just listening and seeking to find empathy and sympathy, to better understand someone's story and circumstance before we respond and accuse and condemn or give our corrections.

We've generally not been the best at this and as Paul says in the book of Romans chapter 2, I believe it's in verse 24, he says, the name of God has been blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you and he's speaking to believers and I think that as Christians we need to be better in moments like this, to be slow to speak, quick to listen, and slow to become angry as our brother James says.

And if I just think that we need to be careful in how we handle our public communications.

On venues like this I think that we forget that when I'm typing on my phone or typing on my computer in moments of frustration or inspiration based upon things that I see we forget that we're talking to real human beings with emotions and feelings.

It's not an avatar that you're speaking to.

In our current context, there are people who are grieving.

There are people who are trying to process and are having to relive their own traumatic experiences because someone else has had a similar experience.

And in that holy and sacred moment of someone's pain and vulnerability, we would do well as Christians to stop, to listen, to give someone the creative freedom to grieve, to process, and to work through what they're feeling and what they're dealing with, and to not just immediately jump in with our commentary, our religious platitudes, God forbid our political platitudes.

Give people a space to communicate and just process through things.

Let them share what they need to share, and if you don't like it, you can unfollow them, you can unfriend them, you can do what you need to do.

But in a moment of crisis and pain and grief, I implore you in the name of Jesus and on behalf of the Lord Jesus to give people the space to feel to process and to grieve and then I'll be so quick to inject your opinions And there is something that's referred to in religious circles and other circles, is this idea of syncretism.

Syncretism is basically the fusing or the amalgamation of different religious teachings or ideologies where you put them together, right?

So if you have someone who is engaging in Buddhist practices while being a Bible-believing Christian and trying to fuse those 2 things together, that's an example of syncretism.

What I'm talking about today is the syncretism of politics and religion.

Claiming to be a Bible-believing Christian, but morphing my own biblical views to match my political views.

We're fusing political ideologies that don't coincide with the gospel and we're trying to make them fit into our biblical worldview.

Or worse yet, we're trying to make our biblical worldview fit our political ideologies.

And when we do this we cause problems because 1, this can fall under 1 of the commandments of misrepresenting God.

God is not a host or commentator on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN.

He's not a journalist for the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other of these publications.

He is almighty, holy God who is righteous, just, good, who's compassionate, who forgives sins, who longs for justice and mercy to be poured out on this earth.

And when we start intermingling these things, first of all, it's a terrible witness.

But 2, It leads us to bring this form of like arrogant superiority into a public discourse that is not helpful and it is not Christian.

When we're demonizing people, when we're name calling, right?

If you cannot engage in civil discourse on difficult and challenging issues, then don't say anything at all.

You're not helping the circumstances, and particularly if you're publicly claiming to be a Christian.

This is not the way that we are to present ourselves to the world.

It's not helpful, and especially in the midst of seasons where people are grieving, when people are going through times of loss and just trying to make sense of life.

That is not the time to insert your political and even cheap petty religious platitudes.

We refuse to give up our political idols and we bring them with us to church and it's not honoring God.

And I would encourage all of us, including myself, to take the time to reflect upon what is it that has my heart's affections?

What is shaping my philosophy of human life?

An Appeal to Christians

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