Fellowship Or Not

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, martyrs, (1 John 1:5-2:2) when we hear Jesus tell us through his followers: “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.”   It then follows: “If we say, ‘We have fellowship with him,’ while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth.  But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another…If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

Speaking of having fellowship with one another, I’m reminded of a Boston Globe article “Evangelicals tussle over Trump editorial” (December 23) describing “more than 100 conservative evangelicals closing ranks further around Trump.”  These evangelicals wrote a letter to the editor of Christianity Today saying: “Your editorial [anti-Trump] offensively questioned the spiritual integrity and Christian witness of tens of millions of believers who take serious their civic and moral obligations.”  

The letter continued: “…it’s up to your publication to decide whether or not your magazine intends to be a voice of evangelicals like those represented by the signatories below, and it is up to us and those Evangelicals like us to decide if we should subscribe to, advertise in, and read your publication online and in print, but historically, we have been your readers.”

Fellowship?!  It’s clear these complaining evangelicals have no fellowship towards their fellow Christians thus reminding me of our Gospel today: “When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.”

Those 100 conservative and influential evangelicals are furious and have ordered the “massacre” of Christianity Today telling the editor that they will be no more.    So soon after Christmas darkness appears through intolerance and threats to Christianity Today.  Evangelicals as a group (however that may be defined) should be “sobbing and weeping” over such a non-Christian-like attack on fellow Christians who correctly point out and condemn Trump’s immoral behavior.

Then again, we Catholics seem to be as confused and divided about Trump as evangelicals.   How's our fellowship enduring?

Deacon David Pierce