A simple confession

March 2014

“It’s not that I’m against Christian faith, I just like to believe what I believe without a public fuss.”

“Christians are entitled to believe what they like but they shouldn’t expect their views to be taken into account by those who create laws or run our country.”

 “The Christian faith should return to its simple origins when it was about one brilliant teacher and those who chose to listen to him.”

Well, one of the earliest and simple confessions of Christian faith was ‘Jesus is Lord’, but that was never a private belief that didn’t ‘interfere’ in public life.  The resurrection was proof that God had made Jesus Lord, and therefore that the Jewish authorities should not have killed him; that claim didn’t go down well.  Before long the Romans realised that ‘Jesus is Lord’ was a direct challenge to the official line that Caesar was Lord, and the imperial lions were called to deal with the problem.

And in the centuries since, many Christians have discovered that this simple confession has been enough to deprive them of their property, their employment, their family and even their life.

So too today.  Christian faith is a direct challenge to any authority or power that tries to ignore the risen Lord Jesus.  If ‘Jesus is Lord’ over this world then everything is under his command, including the economy and the weather.  If ‘Jesus is Lord’ then his words must determine what my family believes and how we use our time.  Jesus gets to declare what the church must teach and who can be its leaders.  And, in the state, Jesus has the right to say when tax is legitimate, what marriage can be and what constitutes a crime.

That’s the simple and original Christian faith:

“ … if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  (Romans 10:9)

Sincerely

Graham Burrows