Written by: Tendai Chitsike
Article source: JOY! Magazine
Christian media outlets recently ran the story of an award-winning Christian artist coming out in full support of gay marriage. In defence of her position (supporting a family member’s gay wedding), she reminded her audience of the oft-used mantra that ‘love is love’. I was struck by how this event is, in many ways, a microcosm of what is happening in the West: the temptation to abandon the truth of God’s Word to remain popular with family, friends, fans, and followers.
None of us are immune to temptation
As popular culture does an about-turn on long-held beliefs, many are now discovering that true Christianity is not a popularity contest. The implications of this are wide-ranging. Parents wonder whether they will be despised by their own children, scholars and students realise that they will likely be ridiculed for their faith, and popular Christian artists, pastors, and ‘influencers’ are discovering that they must ultimately choose between being Biblically faithful and culturally unpopular or compromising the truth to preserve wide acceptance. In this climate, none of us are immune to the temptation to twist the truth, to be inappropriately silent, or to abandon the truth altogether.
In view of this predicament, what are we to do?
First, we must accept and embrace the words of Jesus found in Matthew 10:22 and elsewhere: “All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” If they hated Jesus, we should expect derision and ridicule from those who oppose Christ. We dare not sacrifice the truth of the Gospel for the sake of being ‘nice’, ‘winsome’, or ‘relevant’. At the same time, we ought to remember that though we may be despised by men, we are never abandoned by Christ. From there, we must respond with the unmerited grace that we have received, rather than a self-righteous attitude that gives opponents a justification for their position.
Difficult as it is, we must raise our kids with the understanding that we are raising them to live in the light of truth and not the fashions of the day. For those in church leadership or unofficial influence, faithfulness and not popularity must be the goal. All this must be lived out with an eternal perspective, remembering that our lives are hidden with Christ, and our primary citizenship is in His everlasting Kingdom.
The pre-eminence of the Word
John Cooper, lead singer of Christian rock band Skillet, aptly demonstrated how we can engage. After seeing a prominent young pastor and a worship leader abandon the faith, apparently in favour of culturally popular trends, Cooper wrote an extensive Facebook post in 2019, shared over 41,000 times, in which he declared:
“It is time for the church to rediscover the pre-eminence of the Word. And to value the teaching of the Word. We need to value truth over feeling. Truth over emotion. And what we are seeing now is the result of the church raising up influencers who did not supremely value truth who have led a generation who also do not believe in the supremacy of truth.”
Cooper ends the address in a similarly prophetic tone, calling the church back to the Word of God:
“Brothers and sisters in the faith all around the world, pastors, teachers, worship leaders, influencers… I implore you, please in your search for relevancy for the Gospel, let us NOT find creative ways to shape God’s Word into the image of our culture by stifling inconvenient truths. But rather let us hold on even tighter to the anchor of the living Word of God. For He changes NOT. ‘The grass withers and the flowers fade away, but the word of our God stands forever’ – Isaiah 40:8.”
Click here to KEEP UPDATED on the latest news by subscribing to our FREE weekly newsletter.
Date published: 13/02/2023
Tendai Chitsike – Pastor of Every Nation Church in Makhanda. Email: engrahamstown@gmail.com
DISCLAIMER
JOY! News is a Christian news portal that shares pre-published articles by writers around the world. Each article is sourced and linked to the origin, and each article is credited with the author’s name. Although we do publish many articles that have been written in-house by JOY! journalists, we do not exclusively create our own content. Any views or opinions presented on this website are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company.
