I have noticed over the years that Ashland is rather laissez faire when it comes to confronting sin and calling sinners to repentance. While the cry of almost all of our culture is TOLRANCE!, I can't help but see a shyness within our community in particular when sin is publicly evident. I have often thought that this may likely be due to the heavy anabaptist population that is common to Ashland. With this church tradition comes the associated beliefs in pacifism (or nonresistanc, as they sometimes prefer to call it). It goes like this: If you are not willing to stand against evil with a gun, what should make you willing to fight with the sword(of the Spirit? Satan rears his ugly face in the onslaught of dictators just as much as he does in parishioners and local townspeople. If you cannot consciously oppose the one, how can you to the other? In either case evil will be victorious because there is no proper sense of defending one's territory and protecting those who are at risk of being scourged by the terrors of the evil one. The pacifist says, "I cannot oppose you because that would be a form of resistance." So evil marches on unopposed.
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