To follow on from my previous post – what then can we do? What is this to you, and to me? We don’t do these things, right? Well correct, to a degree – a man dies for his own sins.

But how, honestly, do you separate yourself from what your society is doing? We’re not an island, independent from others, we share in the sins of society. This is a strange concept in our hyper-individualised culture. But maybe it’s something we should ponder. Consider the story of Achan – one man, one sin, one nation in deep trouble.

Is that too long ago and in too foreign a culture? Well, consider this – have we wondered how could ordinary people could have lived so close to the ovens of Auschwitz and not said or done anything? They didn’t know, they didn’t want to know, they closed their eyes and ears. And we judged them for their complicity in silence. Do you think future generations will judge us differently?

There is a deep darkness at the heart of our culture, and at the risk of repeating myself – this will not end well.

“And if we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

“Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion”

Mother Teresa

We will surely destroy ourselves, or be destroyed. In the meantime, as this culture of death digs its fangs more deeply on our society, there is going to be a price to be paid to be loyal to Christ. You can be successful, or a Christian. That’s already happening to some degree. Maybe harder forms of persecution will come. And revival too, because even the best lies do not ultimately satisfy, and people will be drawn by the Gospel.
What then can we do? From Mark Mallet again:

What should be our response? Joy. Yes, how else do we counter the culture of despair but by being the face of hope, a light in the darkness. Let us be the locus point of the beauty and gift that life is. Let others look upon us, even in our suffering—the way the world looked upon St. John Paul II in the last stages of his Parkinson’s disease—and see that life, in all its seasons, is a gift from God. Let us radiate from a deep personal relationship with Jesus the joy of being loved by Him, and then in turn, love others. This is the “Gospel of Life” at its source and foundation.

At the end, we can’t ‘fix’ this world, only He can. That’s not to say we should not be engaged as salt and light – that’s what He calls us to be. We cannot be silent, complicit and withdrawing in the face of evil. But we have to be centered in Christ. Only Christ. Nothing else. The only solid ground there is.

We’ve read the end of the Bible, and we know who is the Victor, so there is no need to despair. Let our response be Joy, and let us proclaim Christ Crucified in a world that grows ever more dark.