Alan Keyes is out with a new column today arguing that Christians should not shy away from violence in the face of the “gruesome violence [that] is being done to Christians.” He also argues that the U.S. government may soon join in on the anti-Christian “genocidal threats,” perhaps as a result of the gay rights movement.

“[I]t’s not at all unreasonable to see, in certain recurring reports, signs that the U.S. government is preparing our military forces to do violence against Christian denominations that refuse to abandon God’s Word on matters like homosexuality,” Keyes writes, urging Christians to “be prepared to execute God’s law” and “release the power of God’s Word against the perpetrator of evil.”

Ironically, in these offensively evil times, self-professed Christians who feel outrage at the thought of associating Christ with violence may be playing into the hands of Christ’s adversary. After all, incomprehensibly massive, government- perpetrated slaughters occurred with striking regularity during the twentieth century. Today, in various parts of the world, gruesome violence is being done to Christians with frequency. Events in Africa and the Middle East have Christians and Jews being systematically targeted for violence by groups that have seized control of governments, or are poised to do so.

Moreover, it’s not at all unreasonable to see, in certain recurring reports, signs that the U.S. government is preparing our military forces to do violence against Christian denominations that refuse to abandon God’s Word on matters like homosexuality. Just the other day, I read that “soldiers in the U.S. military have been told in a training briefing that evangelical Christians are the No. 1 extremist threat to America….Catholicism and ultra-orthodox Judaism are also on the list of religious extremist organizations.”

Given these signs of the times, the notion that “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” is the only accurate, Gospel-authorized example for Christians may ironically lead them to strike a pose of defenseless piety in the face of these genocidal threats. Since the prospect of an easy kill emboldens cowardly bullies, this defenseless pose increases their temptation to do evil. Are Christians required to become a near occasion of sin for those inclined to prey upon the defenseless? Are we required by Christ’s example to make ourselves fodder for evil?

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Righteous action thus requires, in the first instance, people who are willing, as Christ was, to give their lives in order to release the power of God’s Word against the perpetrator of evil. But people of goodwill who witness it are authorized to take action against the perpetrator, on account of their respect for God. But in order to do, in this respect, what the Word of God authorizes them to do, they must be equipped for action, in spiritual and material terms. They must be prepared to execute God’s law.