Pollution in the House of Worship

Jesus warned the Pharisees whom He encountered to not be hypocrites, attempting to put on a good appearance while their hearts were corrupt. He warned them in Matthew 23:
25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.
26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

We are born again by the Spirit, but we struggle with the flesh - how prideful and self-serving we can be if we do not allow Jesus to control our lives.  Even though we may try to display the veneer of piety, the true test comes as we measure what is in our hearts.  Jesus told the Pharisees to cleanse the inside - and the reliable way that is done for each of us is by the power of the Holy Spirit, confessing our sin, and recognizing that the blood of Jesus covers our sin.   Only through the appropriation of His sacrifice for us can we experience the true freedom He wants us to have.

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Our bodies are described as the temple of the Holy Spirit, and 1st Corinthians 6 encourages us to
guard against the desecration of that temple:
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

It is a troubling occurrence in our culture when you see acts of unacceptable speech and behavior that are on display, such as an act of vandalism, or what you might call a series of acts of vandalism, in a chapel on the campus of a major university.  Such was the case last week, when two students at Northwestern University in the Chicago area allegedly spray-painted the chapel, according to ChristianNews.net, with offensive hate slurs and vulgar imagery on the walls.

Two freshmen are accused of entering Northwestern’s Alice Millar Chapel last Thursday night and vandalizing the hallway and stairwell.  Some of the acts included the painting of a swastika in a hallway and painting over photographs of Muslim students.  There were graphic images, offensive words, and even the name of a Presidential candidate as part of this offensive display of "artwork."

The article says that university chaplain Tim Stevens told the New York Daily News, “It’s disturbing to think that someone who’s been in this space would be venting some sort of rage that way,” adding, “I feel bad for them that they can’t handle it in a more productive way.”  And, it states that the Chicago Tribune reported that Judge Peggy Chiampas sharply rebuked the young men during their bond hearing, declaring, “These allegations are disgusting to me."

University President Morton Shapiro also issued a statement condemning the vandalism, which he called “abhorrent.”  He is quoted as saying, “This disgusting act of hatred violates the deepest values and core commitments of our university and is an affront to us all."

The teens were charged with criminal damage to property, institutional vandalism and the commission of a hate crime for desecrating a house of worship. They were released on Saturday after 10 percent was posted of their $50,000 bail.  They have already admitted to the crime, and they are on interim suspension.  The Boston Globe reports that one of the boys is the son of the chief justice of the Massachusetts state appeals court.

Well, obviously these young men were incapable of expressing themselves in productive ways.  Who knows what their motive might be, but certainly showing this level of disrespect for a sacred space, as well as for the groups of people they maligned, shows a tragic insensitivity that is unacceptable in a civil society.  The decision to vandalize was theirs alone, but who knows what sort of influences contributed to their being desensitized to these matters.  It's a bit unnerving to label something as "hate speech," because that label has been used against Christians to describe the expression of Biblical views on sinful behavior, but I think the consensus in culture in this case would agree with the teachings of Jesus - this shows no compassion and is demeaning toward entire groups of people.

I do want to shift and think about our own spiritual "temples."  As 1st Corinthians 6 says, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit - if you are a Christian, He lives inside of you; you are His house, sort of speak.  So, we have to guard our hearts, guard the gateways through which sinful ideas enter in, which can lead to sinful actions.   When we encounter thoughts and attitudes that are not pleasing to God, it's important that we do not allow those streams of thought to infiltrate and pollute our souls, but that we allow the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus to set us free.  We are sinful creatures, but the Bible says that we are new creations in Christ Jesus - we have to renew and retrain our minds to think in a manner that lines up with God's truth.