The knives are out, but Christians must hold on to the truth
by Will Jones, The Conservative Woman:
It is a challenging time to be a Christian. A real Christian, I mean, not one who has comfortably succumbed to the Zeitgeist. The vestiges of Christian culture seem visibly to shrink by the year, and remaining faithful to God and his word when the whole of culture is pulling in the opposite direction can begin to take its toll. Some, I am sure, will thrive on the thrill of standing up and standing out for Christ. Others (or perhaps the same people at different times) will feel the force in secular objections to Christian belief and sense their resolve weakening. Most will experience the temptations of worldly ways of living and the pressure to conform for the sake of getting on and fitting in. Faithful witness will be hard-won.
The great idols of our age are sex and autonomy, often combined. The most sacred thing in our culture is the freedom to define your own sense of who you are and to live it out, especially in the area of sex and sexuality, though also in others such as race and culture. Even our children at school are invited to consider what their sexual preferences are, what sex they think they are, and to live in accordance with those self-conceptions. Ethnic and religious minorities, and other people regarded as historically oppressed, such as women, are encouraged to live according to their own values and beliefs, their own conception of what is right and wrong for them. Meanwhile those regarded as historically dominant and the oppressor – typically some combination of Christian, white and male – are required to lay down their claims and ‘get out of the new road if you can’t lend your hand’, as Bob Dylan memorably put it. Any concerns or objections about this agenda of ‘liberation’ for those deemed oppressed – even concerns grounded in empirical evidence and rational argument – are regarded as evidence of bigotry and hatred and are responded to with the full force of social condemnation and, often, law. It is a one-sided liberation, then: freedom for groups deemed historically oppressed or disadvantaged, authoritarian strictures for those deemed to be privileged and to have contributed to the oppression and disadvantage.
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