A reader struggles with hostility to the Faith

Last updated on: July 22, 2015 at 12:10 am by Mark Shea

A reader struggles with hostility to the Faith 2015-07-20T23:11:09-07:00 Mark Shea

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He writes:

I’m going to ask you some questions for advice and you can answer or not, but really I just want to get this off my chest, and towards someone who might reciprocate in a worthwhile manner.

Okey doke.

What do you do when everyone around you starts to view the Church as the enemy? I’m not an alarmist by any means. I don’t get caught up in conspiracy. But I see it slowly taking hold. Sin wins, and we’re the bad guys. What do you do with the rage that builds up when people so fervently celebrate abortion? How do you get over the fear of facing that? Facing the lost friendships that are sure to come? Facing the ridicule that will come. I know what the Bible says, but it’s easier said than done. I’m not a fighter, but I feel like I’m going to have to be. I’m angry all the time, and I know that’s not the right response, and I don’t think I’m so much angry at people as I am the Devil. I don’t know. I really don’t.

I don’t know that I’m worthy much as a counselor here, but since you ask, I’ll try to give the best I can. First, I don’t grant the premise. I don’t believe everyone around me views the Church as the enemy. To be sure, the Church has enemies and, to be sure, at various times nearly everybody regards the Church with hostility or at least with fear that is hard, at a practical level, to distinguish from betrayal. Both Judas and Peter did Jesus a fat lot of good on Good Friday. And yes, sometimes sin wins and kills Jesus or his saints. But our faith is that this is never the end of the story. Hollywood is seldom a place I turn for moral insight, but even showbiz has some wisdom in it. One saying I’ve always found useful is this piece of advice for actors: “You’re never as good or as bad as they say you are.” We humans are drunks. When we are riding high we believe it will never end and when we crash we believe we will never recover. But the truth is, the world wobbles. Our task as Christians is to keep our eyes on Christ, not on this world. As Paul says:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Col 3:1–4).

We want to believe the world has somehow evolved out of us being a murderous, selfish, fallen race. But fallen man remains what he is and our faith that laws and technology will change that is entirely naive. Every generation is a fresh wave of barbarians who must be taught Christ or live out their selfishness as we always have. But the good news is that, in fact, there are people turning a willing ear to the gospel, as well as people who are hostile to it. They are listening to Francis. They are listening to people like Fr. Barron. True, the gospel still has enemies. Always will. But it has friends too, and not a few of them are, at present, outside the Church and looking in with astonishment at something they never dreamed had good news for them.

So I can’t tell you you won’t lose friends or have hostile family members. Jesus warns as much. But I can tell you that he also says, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mk 10:29–30). The Church has been greatly distracted over a power struggle called the Culture Wars. The apostles did not concern themselves with that. They fought for righteousness, of course. And ultimately won. But they did not do so by fretting about how abortion and infant exposure was polling this week. They didn’t labor under the illusion that the world had outgrown its hostility to the gospel. So they kept their eyes on Christ, seeking first his kingdom. Eventually everything else (including abolition of abortion and infant exposure) was added as well. But this was a side benefit of the progress of the gospel.

So it is better to simply face the fact that if the world hated Christ it will hate you too than to live in the illusion that we are losing some kind of culture war that we could have won if we’d just held our mouth right or said or done some different political trick. Bottom line: eyes on Jesus, not on this world.

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