Should we pray for God to punish our enemies?
On June 17 , Dylan Roof murdered nine people who had gathered for prayer at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The Supreme Court legalized so-called same-sex marriage nationwide on June 26 . Finally, July 14 saw the release of disturbing undercover footage of a Planned Parenthood director discussing the sale of tissue and organs from aborted babies. A second video — no less unsettling — emerged last week, with more likely to come. In the face of these developments, we shouldn’t fall into alarmism or fear-mongering. Jesus has promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church (Matthew 16:18 ). Nor should we exaggerate the plight of the American church, as though our sufferings were on a par with what believers elsewhere have experienced under Boko Haram or ISIS or Kim Jong-un. Things may seem bad in America, yes. But not as bad as they could be. And yet, we can’t deny that the American church faces opposition, an oppositio