Church Can Never Be Shut Down

Yesterday, President Trump tweeted "DEMS WANT TO SHUT YOUR CHURCHES DOWN, PERMANENTLY. HOPE YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING. VOTE NOW!"

Donald Trump, like many Christians, unfortunately do not understand what the church is. When they think of church, they think of people gathering together in a building to worship God for a few hours each week.

If they understood what church is, then they would see that is impossible to be shut down.

Buildings can close. People can stop attending public worship services. The conventional roles of pastor can disappear.

But none of those things are the church.

The church is the people, and we, as priests in God's kingdom, pray without ceasing and offer our lives up as living sacrifices every day (Romans 12:1-2). We don't have to go to a building to worship. We don't have to travel to this mountain or that mountain. We bow down before God in every action, every conversation, and in every word or deed.

To be honest, if "churches" as we know it were to shut down, we would be closer to first century Christianity than ever.

Groups would begin meeting in homes.
Fellowship would become more about action and not being able to ace a Bible test.
Much of the politics, power, and money associated with modern-day denominations would dissipate.
Allegiance to creeds would become less necessary.

Many other changes would take place, and, for the most part, they would be positive.

There would be negative things of course, and I don't wish for this to happen any time soon, but if it did, my point is that the church would not be shut down. It can't be shut down no matter what laws are put into place or what government officials want or try to do.

As Jesus said, "The gates of Hades will not prevail against it." And he wasn't talking about a multi-million dollar building in a community where homelessness abounds and pastor's personal private jets. Those can go, and probably should go.

This tweet is another example of a politician trying to take advantage of people's ignorance and emotions to win a vote. Regardless of who you plan to vote for, manipulating the masses by taking advantage of their misunderstanding is wrong, especially when it comes to such a crucial issue as one's faith.