Depending on which book, blog, or research that you read, it can seem that our western culture is becoming less tolerant of the Christian faith. No longer must we hold to a naïve assumption that Christianity is celebrated and wanted in the public square. The Christian worldview is increasingly sequestered while competing worldviews are elevated, which can leave Christians uneasy at best and afraid at worst. So the question begs: How can followers of Jesus remain faithful in light of this cultural situation?
Matt Chandler, pastor of the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, has provided needed insight into an answer for this question. In a recently published video from the Gospel Coalition, Chandler exhorts Christians, and Christian leaders in particular, to pursue two actions. First, that we grow in painting a picture for others that God’s way is more beautiful than the world’s way. It would probably be better for Christ followers to rant and complain less and do more communicating what God is after in regards to human flourishing.
Secondly, it’s so important that believers be saturated in the grace of God. It’s easy to point a law-abiding finger and to expose the shameful acts within our culture. Though the wrongness of sinful actions is apparent, it’s important to remember that highly secularized people don’t really have a category for sin, but they do have a category for beauty. Practically, this means it is more effective to communicate first the beauty of what is God is after and then communicate the weaknesses and deficiencies of aberrant beliefs in the culture.
