Articles
Comfortable Christianity
Human beings generally crave comfort. We like peace, rest, balance -- and we dislike friction, stress and disapproval.
That’s OK as far as it goes, but we do have a problem in practical terms. The problem is that we as Christians have adopted ideals and principles that stand in stark contrast to our worldly surroundings. These differences are not minor or inconsequential; words such as “hate” and “war” are used to describe them:
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“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19-20).
- “Wage the good warfare ... fight the good fight of faith. ... You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier” (I Tim. 1:18; 6:12; II Tim 2:3-4).
Soldiers get battle-weary. Controversy wears thin. Rejection hurts. The tendency, if we are not clear on the adversarial nature of the gospel and righteousness, is to carve out a comfortable place for our faith. This may be manifested in various ways:
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Avoiding conversation on moral or spiritual issues because “the world just doesn’t understand us anyway.”
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Walling ourselves off from neighbors because we are convinced that we likely wouldn’t have much impact on them.
- Going along with questionable things at work because we must protect our job security.
The tendency we are discussing really comes down to whether we believe Jesus is asking us to live a radically different life from those around us.
If we blend in to the point that no one knows we’re a Christian, no one knows what we stand for, or maybe no one knows us at all, then we aren’t the salt and light the Lord has called us to be: “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matt. 5:14).
