“If the world is against the truth, then I am against the world: – St. Athanasius
Something that I have been reflecting on the last couple weeks is how we in the Church try to interact with the world. There have been in recent years strong currents seeking to have the culture look favorably at the Church. From what I have heard the logic goes this way, “if we are kind and nice, then people will listen to us.”…or something along those lines.
I understand the tension that people are trying to bridge here. As follower of Christ we are to be loving, as Christ was. And that should be a goal for all of us. But what I have been seeing is a desire to be lauded and seen positively by the culture. This does not work. Something that we have forgotten in our attempts to be seen and accepted is the reality that before salvation we are at enmity or opposed to God (Romans 8:7). In fact, the book of James has even stronger words to say, “do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God?” (James 4:4 NET).
So while these intentions have been seeking to do something positive (having an opportunity to hose Christ), it is ultimately misguided because it will not work. The world is not just full of people who are opposed to God, there is more going on than we often recognize. There are as well spiritual forces that are at play, influencing and directing people against God (Ephesians 2:1-2).
Again, this must be balanced an in proper tension. This is not permission for Christians to go in a bull in a china shop, and just be a jerk. No! We are called to love those who are in need of love. We are called to show that we are apart of a different Kingdom by imitating what Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount. But we also must be understanding in how all of this goes down in reality. No amount of being cozy with the world, and trying to make good will work. There will always be opposition to the true preaching of the Gospel, because it gets to the heart of humanities opposition to God.
This does mean that then, at times we will have to be against the world. Maybe more often than we think. This is the wisdom that St. Athanasius shares in the quote above. His life exemplified this truth. He was exiled numerous times for standing for the truth of Scripture as to the nature of Christ. But he counted all those things as loss, because the knowledge of Christ as He truly is was worth it. And in that he had to be in opposition to something that seemed popular.
For Athanasius the issue was the deity and nature of Christ. I believe that there are issues the Church is contending with in our day that are certainly uncomfortable to address, but are essential because they speak to core issues of the Gospel, and it’s transformative power in our lives. Being a city on a hill, as Christ called us to be means that we will stand out in the darkness.