Twice this week I have been warned of an impending takeover of the United States by Muslims and once I have been asked to vote on whether Sharia Law should be banned in the United States.

I am offended, deeply offended.

However, it’s not because we’re going to be taken over by the Muslims. I can’t believe that.

The only Muslim friend I’ve ever had played trumpet in a band that I was in years ago. We’d take our breaks out back, smoke, and discuss religion. His father was one of the founders of a mosque in a Midwestern city. As best I could tell, he practiced his religion faithfully, blew his trumpet slightly better than I played reeds, and worried about the same things I did. Not once did he mention taking over the United States.

Besides, Muslims comprise only 1% of our population. More likely, native Americans would come back to get what we took away from them; they make up 2% of the population.

That should also take care of the fear of Sharia Law. 1% probably won’t impose its will on the other 99%. And if the 1% wants to observe the parts of Sharia that don’t contravene US laws, that shouldn’t be a problem either.  We’ve had Hasidic Jews strictly following the 613 laws found in the Torah for centuries, and they’ve never tried to take over the United States.  They have lived apart, but at peace with their neighbors. And I’ve never seen memes warning me that they were coming for my barbecue and shellfish.  

The absolute lack of logic in the rabble-rousing memes and the silliness of thinking we’re going to begin cutting off the hands of thieves under Sharia Law isn’t what offends me. That level of thinking is becoming so common as to be unremarkable these days.

What does offend me is that people who purport to be Christian feel that our faith is so weak that we can be blown over by any wind that passes. Not just Muslims, but by department store clerks saying, “Happy Holidays.” That our marriages are jeopardized by the rights of homosexuals to be married, and the law that says our churches can’t tell congregants how to vote.

According to these people, to survive, we must encode our religious beliefs into the law.

All of this, however, fails to recognize Christianity is at its strongest not when it has the state at its back, but when it’s forced to rely on the strength of God to do God’s work. 

Otherwise, we tend to deal in empty gestures.

In 1954, Congress decided we needed to do something to separate ourselves from “godless Communism.” It sounded like a good idea, but instead of expecting our Christians to act more Christian, their solution was to add the words “under God” to the pledge of allegiance.  

In Georgia, the legislature took up the “Pastor Protection Act,” aiming to protect pastors from the invading hordes of homosexuals seeking weddings. I have yet to talk to a pastor who thought he or she needed protection.

Or several of our current politicians declaring that we must institutionalize Christian values in our schools and other public places, putting prayer in schools and the 10 Commandments on the courthouse lawn.

Forget that most of these things wouldn’t pass Constitutional muster. Think about what it says about our faith.

Do this: walk into a church with stained glass windows. Try to find one depicting the judge who insisted on a stone monument to the 10 Commandments or the legislator who took the well to propose that have a law that protects our pastors. There will, I hope, never be a Christian memorial to an empty gesture.

On the other hand, consider what brought Christianity from a small group of people in an insignificant Roman province to a force throughout the world. Those are the things that we memorialize.

St. Stephen choosing to kneel and pray for his attackers as the stones pounded him. Saul watched.

Saul, now Paul, sometimes sick and weak, going from one city to another preaching the Gospel, often just escaping with his life.

The Christians who faced the law and might of Rome and gave up their lives in testimony to their Faith.

Roger Williams tramping alone through the snow to leave the institutionalized church and found a denomination separate from the government.

The Christians who risked their lives ferrying slaves to freedom.

The Christians who risked their lives saving Jewish children from the Nazis in the last century.

The Christians who put themselves between authority and those oppressed by that authority.

Their weapon was unselfish, unflinching love.

No, I don’t believe that Islam is going to overcome Christianity and that we will all be subjected to Sharia law. But I do think there’s a distinct possibility that our Christianity will fall from its own lack of faith, in its all-consuming interest in dictating the acts of others, and under the weight of empty gestures used to replace self-sacrifice.

On June 19, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed because of his activity against the Reich, most importantly his involvement in the July 20 plot to kill Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer’s motive was that he could not abide the way Hitler’s government was treating the Jews. First, he opposed it. Then he attempted to take direct action. To me, the important point is that this Christian did not ignore the treatment of non-Christians. He fought it, even unto death.

There is probably no cure for those who think that Sharia law is going to become the law of the land. Or that we can be Christian and deny help to those being killed, no matter what faith or race they are. Or that we can substitute a gesture for an action.

However, there are the rest of us, those who cling to the spirit of a 2000-year tradition of showing extravagant love without counting the cost.

Keep in mind that Jesus did not go to the Sanhedrin and ask for a law. He went to the streets and then to the Cross.