Now Is No Time to Abandon the Battlefield
By Father Bill Peckman …
In the first three centuries of Christianity, the Church was deemed dangerous because it denounced the cultural depravity of the time, it spoke about human rights when no one else did, it upheld the unity and mutual self giving love of the family, it put its actions where it teachings were. So many early Christians faced certain death, certain torture, certain rejection, and were willing to die tortuous deaths rather than abandon the faith.
In consequent centuries the struggle to keep that early fervor waned. Lines of division erupted over theological issues such as the Trinity, who Jesus was, and other such weighty matters. The Church suffered heretics and immorality. Many times members of the church embraced the various depravities it once stood against. Great saints called the clergy and the laity to rise back to the courage and compassion of our earliest forefathers. They called them to courageously embrace the countercultural nature of the Gospel.
In our time we have seen such a fall. Many churches have long abandoned the faith of the early Christians for a faith that accommodates the mores of the world. We have seen churches back away from human dignity expressed in sexuality and revert to the pagan idea of sensuality over dignity. So have many embraced the breakdown of the family, of the degredation of sexuality, and the Darwinian attitude to the suffering. Many Christians have embraced Mammon as a god. Even within the ranks of the clergy we see this reversion preached as what the Gospel really means. Many see it as a fait accompli. We accommodate because don’t have the courage to suffer. We accommodate because we don’t believe.
We live in historic times. If we don’t rise up in courage, strength, and true compassion then Christianity will continue on the road to irrelevance. We have a fundamental choice: do we stand with the brave or do we fade into darkness? We are told repeatedly to not be afraid. Our silence is complicity. Our breeding division is demonic. The devil delights in little more than a coopted Christian…moreso a coopted cleric. Remember, Christ prayed that we would be one, not a collection if warring tribes at each other’s throats. Our enemy is united and broken through our ranks. We must be united and strengthen what is harmed. Now is no time to abandon the battlefield.
