Penn's Stand

Through our adherence to the teachings of Jesus, we can see Him radically change our lives, and as the Church uses its influence and develops a credible, compelling witness, the hearts and minds of people around us can be changed. In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7, Jesus declares:
12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
13 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.
14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

I think about the simple challenge Moses gave to the children of Israel: Choose life.  There is a way that leads to life, Jesus said. And, it is unbelievably simple, yet hard at the same time - we know what to do, don't we?  But, we don't do it - I've been spending some time in the parable of the sower recently. Jesus talked about the Word going into our hearts, but it doesn't bear fruit due to our hearts not being right before God and because of distractions and deception.  We have to take these words to heart.

+++++

In John 5, Jesus responded with truth to those who would challenge Him; He said:
37 And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.
38 But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe.
39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

Since the widespread rioting of the summer of 2020, there has been an intensified move afoot to remove statues and monuments to history.  Now, there are elements of American history that are offensive to some, but lessons of history can be instructive for us today.  

And, people should rightly know when to draw the line, but you have had some who have pushed the envelope, such as those who wanted to remove a statue dedicated by Frederick Douglass called the Emancipation Memorial or Freedman's Memorial in Washington, depicting Abraham Lincoln and a freed slave. A similar version was removed from a Boston park in 2020.  The DC statue still stands, as far as I can tell.

And, a statue of William Penn, from whom the state of Pennsylvania derives its name, still stands, even after an effort to remove it. But why?  According to Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, writing for WORLD Magazine:

Penn famously abjured war, rejected conquest in place of harmony with the native tribes, and established religious freedom in Pennsylvania. Of all early American personalities, he should be safe from assault by the radical deconstructionists. But for too many, any European Christian is an oppressor who must be deleted.

Tooley writes, "Ostensibly, removing Penn would have offered a more 'welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience for visitors,' according to the original Park Service announcement. The updated Park Service news release simply declared without explanation that the “preliminary draft proposal, which was released prematurely and had not been subject to a complete internal agency review, is being retracted. No changes to the William Penn statue are planned.'"  The statue, along with his home, would be removed in favor of a greater emphasis on the Native American history of the region.

Tooley provides this information about the well-known statesman:

Penn was a wealthy man in England in the 1600s, the heir to his father, who had served as an admiral. But Penn was impressed by the faith of the persecuted Quakers and eventually adopted their faith, for which he was imprisoned. His father secured him access to the king, through which Penn obtained the massive land grant that became Pennsylvania. Penn established the colony as a “holy experiment,” where the religiously persecuted from throughout Europe would be welcomed.

Paul Batura of Focus on the Family, writing for The Daily Citizen, said this:

To be sure, William Penn was a stout and unapologetic believer in Jesus Christ. He once famously declared, “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.”

Which is why progressives in the area were eager to remove his statue and try and erase any memory of what was behind the colony’s founding.

Initial plans from the Park Service suggested the renovations, including the removal of the Penn statue, would result in “a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience for visitors.”

So, after much opposition to the removal, the statue of Penn will remain.  But, the tug-of-war involving the vilification of faithful Christians continues.  Batura states that:

When we attempt to erase or sanitize the past, we miss out on the many lessons that can be gleamed from the eventful, history-shaping, and imperfect lives lived before us. Not only that, but we set the bar impossibly high. By woke and hypocritical standards, only those who have an unblemished background are the ones that can be learned from and esteemed. They just don’t exist.

“Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants,” said William Penn – a truth that has aged well in the three hundred years since the Quaker’s death.

Isn't that the truth? Authoritarians want to submit to no one, most certainly not Almighty God or His principles.  The tyrant disregards human worth and views people as subjects.  The good civic leader regards the worth of the individual and views people as valued participants in civic life. 

And, the authoritarians certainly desire to silence those with whom they disagree. That's why we find Christian speech under fire these days; but we mustn't allow the voice of the Church to be muted. We not only have a right to be heard, our culture has a need for us to be heard.  Because, the words of Jesus are the words of life.  The teachings of Jesus are principles through which we can build a moral, fair, and just society.  It's hard to believe why we collectively don't get this - when you have politicians stand up and shout about so-called "reproductive rights," which supporting the destruction of millions of children in the womb, we are a society that has been blinded. 

Jesus knows what's better for us than we do - quite frankly, in our human wisdom we are weak. But, the the power of the Spirit and the Word of God, we are strong. The elites don't know what's best for us; they know what's best for them.  William Penn, arguably a godly man who "got it," said it well, and we would do well to consider it: "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants." But, through our willingness to live our lives for Christ, to stand, speak out boldly, and to contribute to a more godly society, there is still hope.