Mean your Amen and Amen with Meaning!
Any denial of the world’s hierarchical structure is a failure to understand the necessity of amens.
We live in competing worlds. Secular institutions want a nod. LGBTQ+ wants your unquestioned approval. The libertines want you to be at ease with every act of perversion. The liberal institutions want to catechize our young adults in the language of postmodernism. What is it that binds these paganized groups together? It’s the need for amens. It’s the need for unhesitant affirmation. No questions asked.
Amens are forms of submission. The Church also requires submission. But she does not require unquestioned submission. Those who walk into her doors and submit to her leaders come willingly. There is no compulsion. The Church serves one Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Submission comes through catechetical instruction. Unlike the world, we disciple the nations in patience and love. We educate them in the paideia of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). We say amen like lion-hearted saints!
Any denial of the world’s hierarchical structure is a failure to understand the necessity of amens. The question is not whether we will amen but to whom our amens are owed.
Some years ago, the scientific elite wanted our amens. Thankfully, hundreds of churches, including the CREC, did not give an amen to their agenda. Many of us refused to say “verily, verily” when they gave us mandates. We were vindicated, though many suffered even prison time for it.
The Worship Amens
When the Church gathers on the Lord’s Day, she has an opportunity to amen the King of Kings. Our amens are liturgical acts of gratitude to the God of our salvation. When we worship, we affirm that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord. As the hymn writer concludes in that magnificent processional piece, Praise to the Lord, the Almighty:
Let the Amen sound from his people again,
Gladly for aye we adore thee.
The church is most faithful when she commits to amen most faithfully the worship of our God. Worldly institutions will require our approval. But God’s people respond to the one heavenly institution (Gal. 4:26) not founded by Foucault or Descartes but one purchased with the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28).
There will be a lot of ways in which these amens are uttered in worship. Some will be in response to the Word of the Lord, others in response to the songs of God’s people, and then the Church amens together to the benediction of our God. Paul exhorts us to offer our bodies as living liturgies to God, which is the Christian’s way of affirming the Kingdom’s vision on earth as it is in heaven. Our worship is an ascension offering of amens to heaven.
Whenever we amen, in culture or liturgy, we must mean our amens and amen with meaning. Don’t waste your amens! Utter them with conviction. The competing city will seek our amens to validate their lies. But we affirm that King who is above all earthly powers and who has established his kingdom from the amens of young and old.