Costly Discipleship: Part 1
WRITTEN BY DREW MATZ
Following Jesus in a Hostile World
“We as a community will have to explore new ways of getting the word of God out into the world. ”
The world is changing before our eyes. It seems the days of planning out our lives by milestones are well behind us. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced everyone to take a step back and evaluate what is important. We are, for perhaps the first time in decades, forced to come to terms with our own mortality. Regardless of your plans, the pandemic has others.
As the virus and civil unrest has burned their way through society over the past year, it’s no secret that tensions are high. Months of unprecedented lockdowns and imposed restrictions have forced everyone to improvise and adapt. Employers who are philosophically opposed to work-from-home scenarios are now forced to implement them. Families have been forced to avoid any kind of contact. Intimacy within our community has been forced to the margins, and we’re all -in some sense - a bit on edge.
While society at large must come to terms with how to function in this brave new world, the situation poses equal challenges for the Christian community. Pastors are Churches must now defend on numerous fronts, both from a legitimate threat from the virus and also an opportunistic government who is openly hostile to any faith community that challenges the agenda. It all begs the question: What does discipleship look like in this transformed world?
To be sure, each generation of Christians are presented with unique spiritual attacks. The earliest Christians ran and hid out of fear, as noted in the Gospels and in the book of Acts. Later, the emperor Nero was infamous for scapegoating the Christian community for every perceived problem in his lands. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrestled with the question of submission to government in the face of unquestionable evil, ultimately culminating in his own execution for resisting the Nazi machine. All of these eras had their great confessors and martyrs, and our situation is as unique as theirs.
As each generation must play the hand they are dealt, there are obstacles that are unique to our society, which has technology and methods of social control that are unprecedented in the history of the world. Moreover, all of the civic institutions and all of the influential voices in society are generally opposed to the influence of Christianity and have pushed all Christian influence to the fringes.
The question of what ministry and discipleship look like in this society is still up in the air. With hostile organizations monopolizing channels of communication, it becomes more difficult for Christians to fulfill the Great Commission. We as a community will have to explore new ways of getting the word of God out into the world. In the next article, we will explore some of these ideas for making disciples in a hostile world.