From Daniel Darling at crosswalk.com
"People are tired of the culture war." "The culture war is over." "Christians need to stop being so political." "Christians are damaging the brand with their involvement in politics."
Have you heard any of these statements lately? I have. And I've made these statements. Our generation is in the midst of a good discussion on the nexus between faith and politics. We're a bit weary of a previous generation's highly partisan nature. We feel the Christian brand has been badly damaged. We're not culture warriors.
Or so we think. Except isn't interesting how hypocritical we actually are. I was thinking about the other day. There are some issues that have been labeled as partisan and divisive. For instance, to be loudly pro-life is to be considered too partisan. Stop fighting the culture wars. Preach the gospel instead. Love people.
And yet, if you were to replace your advocacy for the unborn with, say, advocacy for starving children, both here and overseas, you'd be lauded as a hero. You might even have one of those blog widgets where you encourage everyone to get involved. You'd be considered a compassionate Christian -- a different kind of Christian than those angry, right-wing types that talk too much about those babies being killed every day in increasingly heinous ways…
But if we are to be faithful to what God has called us to do, there will be times when our advocacy will have the media and the opinion makers singing our praises. And there will be other moments when our faithful positions will bring us derision.
Which will make us, yes even us enlightened ones, culture warriors. We'd better get used to it.
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