Have you noticed how we as Christians are always replanting out boundaries of acceptable or unacceptable behaviour, making our turf smaller and our morals more lenient?
When one celebrity oversteps our boundaries we may react swiftly and cause a big fuss, usually using media. But after a while we forget about the incident and become comfortable with the action in question.
We’ve just taken our boundaries and moved it a little closer to us, making what was previously unacceptable something we can just overlook now. The road is now paved for the next influential person to do the same wrong deed – this time without any commotion following from our side.
Take for instance the blasphemy and explicit sex scenes dished up in box-office movies. Why do these movies become the top-sellers even though it goes against the world’s largest religion? How did it come to a point where we are “okay” with it? How was the first blasphemous movie received? Has no one made protest against it?
The producers of the recent movie The King’s Speech had to negotiate with the agencies to be rated suitable for younger viewers after the agencies decided that the F-word was used too many times in the movie. The swear word is used in only one scene where it is repeated during a speech training session. However, the name “Jesus Christ” is used elsewhere in the movie as a swear word – why did no one protest against this? Is using God's name in vain more acceptable than saying the F-word?
Or take South-African rapper Jack Parow who swears excessively and makes questionable statements in his lyrics – a few people were shocked at his explicit lyrics, but soon afterwards bands like Die Antwoord also gained popularity and caused almost no fuss in the Afrikaans-speaking community – have we already moved our boundaries for Jack Parow, making similar phenomenon acceptable?
Other things which some Christians have decided to accept: gay marriages, evolution, unmarried couples living together, alcohol abuse, the “all roads lead to heaven” teaching, racism and many more.
We as Christians are a loyal priesthood, a chosen generation, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, anointed ones, Christ-like ambassadors for the Father, more than conquerors, commissioned to disciple to the ends of the earth, a mighty force, the head and not the tail, able to do good works and mighty exploits for God, appointed to be a light to the world – we are a force to be reckoned with.
Yet we are always shifting our boundaries, making our grounds smaller until we have nothing left to stand on. Then we’ll realize we’ve become identical to the rest of the world – a Godless nation.
Remember: though we are in the world, we are not from the world.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove what the perfect will of God is. (Romans 12:2)
