“For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.” (1 Peter 2:15, NIV)
The early Christians faced a sceptical, sometimes hostile world which harboured fears – without basis – of the harm Christianity might do. Christians were thought to be dangerous. Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message puts 1 Peter 2:15 like this:
“It is God’s will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you’re a danger to society.”
9/11 has posed the question to many in the West, “is faith dangerous?” Strangely, our spiritual climate and that of the early Christians are converging in some ways. The Age reported recently that the global atheist convention in Melbourne is already sold out. We will most definitely see heavy criticism of faith on the basis of its danger to society: theism will be named as intolerant, oppressive, coercive, stubborn, self-interested. Speakers like philosopher Peter Singer will point out the harm done to minorities such as gay people and women in the name of religion. And many examples which will be cited may well be accurate.
Our job, our calling as Christians, is strive with all God’s strength, to prove the sceptics wrong. How we deal with human rights – even with mere words – is watched and weighed by a public which even if not familiar with human rights ‘instruments’, still put ethics in human rights terms. (and our words before people matter because our words matter to God, Matt 12:33-37)
So even if the human rights Charter debate is off the political agenda or out of the media, it mustn’t fall off our spiritual agenda.
Angus