This week marks 33 years since President Ronald Reagan made one of his most famous speeches – the one that climaxed with his demand, standing at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, that “Mr. Gorbachev” (the leader of the Soviet Union) – “tear down this wall!”
Reagan was speaking of the Berlin Wall, which at that point had stood as a barrier to Eastern European freedom for nearly 30 years. Within two years of his speech, the wall came down.
People are always thinking that walls can be built high enough, thick enough, sturdy enough to shut freedom out. All the violence of these recent weeks – thuggery in the name of justice – has really been not about tearing down our shops and monuments and institutions so much as about putting up walls between whites and blacks …
… between those churning with muddled fury and those stunned and uncomprehending …
… between ordinary Americans and the peace and freedom we’ve long cherished – and too long taken for granted.
What’s happening in the streets is much more a spiritual battle than it is a physical and political one. And Christians – if we find the courage of our calling – are uniquely equipped to fight that battle, for the souls of those who violently oppose the very truth they are longing for.
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ …”
“Bringing every thought into captivity” sounds like slavery, to those already enslaved to their own delusions, fears, frustrations.
But it has the ring of freedom, for those who have pledged their allegiance to One whose banner, over us, is love.
For “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there the heart is truly set free.”
2 Corinthians 10:4-5, Song Of Solomon 2:4, 2 Corinthians 3:17
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