Lead us not into temptation

Lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil.

It is very difficult to find a "Christian answer" in times of tribulation. In Nazi Germany, leaders of the Protestant and Catholic churches remained largely silent as the atrocities against the Jews escalated. A few Christian leaders published papers defending the Jews, but even fewer had the courage to protest.

Prior to World War I, the church in the US advocated negotiation and arbitration rather than armed conflict. Yet, when 1917 rolled by and the US formally entered the war, the Methodists supported the war cause along with the other mainline churches and published this poster. Would you have been able to find a viable peaceful alternative?

In Japan, during one of the most successful extermination attempt in church history, Christians who agreed to step on the fumie--an icon of the Madonna and Child--were pronounced apostate and set free. Those who refused were hunted down and killed.

The future is scary. What if it came to a point where it is possible to cheat death and cure cancer if we used the DNA from a live embryo, thus destroying it? Would you do it? What if there was a famine and there isn't enough food to go around, can you love your neighbour then? What if there is a pandemic, will we be courageous and do the difficult, or succumb to fear?

Lead us not into times of war, pandemic, tribulation,
because we are weak.