Chapter 15 in my book, Close Your Church for Good, is called “To Hell with the Church.”

No, I am not cursing the church.

Instead, I am calling the church to fulfill the mission and purpose given to it by Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 16, Jesus said that He would build His church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. This does not mean that the church is to huddle safely behind marble walls and stained glass cathedrals, as Satan tries to beat down our doors. Rather, it is the church which is to lay siege to the gates of hell.

Wherever Satan has his strongholds, we are to attack. But our enemy is not flesh and blood — we do not attack other people. No, people are the captives and the victims. People are the ones we are fighting for, as we try to rescue and deliver them from the clutches of evil.

So let us stop inviting people to church, and instead invite the church to hell. Let us go with Jesus, and batter down hell’s gates.

Please note that due to some of the feedback I receive on these posts, this chapter might be radically revised for the final edition of the book. These changes will only be available in the print or eBook version when it comes out.

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The church should just go to hell.

Please do not get angry and offended at such a statement. After all, going to hell is what Jesus said we should do.

If the church is going to hell, then we are headed in the right direction.

To hell is where Jesus himself went. To hell is where Jesus led His disciples. To hell is where Jesus sent the church.

In Matthew 16 Jesus spoke for the first time about the church He was forming. He said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Far too often the church imagines that Jesus is building the church as an impenetrable fortress, with huge walls and gleaming gates, and all the people of God huddle together inside in safety as the forces of darkness and evil attack from outside the gates. But inside the fortress of God, we are safe and secure.

But that is exactly the opposite of what Jesus is saying in Matthew 16. He says that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

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This post is the conclusion to the series on Giving up our Rights in which we have looked at some of the rights we think we deserve, and have seen that as followers of Jesus, we may be called upon to give up these rights for the sake of the gospel.

The greatest example of how to give up our rights is Jesus Christ. Though as God incarnate, He had every right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of His own personal happiness, though He had the ultimate freedom to make His own religion, to say whatever He wanted to whomever, to call crowds of disciples to follow after Him, and to take up all the power and force of the universe in His defense, Jesus instead chose to give it all away.

Rather than fight for His right to life, He went freely to His death, even to death on a cross (Php 2:8). Though He had the freedom and liberty to do whatever He wanted, He came instead to proclaim liberty to the captives (Luke 4:18), and give freedom to a world enslaved in sin (John 8:36).

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All too often the Christian church seems far more eager to take up arms against our enemies than we are to take up our cross and follow Jesus in dying for our enemies.

In the name of the one who taught us not to lord over others but rather to serve them (Matt 20:25-28), the church often lorded over others with a vengeance as ruthless as any version of the kingdom of the world ever has. In the name of the one who taught us to turn the other cheek, the church often cut off people’s heads.In the name of the one who taught us to love our enemies, the church often burned its enemies alive. In the name of the one who taught us to bless those who persecute us, the church often became a ruthless persecutor. In the name of the one who taught us to take up the cross, the church often took up the sword and nailed others to the cross (The Myth of a Christian Nation p. 81).

Our world is soaked in blood as nation rises against nation. Far too often, the church has stood in support of their nation as it went off to war, defending the nation’s righteous cause while calling for the blood of its enemies.

How can this be when we have Jesus as our example?

How can we possibly think that Jesus, who shed His blood for His enemies, would support our attempts to the shed the blood of our enemies?

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The “Just War” theory was originally developed by Augustine to defend the Empire’s actions of arresting and killing the Donatists, with whom Augustine was having a theological disagreement. He argued that in certain situations, a war is not wrong if it furthers the cause of Christ and advances the Kingdom of God on earth.

He taught that inflicting temporal pain on someone to help them avoid eternal pain was justified. Also, Augustine believed that since God sometimes uses terror for the good of humans (a questionable premise), the church may also use terror for the sake of the gospel (The Myth of a Christian Nation p. 78).

Thanks to Augustine, Christians have been endorsing wars against “Christian enemies” ever since.

But does not the life of Jesus and the truth of the Gospel cry out against this? “Declaring a war just is simply a ruse to rid ourselves of guilt” (Engaging the Powers, p. 225). Such attempts to absolve ourselves from guilt in the murder of others have been around since the very beginning.

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The constitutional right to bear arms is technically about the right of an individual to defend and protect themselves and their family against intruders and those who wish to do them harm.

I need to do a lot more thinking and study in this area, but in general, I fully support such a right, and believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is valuable,  important, and necessary in a world such as ours.

I do sometimes wonder, however, what Jesus would have thought about the right to bear arms, and the subject of self-defense.

Would Jesus Own a Gun?

After all, He would not even allow Peter to raise a sword in His defense (Matt 26:52), nor did He utter a word in self-defense at His trial when false accusations were leveled against Him (Matt 27:12-14).

But self-defense is a complex issue, and it is not primarily the issue that concerns me here.

My main concern is with what seems to be the duty and obligation of our churches to provide moral support for the wars of our nation against other countries and against some within our own borders.

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The freedom of assembly is another right guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States which Christians have used to defend their right to gather in church buildings and other public areas for the purpose of worship and fellowship.

It is unlikely that the founding fathers had religious assemblies in mind when they wrote about the right to peaceably assemble, as religious assemblies would more properly fall under the right to practice religion. The right to assemble more likely had in view the right of people to assemble for political reasons, such as for peaceable protests and demonstrations.

Nevertheless, the church sometimes has claimed the right to assemble for purposes that are contrary to the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel.

Churches have sometimes used the right to assemble to obstruct the rights of other people. Some churches picket businesses which engage in practices the church condemns. Some churches try to hinder other groups of people from gathering to celebrate their lifestyle or religion. A few churches have even used their right to assemble for the purpose of interrupting funerals and blocking parades.

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When it comes to speaking the truth in love, what matters is not how you think you are speaking. What matters is how others perceive it.

I sometimes hear Christians say the meanest things to other people, and when confronted about it, they say “I am just saying what needs to be said to rescue their soul from hell. If you saw someone walking toward a cliff, wouldn’t you shout and yell at them if it would keep them from walking off the cliff?”

I understand the analogy, but people walking off a cliff and people headed toward eternal separation with God are two very different things, and when God sought to rescue humanity from eternal separation, He does not choose to yell at us, but instead chooses to love and serve.

No example of this is greater than Jesus Christ.

A quote from The Myth of a Christian Nation by Greg Boyd is particularly appropriate here:

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In many places in the world, people have to be careful about what they say, and to whom they say it, especially when talking about their government. In general, people who live in most Western nations do not have this fear. We have the right to publically state our opinion about what others are doing, and even disagree with the direction our government is taking.

This is a wonderful and amazing freedom, as people in power do not usually like to see dissent from those who have less power.

Certainly, there are some areas where the freedom of speech is restricted, such as shouting “fire” in a movie theater, talking about bombs on an airplane, and all forms of hate speech against people of other races or religions. But beyond this, the freedom of speech is a valuable right that we enjoy, and which, at least in the United States, is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

But just as with all the other rights in the Constitution, this one also can be abused, especially when divorced from godly values and perspectives. When people lose their respect for others, and stop believing that all people have basic human dignity and value, the freedom of speech can become a curse.

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