The tides of culture wash in and out, they sway one way and then the other, and perhaps this is how it has always been. There certainly have been times in history when Christian faith has been so dominant in society that different Christian traditions (Congregationalists, Anglicans, Methods, etc) have been able to maintain fellowship but still keep their distance and their distinctives. Likewise, and more importantly, Christians (including all three of the examples just given) have been able to distinguish themselves from other quasi-Christian religions, such as Roman Catholicism, Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. What category do we put Eastern Orthodoxy into? Good question, and perhaps a discussion for another time.
Whereas in past eras, these groups have often had the space to stay distinct from one another, something different is happening in our day. The culture around us is moving the Overton Window quickly to the left, and lumping everyone to the right of that place as ‘far-right’, or whatever other pejorative is popular for the day.
So, when a sincere Roman Catholic man called Matt Walsh makes a superb but harrowing documentary about the sexual insanity of our day (What is a woman? linked here and here), we witness one little example of the great trash compactor we find ourselves in.
Matt Walsh is not a Christian, but in this fight he is our ally. Some would use the term co-belligerent. In this season, believing Christians will find themselves squished closer and closer to old-fashioned believing Roman Catholics and probably even some old-fashioned sincere Mormons, since all three groups recognise that abortion is evil.
That’s no problem, though, right? It would be, except for the fact that many Protestants today are not Protestant due to some doctrinal conviction, but merely because they don’t know any other kind of Christianity, and Protestantism (in one if its forms) was probably the version they were raised in, or found first when they joined a church. We will need to know why we reject Rome’s claims to authority. We will need to know on what basis Joseph Smith is not a prophet of God. The same goes for Muhammad.
This author can stand side by side with a Sunni Muslim in wholehearted agreement that the young men of our generation are being pacified, desexed and enslaved by their addiction to porn. However, if this author is not then ready to explain why the 66 books of Scripture are the only revelation of the Yahweh of Scripture, and that Muhammad was not a prophet of God, and that Jesus wasn’t a muslim and so on, then we have a problem.
This is a call to realise that we are being pushed into a corner with people who share some common goals, but whose foundations are different and corrupt. These people are not our enemies, but we have to be prepared, as Peter said in his first Epistle, to give a defence for the hope that we have, and to do so with gentleness and respect.
After all, we bring good news. The best news.
Distilled Orthopraxy 