9 FAITH IN CHRIST
Remaining Patriotic in the Looming Shadow of Persecution If I were to ask any group what has changed in the last fifteen months, I would get a list full of changes, “because of COVID”. We have seen unprecedented change in the last year. Some changes have been great, while others not so great. One change I have wrestled with the most has been some of our government’s flagrant opposition to the people’s freedom of gathered worship. A freedom so dearly fought for in the founding of our nation that it made its way into our founding documents. In fact, freedom of worship was one of the core reasons so many early colonists left Great Britain. Religious freedom was the very thing at stake when The Church of England instituted The Act of Uniformity. This act prescribed that any minister who refused to conform to the Book of Common Prayer by St Bartholomew’s Day 1662 should be ejected from the Church of England. After this, over 2000 Puritian preachers were expelled from their pulpits, in what is now known as “The Great Ejection”. This effectively meant that unless a minister submitted to a state sanctioned gospel, he could not freely preach. It was this event which coincided with increased state sanctioned persecution that forced many to leave for the new world with the hope of exercising liberties endowed by the Creator.
The Great Ejection along with the scenes of preachers publicly tortured unto death were ingrained in the minds of the people living in the new world. Similar to how people speak of the day Kennedy was shot or of 9/11, the colonists would have shared stories of these events for generations. The people wanted freedom of expression, and the only way they knew to achieve this freedom was to separate from the totalitarianism and corruption present within the nation of Great Britain. This desire for a free nation fueled the drafters’ zeal as they penned words which declared our nation’s independence. They are clear as we read their words today, “We hold these truths to be selfevident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” The interesting point here is that the drafters of the Declaration of Independence did not create these freedoms of which they wrote, they only recognized and sought to protect the rights as given by the Creator. So, how should Christian citizens of the United States express devotion and virgrous support for our nation as that nation falters to protect our freedoms for which it was founded? The early Christians did not get off easy when it came to supporting the Roman Empire in the time of Nero. Peter exhorts the Christians of
Will Griffin is the Director of Adult Discipleship and Digital Ministries at Clayton Baptist Church. He and his wife Ashley are lifelong citizens of Rabun County.
70 www.gmlaurel.com - July 2021
