"You had me until you went religious."
I have opened myself up for comments like this since I recently started posting short videos expounding Bible verses on TikTok. This simple comment stuck with me for some reason.
I think it's because it says so much about the prevailing public attitude towards Christianity.
Unconsciously, Christian ethics are deeply ingrained in our society. People advocate for concepts like being kind to our neighbours and being generous to those in need. No one is arguing with that.
Yet give away that you're approaching these ideas from a 'religious' point of view and the respect stops.
The comment above was in response to a video I made about being slow to judge people because we don't see the full picture. This was the part that the commenter resonated with. Who wouldn't. Especially when explained by a story of a tradie underperforming at work because of a recent diagnosis.
But then I quoted a short scripture. The comment and the analytics on the video reveal the sudden change in attitude. Uh! Religion!
Where are we going wrong? What has gone wrong that so many people in a country that was once majority Christian are now dead against us? They may still celebrate 90 per cent of what Christianity teaches, but somehow, Christianity itself has developed a repulsive stench.
What's to be done?
We don't have time to go too much into the reasons why Christianity is on the decline now. It's likely due to a diverse number of reasons: for some it's a negative personal experience, for others it's simply a hardness towards the idea of a God who will hold them accountable, while for others, it's the increasingly documented failings of the institutional church. Perhaps it's a combination of these.
What's more pressing for me is how we as people who profess to follow in the way of Jesus should respond.
It's an important question and one we have not had to grapple with so much for many generations; it's been a long time since Christians in the West have not been in the majority.
An approach that won't work
Somehow I don't think there's much we can say. I don't think any reply to the comment I received above will change anything. We have been saying a lot of good things for some time.
The world has heard about everything we're against. And they have seen those who preach love do the most unloving things behind closed doors. Unfortunately our words don't carry much weight and even quoting from Scripture, as my recent experience shows, because the power of the life-giving words of God seem to be concealed from broader society by a cloud of scepticism.
This may have always been the case, as Jesus says about God in Matthew chapter 11 verse 25, "You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants." But I think there are other reasons people react against God's Word. Perhaps they have seen too much of people who quote the Bible without much to reflect the difference the Bible makes to their actual lives.
No shortcuts
Now more than ever we cannot afford to live on the surface of our faith. We can no longer get away with religious activities used to hide a lack of real life-change. People see right through it.
We must do the slow work of letting God's words penetrate deep into our motives and hidden desires. We must let our faith radically transform us. As Romans chapter 13 verse 14 says, we must clothe ourselves "with the Lord Jesus Christ, and [not] think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh".
Perhaps it is in quietly living out our convictions through the very real help received from the Holy Spirit that we can slowly become persuasive again. In this, the words of 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 12 seem more relevant than ever:
"Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbours. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honourable behaviour, and they will give honour to God when he judges the world."
