I confess that I am one of the millions of sophomoric Christians who, along the way, thought it a brilliant idea to grow the kingdom of God by blending together the coolness of the world and the holiness of the faith. Exhibit a little charm, skate a little close to what even we would consider relatively minor sins, keep up to date on sports and celebrity news and hey presto goats would get herded by droves right into the sheep fold. It took me far too long to discern that this approach was not only an affront to Jesus but counter-productive. Nothing earns the contempt of the cool kids like desperately seeking their favor.
It was my habit for a few years as a kid to pray that God would allow me to be an All-Pro for the Steelers, so I could give Him honor and praise. Then I asked Him to make me a rock star, so I could shape the worldview of the young. As I got older I asked Him to help me write the Great American Novel, as a means of growing the kingdom. Then I noticed what all three of these plans had in common- I was volunteering to be universally loved and fabulously wealthy, all for the sake of my Redeemer.
When Jesus warns us that the world will hate us as it first hated Him, He wasn’t laying down a challenge to see if we could do better. He was preparing us and establishing for us a sound measure of our faithfulness. If the world loves us, in short, we’re doing it wrong.
That said, I would argue there are certain stereotypes unbelievers attach to believers that we should push against, not as a strategy for winning them, but as part of our growth in grace. Consider for instance our reputation for being prideful. It’s true we might hear such a charge simply by virtue of affirming that something is true. But it is also a charge we might hear because it can be true. We do in fact think too highly of ourselves. We do tend to think that what separates us from the unbeliever is something good in us, rather than the grace of God.
The same principle applies to the accusation that we are judgmental. Often that charge comes because we are standing on the Word of God, affirming His law. In such a context we need to simply grin and bear it. It is also true, however, that we can be prone to forget, when dealing with sinners, that not only such once were we, but that we still battle against our own flesh. We can present the gospel as a way of life that we have mastered rather than the rescuing of our life by the Master.
The short answer is we need to grow in grace and wisdom, with our eyes looking to please Him rather than them. As we do so we may very well surprise them, and be given an opportunity to tell them about Who is at work in our lives.