No Place For Popularity

Discerning Good and Evil in an Apostate Generation 

In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Aragorn, son of Arathorn--faithful prophet and king in a world in which the Law of God holds true in every place--thinks and speaks accordingly as he faces the challenge from the men of Rohan: 

"Our friends were attired even as we are," said Aragorn; "and you passed us by under the full light of day."

"I had forgotten that," said Eomer.  "It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels.  The world is all grown strange.  Elf and Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and the Sword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our fathers rode into the Mark!  How shall a man judge what to do in such time?"

"As he has ever judged," said Aragorn.  "Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men.  It is a man's part to discern them, a much in the Golden Wood as in his own house." [J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, III/ii.]

In our days, many in the Church are shapeshifters, bending themselves into the demands of the pagan world.  In our day, every man's truth is his own. There are no absolutes because the pagan world has denied the One--the eternal, infinite lawgiver.  All that is left is the creature.
  No man, therefore, may put his standards, truths and judgments upon another.  It is considered the height of intemperance.  In such a world as this many Christians long for the approbation and acceptance of Unbelief.  Yet Christianity proclaims a King whose law rules all: a universal King and a universal law to which all--Believers and Unbelievers--will eventually submit, either in penitent joy or in a "jig is up" resentment.  Such truths are hated by Western Unbelief.  

Christians know they are hated.  If they hated the King when He walked on His earth, can we expect any less?  No--it is to be the more expected.  For we declare our loyalty to the King of kings, yet we fail miserably as inconsistent disciples.  The world's most frequent accusation against Christians is that they hypocrites.  There is much accuracy and fairness in the charge.  But our response is to point to the Saviour of the world.  He alone is perfect.  We Christians are sons of Adam, like all men.  Christ came into the world to save sinners, not the righteous.   Our hope rests in Him, not in our consistent perfection.

Many foolishly in the Church attempt to make these truths more congenial to Unbelief.  They soften them.  When the law of God condemns sins which Unbelief considers hip and fashionable, and in which they exult and glory, some Christians start to follow, albeit at a respectable distance. When mini skirts are worn twelve inches above the knee, Christians craving approval wear them at ten inches.  But Aragorn is right: good and evil have not changed all these long years, since Adam's fall into sin.

It is our duty, as servants of the King, to discern good and evil and accept the reaction and opprobrium of the world if and when it comes.  The King will vindicate His servants in His time and in His way.  We Christians are called to be faithful, not popular.  In fact, popularity more often than not, is a sign of hypocritical compromise.