Can Christianity Survive Our Culture?
Christianity requires its followers to leave all secular worldviews. We live in an age where God is denied and militant atheists attack any vintage of the sacred. With the increase of unbelief and other secular worldviews and the diminishing of the exclusiveness of Christianity, we often wonder if Christianity will survive our culture. The answer is YES. Christianity is the work of God therefore divine and the divine cannot be overpowered. We may have fewer adherents to Christianity, but none the less Christianity will survive our present and future cultures. It has done so many times in previous centuries. Christianity is truth and truth is absolute. Truth does not cease being truth.
The War Against Christianity
Society has always been at war against Christianity, the Divine, the sacred, and the spiritual. Society always will be at war with these. We are reminded that Christians “must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God [heaven]” (Acts 14:22). Timothy was told, “For therefore, we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is Savior of all men, specially of those who believe” (l Timothy 4:10). “Yea, and all they that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). Some times our faith in genuine practice will cause non-believers to “speak against you [us] as evildoers” (1 Peter 2:12).
We know of examples of persecution in the first century—Stephen (Acts 7), James (Acts 12) , Paul (1 Corinthians 11:21-33), Peter (John 21:18-19), John (Revelation 1:9), Antipas (Revelation 2:10), etc. Church history beyond the New Testament contains multitudes of Christian persecuted “even to death” (Revelation 2:10). A disciple of the apostle John, Ignatius of Antioch, was martyred by the Roman Emperor Trajan who ruled from AD 98-117. Trajan demanded Ignatius to renounce Jesus and make a public sacrifice to idols proving his loyalty to Rome. He refused. Trajan order Ignatius to be thrown into the Roman stadium to the wild beasts and for the enjoyment of the pagan crowds who paid for such entertainment. Ignatius died for his faith. Christianity is something to love, to fight for, and if need be, to die for.
The Winning of Christianity Against Culture
Whether or not in our time we will be called upon to become martyrs, as Ignatius and others, we know not; however, this we do know—the case for Christianity is so strong that those who are faithful, though they may be few numerically, will win against secular culture.
We reason this way because of the things we know. First, we know God and truth are inseparable. For a person to reject God, he rejects truth. For a person to reject truth, he rejects God. Second, our culture is filled with uncertainty and apathy in reference to truth and the sacred; however, the biblical worldview is a clear message for the purpose of confronting society’s unbelief and uncertainty.
God’s wisdom (the biblical worldview) is set in contrast to man’s wisdom (the secular worldview) in 1 Corinthians 1:17-31. What the secular worldviews offer is ineffective and unable to meet man’s needs—salvation, guidance in life, hope, and heaven. There is no worldview, or combination thereof, which enables man to walk worthy of the Lord (cf. Colossians 1:9-10). Even the weakness of God IS stronger than any worldview of men (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:25).
We need not fear. Our present culture does not have the power to trample God and His way to where God is defeated (cf. Hebrews 10:29). Let us be faithful to Jesus. While we are at war, remember “the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord know them that are His” (2 Timothy 2:19). Be faithful!