No shortcuts to Christian faithfulness

Texas has made news with legislation that uses a novel legal approach to reduce the number of abortions significantly. This, of course, has drawn a legal challenge from abortion activists and the Biden Justice department. Last week, the challenge went before the Supreme Court.

Court watchers try to read the tea leaves by analyzing every word that comes out of the mouths of the Justices. One day we are up; the next day we are down. Opposition is fierce and the battle rages. There’s a lesson for Christians in the humdrum of cultural conflict—be patient, and faithful.

As Christians who seek to influence the public square, we often find ourselves hesitating before the prophetic demand for decision. Elijah demands that the people of Israel make up their minds: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). We are told that the people “did not answer a word.” It is easy to be paralyzed by polarization. It is hard to speak up when doing so means alienating others, causing division, and inciting hatred.

Elijah was hard on his fellow Israelites. He did not suffer fools gladly and had little patience for nuance. He wanted decisive action. He knew it was a war, and he knew that those who wished to compromise were wasting their time.

In the current battle over abortion (and the culture wars generally), we find it hard as conservative Christians to go “full Elijah mode.” And there is an important reason why that goes deeper than just cowardice or apathy. We are under orders from our Lord Jesus Christ to preach the gospel to the whole world. Our main objective is not to reform the current political order but to make disciples from the nations. The former is not in opposition to the latter and may in fact be a result of it.

Now, of course, like the Christians of every generation, we are also parents and citizens, and we want to see justice done in our society. We want the good rewarded and evil punished by the government (Romans 13:4). And if we encounter persecution and hatred for wanting that, we can console ourselves with the thought that Jesus himself predicted that we would be hated for his sake and that “whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2).

But we might wonder if our “culture warrior” stance detracts from our gospel witness. There is an influential school of thought in evangelical circles that assumes that the best way to reach our community is to find issues on which the non-Christian majority agrees with us and emphasize those issues so as to create the impression of common ground in the hope that this will create receptivity to the gospel in the hearts of those we hope to reach.

We are thus torn between wanting to speak up for justice for babies, on the one hand, and wanting to find common ground with our non-Christian neighbors, on the other. What to do?

First, we cannot control the reaction non-Christians have to the gospel or other biblical truths. If we try to manipulate people by pretending that there is more common ground than there really is, it can just as easily backfire as produce the hoped-for openness. Non-Christians are not stupid.

Second, we must expect persecution. In the passage quoted above (John 16:2), Jesus is specifically speaking about being hated for being Christians. We must accept that the unregenerate person hates what we love. For that reason, we need to listen to Elijah.

Third, we must not romanticize persecution as if it were no big deal. Those who glibly cite Tertullian’s “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” had better be ready to die at a moment’s notice. We should not assume that the outcome of persecution will be the conversion of the government as in fourth-century Rome. It might just as easily be the conquest of fifth-century Christian North Africa and the eradication of the church from that part of the world. Our task is to be faithful, and then to face whatever circumstances may come.

We need to be loving, but we need the virtues of prudence and courage as well. There will be many ups and downs in the long war over abortion and many others as well. The Supreme Court may give us hope one day and dash it the next. We need to be clear-eyed and realistic; Jesus wins in the end, but the end may still be far off. Are we up for that sort of challenge?