Two stories in the news this week have caught my attention.  The first is the firestorm of intolerance that followed Chris Broussard‘s expression of his opinion that all sexual activity outside of marriage is sinful.  The second is the news that the Pentagon has employed a Anti-Christian extremist to help them make policies concerning our soldier’s abilities to express their faith.  Both stories have at their heart the desire of a growing portion of our population for Christians to keep their faith muzzled and silent.  To those who wish we would just “shut-up” or go away, here’s my reply.

We won’t shut-up.

We won’t be silent.

We have a voice, and it is one that cries out in the wilderness.

We have a message.  It is a message of both hope and conviction; of grace and judgment; of holiness and freedom.

We have a proclamation:  Jesus is Lord!  You might hate that, rebel against it or avoid it, but it is our message, and it has been for 2000 years.

And we have a command given by God to men:  Repent!  Please.  Stop calling good evil and evil good.  Stop celebrating wickedness and punishing righteousness.  Stop killing the unborn.  Stop turning our daughters into sex objects and stop emasculating our sons with pornography.  Stop buying into messages of materialism, humanism and hedonism.  Stop trying to  be God.

And we have a mission to carry out:  To love.  We will love you when you hate us.  We will love you when you call us names.  We will love you when you try to silence us, arrest us or even if you try to kill us.  We love you enough to tell you the truth, even when the truth hurts.  We have loved people for two millennia and we will continue to do so until Christ returns.

Yes, we have a voice, and we will not be silent.  It does not matter what you do to us or what “rights” you strip away, our message will be on our lips for eternity.  Our proclamation will echo through the darkness, bringing light to those who will heed it.  Our love will go before us, loving the unlovable and embracing those society has forgotten.   What you must understand is that silence for the Christian has never been an option.

We have a voice.  We have a message.  We have a proclamation.  We have a command.  We have a mission.

And we shall not be silent.