Today, I went to Siesta Beach and finished reading "Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream" by David Platt. He finishes the book by issuing a year-long challenge which he calls the radical experiment. There are 5 parts of this. One, praying for the entire world. Two, reading through the entire Bible. Three, sacrificing your money for a specific purpose. Four, spending time in another context. Five, committing your life to a multiplying community. In regards to the praying for the entire world part, he mentioned a book named "Operation World."
Several years ago, I meant to pick up this book when I was pretty interested in missions. I just ordered it off Amazon today and look forward to when it comes. It gives specific information about every country in the world and how one can pray for that country. Should be a good eye-opener. I try to keep up with world politics and different happenings in different countries but often fail at this. The nice thing about this book is that it adds the spiritual side to different injustices in the world and how you can specifically pray for different people groups around the globe. I'll be sure to include South Sudan in my prayers since they're a brand new country and I'm going to guess aren't mentioned in this book due to it being published before that occurred.
Gratefully, I have several friends in different countries that I like to keep in touch with. It reminds me that there are indeed places outside of the states. We live in a culture that places undue value on the individual and also a weird sense of pride about 'American exceptionalism.' As if we don't have our own share of problems that we've created ourselves. Implied in this line of thinking is that we are chosen by God to be the world's only superpower. When I read Scripture, I read of a chosen people as a nation, but that nation was Israel, not the USA. Furthermore, in the New Testament the chosen ones refer to all Christians, across all borders.
That means that in a very real way we have brothers and sisters who are just as chosen as we are living in nations that are experiencing war brought to them by our own nation. I cannot for the life of me understand how some Christians are seemingly so pro-military and therefore pro-war. We go on Sunday mornings to worship the Prince of Peace and yet we support a military industrial complex that keeps churning out more and more weapons and more and more reasons for endless war. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think of Christ as some hippy, there is definitely a fierce side to Him as revealed in different parts of Scripture. I think of peace as much harder to realize than war. Furthermore, are we not commanded in Scripture to take the higher road of enemy-love? Personally, I would rather leave it up to God to decide who needs to be punished and who doesn't than participate in a war machine that flexes its muscles to cover its innate fear of 'the other.' It's tricky ground, and admittedly I am very confused about this subject, particularly when it comes to places in the Old Testament where God commands Israel to commit genocide against another people group. But is not Christ the ultimate fulfillment of God's will? Should we not heed what He taught while He was on this earth. Somewhere I once read that for the first 300 years of the Christian religion Christians refused to partake in war of any kind. Maybe that's because they were closer to the original intent of Christ's work on this earth? I really don't know. One thing I do know, I think non-violent means of protest are much closer to the heart of Christ than mindless war.
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