Thursday, August 27, 2015

The Dangerous Faith

Other than while acting in the service of governments, real Christians don’t generally use guns, knives or bombs on our fellow men. We’re not looking to conquer the world by force of arms. Instead, we seek to persuade men and women of the truth of what we believe.

In theory, persuasion is a fairly inoffensive process compared to, say, armed invasion. Still, some people respond to the Christian faith with outright hostility. Others are more laid back, a subject we touched on in a post a few days ago.

But as Immanuel Can notes in the comments, our dealings with mellow agnostics are just as much “warfare” as when we engage with hostiles, and may be perceived as threatening even when the message is graciously and lovingly delivered.

Hmm. Maybe it’s the peculiar tendency of the Christian faith to knock things down:
“The word of God speaks about ‘fortresses’, meaning speculations and ‘lofty things raised up against the knowledge of God’ (2 Cor. 10:4-5). It calls the challenging of these things ‘warfare’. Is not an attitude of indifference — a shell of unconcern, a capitulation to pious platitudes like ‘live and let live’, or perhaps a diffident attitude — evidence of something ‘lofty’ being raised up against the knowledge of God? If so, why would we give it a pass in a way that we would not give a pass to an outright assault on truth?

I don’t think there are as many really indifferent people as there are people who use indifference to shut down a kind of conversation they’re unable to win.”
It is worth remembering that only God knows the heart of man and that appearances can be deceiving. Standing and fighting is only one possible response to perceived danger. Ducking and running is another.

On a related note, another blogger observes that — with few exceptions — atheists, agnostics and pagans are content to make common cause with very nearly any religion. Christianity always seems to be the “odd man out”.

Again, there is the perception that what we believe is dangerous:
“From Communists to Muslims to SJWs, various philosophies and religions have been more than happy to attempt to coopt Jesus Christ, because they believe he is dead. What they cannot countenance are the servants of the Living God, the followers of the Risen Christ, who despite our manifold failings, our observable flaws, our complete falling short of the glory of the God we worship, insist on attempting to tread upon the hard and narrow path rather than obediently follow the gentle, easy, thoughtless ways they advocate.

Christianity is the dangerous faith because it is the one faith that is rooted in truth rather than lies. It is the one real connection Man can make to the Divine. Yes, our understandings are imperfect, yes, we see as though through a glass, darkly, yes, our interpretations are various and contradictory, and yet, only in doing so, only through relentlessly pursuing the truth to the best of our ability can we begin to approach Truth.”
— Vox Day
“When men have run into a straw house, to knock it down before the wolf arrives just might be the kindest thing you can do.”

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