Lately I’ve been thinking (and yes – it did hurt), Christians in the West are facing a threat the likes of which we have not seen in many of our lifetimes. We face a culture change around us that has begun the process of turning the Christian believer from the moral majority to the immoral minority.
By this, I mean that the culture around us has changed from holding largely ‘christianised’ values and where Christians would be seen as generally good, we have gone through the process of cultural values shifting from this to be more liberal and progressive and Christians viewed as being weak, ‘wet’ and generally old fashioned but otherwise harmless, to a situation now where Christian values are largely viewed as wrong and harmful to society.
It is of genuine concern where this will lead next for those who seek to remain faithful to Christ.
I have heard it said that when real and serious persecution hits Christians in this nation, 80% will capitulate and metamorphose their values to be slightly ‘christianised’ versions of the prevailing values in the culture around them, 10% will leave the country and the remaining 10% will stand firm. Now, these were never intended to be accurate statistics or predictions, more given to make a point. And it is a stark point. One that has genuinely got me thinking.
Because, as ever, we have three enemies. The world. The flesh. And the devil. And I am worried. The threat of the world is growing as a big, shouty, nefarious monster. Those who would argue to me that they understand the threat that is coming to the faithful believer seem fixated on this threat from the world. So much so that the threat from the flesh and the devil is all rolled into this one big ‘issue of the day’ .
But what is the threat? What is it that Christians are to fear? Is it imbibing a false ideology from the cultural air we breathe? Maybe… Is it social and professional death as we find we can no longer live in the world and maintain our value structures? Perhaps…. Is it imprisonment or even death & martyrdom? That does sound scary….
The threat is apostasy.
The threat is that we will abandon our faith in Christ, if that were indeed possible for us to do.
And this is what has gotten me thinking. I fear that it is entirely possible to become so fixated on the changing ideology and culture around us that we forget to mount an effective rear-guard action. We become so fixated on the threat from the world, that we ignore the threat from the flesh and the devil. And before you know it, we have maintained our Christian ideology on the big issue of the day, but we have abandoned our faith in Christ, his gospel & his word.
Let’s assume that 80% will cave in this current onslaught we face. I sincerely doubt that the full 80% will abandon their faith in Christ by ‘going woke’ and accepting the prevailing ideology of the age.
Some will compromise their faith in Christ by seeking protection from a powerful institution. Perhaps some will seek a return to the Catholic church, a vast and powerful institution providing a safe haven to hold a Christian ideology, whilst for some that will mean sacrificing the sufficiency of Jesus death on the cross.
Others will become so fixated on protecting themselves and others from the prevailing cultural ideology that in their preaching, their reading, their speech, their applications of the Bible, they become solely fixed on this one issue of the day, such that other key doctrines of the Christian faith are left by the wayside of neglect. Like a frog in a kettle, oblivious to danger, their faith is no longer in Christ but in the fact that they have not adopted the prevailing cultural ideology. Proud they stand at the front declaring thanks to God that they are the faithful few, not like these others who are not so clear as them, who don’t get ‘it’.
Others will no longer believe in the power of the gospel, the Holy Spirit and the word of God to protect them or, more importantly, their children from the ‘attack’ and so will put their trust in some form of Christian education to protect their children and their family. I should note there are many good reasons beyond this to educate your children at home or in a Christian school, but when your sole motivation is entrusting their spiritual welfare to the school or to home education, insisting it is a gospel issue because we do not believe anyone can survive as a Christian outside of this environment, then I think we have big problems.
We need to ask ourselves if we are entrusting our salvation, and our children’s salvation, to Christ or to the means and environment in which they are educated.
Knowing biblical and church history helps a lot here as we see how faithful men and women in the past clung to faith in Christ amidst threats far more significant than we face today. I mean, we could even look to Christians in other countries today to learn how it’s done.
My point is simple. The threat to Christians is always the same. That we will abandon our faith in Christ.
There are many tactics that can be employed to achieve that one end game (just read the Screwtape letters for a some good illustrations of this) and because there are so many tactics we cannot allow ourselves to be misdirected by whatever threat seems to be looming largest.
This could well be another tactic, another deception. A misdirection to stop us from seeing the real issue.
The gold at the centre, the core, the essence, is to know Christ. And through Christ to know God and through his death and faith in him to be reconciled to God for all eternity.
Ultimately if we are to stand firm we need to direct ourselves to hold fast to what we are, a people belonging to God. And we must hold fast to how we got there, salvation by grace alone, in Christ Alone, through faith alone.
There is wisdom in understanding the cultural forces and historical movements that have brought this threat upon us, but knowing this will not save you. Knowing this will not protect you.
If this is where you fix your gaze you run the risk of becoming like Daniel LaRusso in the Karate Kid 3. Tricked into believing that his training made him practically invincible, but all the while ignorant of the fact that he was a sitting duck for his opponent.
There is wisdom in thinking through how we educate our children, but a sound Christian education will not save them. It will not protect them.
There is wisdom in understanding the theological implications of the differing ideologies we may encounter throughout our life. In fact, it is very wise to devote time to thinking Christianly about everything we engage with. But understanding reasons why something is wrong, even understanding them biblically will not save you and it will not protect (though it will be an aid to clear Christian thinking).
Ultimately, we turn to Acts 4:12. Salvation is found in no-one else. Jesus Christ and him alone. So fix your eyes on him first. Lest we end up like the Church in Ephesus in Revelation 2.
They could not tolerate evil people. They tested those who claimed to be apostles but were not and they knew them to be liars. They laboured and they endured much hardship. But in all of that, they abandoned their first love. They abandoned Christ.
Despite their clarity, despite their rejection of all falsehood and error, Christ looks upon and them and declares them to have fallen far. He declares that unless they change and remember him, their lampstand (in effect their church Rev 1v20) will cease to be.
It is a scary thought to know that the church in Ephesus, where Paul had engaged in so much ministry, did not survive. They fell, not because they fell in with the big evil of the day.
They fell because they became more about what they were not than what they were.
They fell because their hope was focussed on their rejection of evil and so they abandoned their hope in Christ.
This is a scary thought.
It is scarier still to ask the question…for how many years did the gathering continue, preaching against the evils of the age around them and doing so in the name of Christ, even though it was no longer a gathering of Jesus’ people.
A gathering of people, but not a church.
