Declare and Defend - Exposed and Undone? (Part 1)

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.2 Corinthians 6.2’

'Tis the season!

At the risk of seeming to be a little out of touch with reality, I want to insist that the time is ripe for Christians to be making their case for the Gospel of the Kingdom.

I know, I know: it seems more like a time for us to be hunkering down and lying low. The atheists among us are angry and aggressive. New websites pop up each week touting the virtues of atheism, and the evangelists for that cause, though their visibility has diminished, are still at work in universities all over the country. Christians are being pot-shot from every angle: we’re uneducated, irrelevant, hypocritical, opposed to science, racist, unloving, and out of touch with the times.

Some of those charges, we know, have the ring of truth. And it’s clear many Christians seem to be making note: All this objecting and protesting means we’d better tone down our witness for now and concentrate on getting our house in order.

Au contraire, mes amis.

While it’s true we need to shape up our practice of the faith, now is no time for shying away from engagement for the Gospel. Now is the favorable time for Christians to declare and defend the Gospel of the Kingdom. Now is the day of salvation, and all believers must be diligent in proclaiming the Good News at every opportunity and by every means.

Why all this fuss?

I’ve been thinking of late about all the recent atheistic harrumphing, this unbelieving Sturm und Drang. There have always been atheists, and probably more in the past than today. Why are they suddenly so up in arms? Why have they been so loud and angry? So eager to declaim against Christianity? Why all this protesting against a Christian presence which, in the West, anyway, has become weaker and more marginalized over the past two decades?

Then it hit me. I recalled the scene in Hamlet, Act III, as Hamlet’s mother, the queen, watched the play he had written to expose her new husband’s treachery. The Queen began to squirm as the actor playing a queen confidently insisted she would remain a widow after her husband’s death. Hamlet asks his mother, “Madam, how do you like the play?” To which she replies, “The lady protests too much, methinks.”

What the Queen objected to was that the play threatened to expose her wickedness in breaking her vow and marrying the murderer of Hamlet’s father, the King. She felt exposed and about to be undone, and so she protested the lines of the queen in Hamlet’s play.

Atheism in trouble

Something like this is happening in the atheistic community in our day.

As Alister McGrath pointed out in his 2004 book, The Twilight of Atheism, unbelief is retreating all over the world, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Other publications have shown that, for all their “evangelizing”, scare-mongering, and tut-tutting, atheists have not been able to persuade more than 7% of the world’s population.

At the same time, Christians are popping up everywhere—in the former Soviet Union, all over Africa and Latin America, in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, even among the nations of the Muslim world. The Church in this country, while in decline, seems to be awakening from its stupor, looking to the Lord for revival, and preparing to resume its mission.

What’s more, certain Christians are becoming outspoken on behalf of a Christian worldview—the Gospel of the Kingdom. They are calling for the application of the Gospel to every area of life, pointing out that true human flourishing comes only when God’s Word is obeyed, and challenging the presumptions of groups and movements concerning such matters as the definition of marriage, the beginnings and value of life, the nature of truth and morality, and the purpose of humankind.

Even more, Christians have established themselves firmly as intellectual leaders in a wide range of academic disciplines, and their views are being received by peers and students with great interest and attention.

Atheists are protesting because their message is failing to persuade, their folly is being exposed, and their hastily-written broadsides are being shelved in favor of the Good Book of the Kingdom of God—which continues, year after year, to outsell all other books in every part of the world.

Now, men, is indeed the favorable time to declare and defend the Gospel of the Kingdom, for now—now—is the day of salvation! Begin today thinking about and praying for the people with whom you can start conversations concerning the Good News of Jesus. Take a bold step. You may be surprised what happens when you do.

T. M. Moore