The Ballot, the Bullet, or Option #3

Malcom X gave a speech called "The Ballot or the Bullet" in which he said that you can use the ballot to change things and if that fails then you have no choice but to fall back on the bullet. It seems as though Christians have accepted these two options as well. The only way to change the world is through either politics or force. We are able to change laws through the voting process or through democracy in other lands, or we have to use force to overcome dictators and unjust governments around the world. These two options are accepted mainly because they are preached to us from every radio and television and newspaper and is accepted as fact. While Christians occasionally offer lip service to the power of God to change situations they often fall back on the two accepted change agents being either force or politics. If you were to ask a Christian how to deal with a unjust government or mass killings going on in other countries the most common answers will involve the ways to get the government involved through protesting, sending letters, getting the government to send in its military or peacekeeping troops to applying international pressure. Rarely is the answer to send in the Church as ambassadors of Christ.

I remember in the lead up to the war in Iraq, reading a newspaper article that pushed the idea what if instead of sending 800 missiles to Iraq in the first two days (the Shock and Awe phase) we sent 800 missionaries. I remember reading the article, laughing at its absurdity, and then returning to my original opinion that "real" force was necessary. Something about this article has always stuck with me. Do I really think so little of God and the Christian message that I think its power is absurd? Am I so brain washed by the idea that physical force is the only way to change things that I dismiss the power of the God that created the Universe? We need to return from boasting in the power of chariots, horses, jets, and missiles to boasting in the name of the Lord.

There is without a doubt a place for the government in these large world affairs but there is also a place for the Church. While sending Christians into war zones may be very dangerous, the Christian life never claimed to be safe.