Jesus warns us that there will be those who will expel, even kill, his followers, believing that they are thereby ‘offering worship to God.’ The reference to being expelled from the synagogues has a specific historical context in the tensions between the Jewish and early Christian communities. The continuing relevance of this warning, demonstrated throughout the Church’s history, is that it is perilously easy for Christians to believe sincerely that they are doing God’s will while persecuting other followers of Christ. How do we avoid this? How do we ‘keep from stumbling’ as Jesus says?

Let’s start by considering the role that we assume in any conflict: religious, moral, or otherwise. We are to be witnesses, just as the Holy Spirit is a witness, by advocating for those who are persecuted lest we become persecutors ourselves. Our first duty as Christians is to follow the lived example of Christ, standing with the persecuted so that our actions do not betray our beliefs.

If we are persecutors rather than advocates then we have failed to ‘know the Father,’ to know Jesus, even if our theology is faultless. Pope Francis said, ‘realities are greater than ideas.’ The concrete, human situations that we confront have the greater importance, and they are our greatest opportunity to bear witness to Christ—a witness that will be far more fruitful than a restatement of abstract truths of doctrine, no matter how precise. If our faith is a living reality, informed and shaped by the ‘Spirit of truth,’ then our actions will testify to Jesus and we, too, will be his witnesses.

By Chad Hargrave