Here I Stand

I know of no way of getting at the subject du jour other than to simply wade right in. Jesus left a lot of comforting promises for his church. But he also made one that merits unease; namely, that the world will hate his followers. Since we don’t shy from the hard stuff in these offerings, let’s have a go at it.

It didn’t take long for the followers of Jesus to discover the harsh reality of that statement. Ten of the original twelve disciples would die a martyr’s death. John, the author whom we’ve been following, would die in exile. The early church would be blamed for the burning of Rome. Paul himself would meet the executioner’s sword during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Things would remain dicey for the next 300 years.

But all of that notwithstanding, there were still cultural supports that made the message of the Christian faith plausible, even during the hard times. The movement didn’t merely hold to an ancient path, it bowed to eternal, axiomatic truth. We’ve covered this ground in other writings so I’ll be brief. Truth, as the philosophers and theologians had long said, is outside of time. Some things are right. Some things are wrong. When the ancients thought it through, they wisely concluded that none would wish to live in a world where all values were relative.
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This time it is different. We live in a culture that creates a novel moral meme per minute, which can go viral within days and can become the new norm within weeks. And then, we can find ourselves rather quickly at odds with a new cultural norm that has only been on the social radar screen for a few months! One of the chief character qualities of the meme offensive is, in fact, the enthronement of offense. Some have carved a lucrative career path out of marketing offense. Thus, any who hold to a conventional view on any number of issues can easily become the unwitting strawman of the professionally offended’s animus.

I may be a little ahead of myself. I do not consider myself at all any sort of victim or particularly singled out for hate. But that is more a virtue of stealth than of luck. I don’t go looking for trouble or persecution. I’m no spiritual masochist. Yet the buzz that surrounds my daily existence in the marketplace of ideas assures me that ancient, axiomatic, propositional truth is not at all in the vanguard. It is mocked. It is ridiculed. It is in fact hated. We can run or we can stand. I choose to stand. It’s my turn. I’m comforted by the long ago words of Martin Luther who said this at the Diet of Worms: “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.” Amen and amen.