A New World A'Comin'

Fascinating article from Steve McAlpine about "Exile". He speaks of "Exile Stage One" which began a few decades ago when Christians started noting that the world was passing us by. So they set about thinking of ways to avoid becoming irrelevant. Enter what he calls "Exile Stage Two". The title of the article is "Stage Two Exile: Are You Ready for It?" And he makes some excellent points.

He points to the efforts he and others put into the first stage and then gives a detailing of the errors of that effort.

1. We Assumed Athens, not Babylon

In Athens, it was intellectualism. "Let's talk about this." In Babylon, it was exile. Athens considers the possibilities and evaluates. Babylon summarily relegates to the dungeon.

2. We Assumed a Neutral Culture, Not a Hostile World

The idea is that we have a "blank slate" world that we can influence, convince, convert. The world, however, is not a "blank slate". The Bible says the world hates Christ and His followers.

3. We Loosened Our Language Just When the Cultural Elites Were Tightening Theirs

In order to reach the culture, we eased up on "sin" and "wrong" and other "offensive" words, enabling the anti-Christian world to steal them, subvert them, and feed them back poisoned. For instance, Christianity no longer has "archaic" or "strange" sexual ethics, we now have "bad", even "sinful" ones. (Think about it. How many times of late have you heard that a biblical stance that homosexual behavior is sin is called "evil", even "sinful" from self-professed Christians?)

Well, of course, McAlpine's article is much longer than this and much fuller than this, but it rings of reality and bears a reasonable warning of what we might expect in the near future. We've enjoyed primacy for a long time in many quarters. Are you ready for exile? Read his article and see what you think.

(Note: In the comments Steve is asked if he's warning of dire persecution. He specifically states that he is not. Lest you think he is overstating.)