T-shirt or Tunic

Our friends over at The Sacred Sandwich posted a piece which began us here at The Old Dead Guys to think.  The piece illustrated the differences in Christian fashion from 1555 and now.  Then it was a wool tunic and now it is a cotton T-shirt.  The piece highlighted another difference though; it showed that the Christian of the 16^th century was often burned for upholding their beliefs.  The martyr depicted was John Rogers who was born at the turn of the 16^th century in the area of Birmingham England and received his BA from Cambridge.

He is credited with having printed the first English bible, both OT and NT, where his contemporary, William Tyndale, would only print the NT before he was martyred.  He was granted a printing licensed to sell 1500 copies but did so under the name Thomas Matthew.  By 1553 he found himself in trouble for preaching against “pestilent Popery, idolatry, and superstition.”  Needless to say it was not a message well received by the administration of the time and his “denomination” the ‘Lollards’ was legislated against in 1554.  Yet a man so convicted upon God’s word could not nor would not be silent and he was to cheerfully be the first Protestant martyr, burned at the stake under the reign of Mary 1 “Bloody Mary” Queen of England.

So what’s that got to do with us you ask, ‘thank you, I thought you never would.’  We here in the West have enjoyed many, many years of religious freedom; we have enjoyed and be come drunk from the goodness of God.  Believing in some cases that God loves us ergo the blessing must continue.  We have been content to drop a few coins into the plate (when we had some left) that is passed for another to ‘go and bear my cross;’ content to let another bear our shame.  We count it a ‘blessing’ from God when we get back too much change or when the checkout missed that blouse or pair of socks after all God loves us.   

You see Angus highlighted far more that just the fashion difference of 1555 and now; he highlighted the fundamental difference between what it means to bear the name of Christ and just wearing Christ on your shirt.  There is a time coming that I fear is all to near when the T-shirt will be tolerated but the Tunic will not.  A time when all is tolerated except the Christian witness; the most restrictive, intolerant, and exclusive religion currently in the world, Islam, will be preferred over Christianity.  Why?  Only one reason God’s Christ.  Already men are in jail in Canada and England for preaching the “whole counsel of God’s word” where they call the “Good News” hate speech.  It will be necessary to display the Tunic or recant to the apostate T-shirt. 

So Christian, get out the Tunic, begin to practice and be ready for when the test comes…for it is coming should God tarry.