One of my professors in seminary once remarked that while the two states of the Church in the rest of the world were “the Church Triumphant” and “the Church Militant”, in India the Church had a third category—“the Church Litigant”.

The concept of the states of the Church originated in Roman Catholic theology. The Roman Catholics did have a third category, “the Church Penitent” to describe “the Church Suffering”, by which they meant those stuck in purgatory. Since Protestants don’t believe in purgatory, they said that the Church existed only as Militant and Triumphant.

The Church in the triumphant state consists of believers who have fought the good fight, passed from this life and entered into their rest, triumphant in Christ.

The Church Militant
In the militant state, the followers of Christ war against, sin, the Devil and the world. Resisting sin and worldliness is no doubt a spiritual struggle, and it is no easy battle that we engage in. We often suffer defeats and experience discouragement. Sadly, our spiritual progress is a lot of the time taking three steps forward and two steps backward, followed by two steps forward and three steps backward and so on. It is very slow and hard.

It is not just spiritual warfare though, because the world’s peoples and rulers use all their temporal powers to trouble, harass, victimise, and torture believers. Enter the Church Persecuted, a subclass within the Church Militant. They bear the wounds of warfare in their bodies. As the Apostle said, a Christian is crucified to the world with Christ and bears the marks of Christ’s wounds (Gal. 6:14, 17).

From Scripture, we know that the Triumphant Lord noted that there were different types of churches. Some had abandoned their first love (Rev. 2:1-7), while others countenanced heresy (vv. 12-17) and some allowed heretics to have a teaching role (vv.18-29). Some had a reputation to be a live church, but were dead and dying (3:1-6), and then there were churches that were lukewarm, getting along with all sides to make temporal gains from all sides (vv.14-22). All of them identified as Christian, but the Lord condemned their compromises and challenged them to “overcome” (conquer) their shortcomings and failures if they sought to be blessed eternally.

The Church Persecuted
On the other hand, the Lord was not critical of the churches that were faithful under persecution (2:8-11). Some were weak, but still they kept the faith and all that Jesus did was to encourage them to remain faithful (3:7-13). The Lord didn’t have one word of criticism against these churches.

The Church Persecuted doesn’t have the time to pursue temporal goals. This is why Christians and churches that undergo persecution are never the Church Litigant. They cannot be diverted from their ultimate goal to serve Christ and glorify Him.

The Church Litigant
In the Church Litigant, all the militancy is directed inward to fight with each other. Our Lord said that a Kingdom divided against itself cannot survive. It is engaged in self-destruction (Matt.12:25).

Paul observed that Christians in Corinth were taking one another to court:
“The fact that you have lawsuits against each other shows that you are already defeated. Why not let yourselves be wronged? Why not let yourselves be cheated? But you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do this to other believers!” (1 Cor. 6:7-8)

Do Christians persecute each other? I believe they do. When people sue one another to gain more in the temporal realm of the Kingdom that is what they do.

Often those in authority abuse their powers by harassing subordinates. One of the sore points for subordinates is that their superiors abuse their power to transfer employees. Transfers are done in the name of the denomination/parachurch organisations pressing needs, but the way it is done, it would appear that are some are targetted, harassed and victimised. Untimely transfers affect not just the employee, but the entire family: the spouse has to give up a good job and may not find one comparable; school-going children have to find admission in the new place, and that is very awkward because they are not seeking admission at entry level but somewhere in the middle, which principals say is not possible because pupils from the lower class have been promoted and all the places taken, etc.

A desperate subordinate may feel justified in seeking justice in a court of law. When this happens, the superior authority “appears” to take the moral high ground deploring the lack of spiritual values on the part of the employee. Without justifying the employee going to court, it is not right or fair that someone who has all the privileges and perks of high office, should do this sort of thing forcing the subordinate to take a line of action that goes against biblical teaching. The truth is that the prior injustice and immorality was committed by the superior officer. Not everyone has the moral courage or the faith to do what Scripture advocated: “let yourself be cheated”.

Fighting the Enemy
When there is no in-fighting such as in litigation, the Church has the time to be the Church Militant—carrying the fight to the Enemy. That’s what the Master did: “He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross” (Col.2:15, NLT). We too would enter the strongholds of the Devil to rescue those who have been kept captive: “We do live in the world, but we do not fight in the same way the world fights. We fight with weapons that are different from those the world uses. Our weapons have power from God that can destroy the enemy’s strong places. We destroy people’s arguments and every proud thing that raises itself against the knowledge of God. We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10: 3-5, NCV).

The Devil and his foot soldiers are not going to surrender their captives without a fight. That is how persecution starts. We are not to seek persecution, though. Our Lord didn’t. There were times when He quietly slipped away and escaped getting lynched (Jn. 8: 59; 10:39; 12:36). However, if our standing for Jesus and proclaiming He is the only Saviour for all people results in our being persecuted we are not to do anything to avoid persecution. That is what we are called to: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him” (Phil. 1:29).

Most Evangelicals have emphasised belief as the mark of the disciple. I was startled by these words of Paul: “Not only to believe...” We are called to suffer. It is “granted” to us.

We have brothers and sisters who already pay the cost of witnessing to Christ. If we could stop being the Church Litigant, we would have the time to support them in all the ways possible: praying for them; fighting for them to receive justice according to the Fundamental Rights of the Indian Constitution. And when our time comes, we’ll have the strength to be faithful under trial.