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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