Challenge to Faith

Many Christians in Hong Kong are worried about the perceived-to-be-impending restrictions on religious freedom.  There is a saying which seems to be going around a lot: “When a gun is pointed at your head (or that of someone you love, such as your wife/husband/son/daughter/etc.), will you have the courage to confess you are a Christian?”

People have faced that kind of threat in the past, continue to face them in the present, and certainly will continue to do so in the future. It has happened in Europe, Middle East, Japan, China, and so many other places.  Will that happen in Hong Kong soon?  Many believe it may yet happen.  Many have failed that kind of challenge, and it is hard to say how we will fare until it happens. 

Before it happens, however, there is another challenge that is less extreme, but may yet prove to be much more difficult to defend against. Before one is compelled to deny one’s faith wholesale, one can be tempted to sell out our faith piece by piece.  It happens when people are tempted to collude with the godless in oppressing the faithful, actively support the tyrant against the oppressed, slander those who stand up against the tyrant, close our eyes and keep our silence when injustice is committed by the powerful. In exchange for power, status, wealth, advantage or comfort, or simply to hold on to what is presently at hand, the status quo.  

People claim to believe in the everlasting creator God.  Yet by our actions, they demonstrate how much we love those worldly riches.  It is pitiful when one realises that sometimes those “riches” are so pitifully small and don’t even last very long.  

The challenge is not so much the wholesale denial of our faith.  It is the selling of our soul little by little, piece by piece.  It is not some hypothetical threat that may or may not come.  It is happening in front of our eyes, right now.  For many, it may not seem that they are selling a lot of themselves at any one time.  But for many, there may not be a lot of faith to start with.  Bit by bit, sooner or later, there is neither any faith, nor humanity left.