Coping With the Aftermath

Coping with the Aftermath
1 Kings 2:1-46

As an undergraduate, I often walked past the Martyrs Memorial, standing where Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer were burned at the stake in Oxford in 1555 and 1556, caught in the conflict between different Christian groups. Many stories tell of Christians martyred by pagans; stories about Christians being killed by other Christians are more disturbing. We are fortunate to be living in a time when holding the wrong views does not cost you your life as it did a few centuries ago, but it is still the case that when you take sides, you take risks. Over the past year or so, two acquaintances of mine have lost their jobs because they said things about the Bible that clashed with the theological positions of the seminaries where they worked. Holding the wrong political views and backing the losers in an election will also not imperil your life in Britain or the United States, but it will do so in other parts of the world...