Saying "Yes" and "No"

In Not Every Spirit, Christopher Morse demonstrates that the early Christians were persecuted not for what they believed (Jesus Christ is Lord) but for what they refused to believe (Caesar is Lord). We ministers are distinguished not only by what we graciously support, but also by what we condemn. Any homiletic that seeks to make peace with hearers cannot be faithful to the gospel. Ralph Wood pointed out that in the great Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church in Germany, every credimus, "We believe . . .," is followed by a damnatis, "We reject . . ." Alas, when it came time for the rest of the German church to say "Nein!" it had lost the theological means to know there was even something about the world worth rejecting, as well as lost the courage to say "No!"