I used to be talking to a friend in regards to the challenges that we Christians face today when he said, ‘We are swimming against the present – the world has lost its reason.’ The phrase struck me and I’ve been pondering it.
The first phrase – ‘swimming against the present’ – is a truth that we Christian’s face opposition from our culture that opposes our faith, convictions and values. In Britain the ‘cultural current’ has been flowing strongly against the Christian faith for over a century. There is way within the Bible about how God’s people must resist the force imposed by the world about them. We are to be different: we should go against the flow, stand firm and ‘march to the beat of a distinct drum’.
On considering the second thought – ‘the world has lost its reason’ – I realised that there are actually latest complexities in swimming against the present. While we’d once have imagined that we were engaged in swimming up some slow, regular flowing river, a more realistic image today is that we’re in some windswept tidal estuary through which the waters swirl chaotically. Today, the forces pressing upon us are strong in a single direction, tomorrow they’re moving into one other direction. The world has modified, and with it the currents we face.
Here I believe we’d like to know the culture that we face within the West today. What we call Western ‘culture’ didn’t arise in a vacuum but was formed by the Christian faith over 2,000 years. At its heart was a belief in Jesus and his revelation within the Bible. With this got here a morality – a worldview – through which things like truth, charity, justice, humility and marriage were valued, as was the price of each individual, nevertheless poor or frail. Christianity gave the West values, principles and standards. Life had a rule book.
Around 250 years ago philosophers began undermining the basics of the religion, and shortly culture – art, music, literature and, increasingly, beliefs typically – followed them. The values of Christianity are strong and enduring but, because the tree of religion was left to wither, so, inevitably, its fruit failed. Most of those that sought the eradication of Christianity believed that, with its influence removed, the world now liberated from God would enjoy a latest freedom. Of course, it proved otherwise. The lack of Christianity on the core of our culture has left a confused, troubled vacuum through which all types of ideas and movements, some secular and a few spiritual, compete aggressively for influence.
In fact the Western world has indeed ‘lost its reason’ in two senses. It has lost its rationale, its reason for existence; it’s now ignorant not only of what is right and fallacious but even of what it stands for. Yet it has also ‘lost its reason’ since it has develop into an mental chaos through which nothing is for certain except uncertainty. The mood today is certainly one of confusion and confrontation; whether in politics, social considering or philosophy there may be now no quiet middle ground of consensus but only noisy extremes and bitter disagreement. Are we in favour of consumption or conservation, integration or individualism, liberalisation or laws, wealth or welfare? The result’s that Christians today not face a single oncoming hostile army but are as a substitute caught up in a cultural civil war with crossfire coming from every direction. We face not only a current but many currents, ever changing and coming from many various directions.
So how are we Christians to answer this world through which we discover ourselves buffeted by a spread of unpredictable and powerful currents? Let me give you 4 thoughts.
We must live in reality. We have to think realistically in regards to the world and our faith. With regard to the world, we can’t be naïve. The changes that we see are so deep and wide that outside some remarkable intervention by God in revival (oh, I pray it might be so!), they aren’t going to be easily and quickly reversed. Instead we must discern which of the various currents affecting us are essentially the most dangerous. After all, it might be that our most serious threat comes not from that current giving the noisy, visible waves but as a substitute from some quieter flow moving at depth. Yet it will not be all gloom. As God’s people found up to now, our opposition is split and battling against itself. We too must balance any awareness of threats with a confident faith within the One in whom we trust – the Lord Jesus Christ. This world, and indeed time itself, is in our heavenly Father’s hands. We can have faith that the Great Shepherd is not going to desert his sheep, especially when, within the darkness, the wolves are howling.
We must pursue strategy. In these volatile times there’s numerous fear about, and never just amongst Christians. Allies today can easily be opponents tomorrow. From a Christian viewpoint, there’s so much to be said for that popular phrase, ‘Don’t panic.’ Fear will not be only bad nevertheless it also fuels unwise decisions. We must reply to the world we face in a way that’s each spiritual and strategic. If we must fight, let or not it’s the suitable battle at the suitable time. There are some issues where we now have no option but to face our ground: it’s the ‘right hill to die on’. Yet there are other issues that we’d resolve are negotiable and even unimportant.
We must hold on to integrity. Perhaps the actual threat of our times will not be that Christians develop into overcome by the world but that, during combat, they develop into just like the world. That sobering comment of our Lord, ‘What good will or not it’s for somebody to realize the entire world, yet forfeit their soul?’ (Matthew 16:26 NIV) applies not simply to individuals, but to the church. To win a battle over the world in a sophisticated, underhand way, is to be defeated.
Finally, we’d like to make use of the opportunity. Here, I speak as an evangelist. Christians under pressure can retreat into sanctified circles that gaze inwards, and shut the doors against the skin world. We cannot do that! As Christians, and as churches, we either witness or we decline. But let me encourage you: one feature of our present troubled world is that it is stuffed with discontented people. Across the political and social spectrum, there are lots of who, often amid tears, have found their dreams for a greater world broken. A growing number are, just like the prodigal son within the ‘far country’, wondering whether it won’t be time to return to the house and the Father that they rejected.
As believers in Christ we now find ourselves struggling against shifting currents, various winds and changing tides. Yet above all, we must keep in mind that our Lord is the master of the stormiest of waters and we will trust him, in his time, to bring us secure to port. We remember too his words in John 16:33 (NIV): ‘I actually have told you these items, in order that in me you could have peace. In this world you should have trouble. But take heart! I actually have overcome the world.’ Amen!
