The Cost of Conviction, or, Guarding our Garbage

Peer pressure, though we may consign it to teenagers and temptations toward teenage sins, is real and impacts all of us. It rarely comes complete with all the accoutrements, the insistent pleas from our friends, “Come on, everyone’s doing it” or the fake chicken squawks from the crowd. The social cost is more subtle. We’re simply judged to be outside the circle.

It’s because those accoutrements are missing that we miss we’re still susceptible to peer pressure. We come to the questions of the day and often look more at the price tag than we do at the evidence. It’s not at all unlike President Trump lurching left on life. Babies in the first trimester are no less babies than babies in their first three years. But to act on that truth carries a political cost.

The same is true theologically. Embrace six day creation and no one will call you names, “Fundamentalist” or “know-nothing.” They’ll just treat you like one. Reject presuppositionalism and no one will call you a modernist. They’ll just treat you like one.

The same goes for politics, and the issues of the day. Failure to salute the rainbow flag will earn you the sobriquets of homophobe, Nazi, closeted queer. And just maybe bricks through your window. Which is why we watch the stampede of evangelicals racing toward a middle ground that just doesn’t exist. An evangelical, after all, is little more than a fundamentalist that desperately wants to be accepted.

Some seek to skip out on the bill of the social costs of their convictions by holding them secretly and loudly. Secretly and loudly? Yes, which is why the great bulk of purveyors of white identity politics spew their bile from the safety of anonymity.

So what do we do? How do we pay these bills? Simple enough. No one collects payments from a dead person. I have no need to protect my reputation if I’m dead. Sticks and stones can break my bones but neither they nor names hurt those beyond the grave. Every believer is seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Our treasure is beyond the reach of His and our enemies. We’ve already confessed to be horrible people. We have no pride to protect.

Whether its left-wing Karens demanding we believe the science, main stream media telling us to believe the Dementia-Patient-in-Chief is sharp as a tack, or the whole mad world telling us to believe that boys can be girls, we are impervious. Only though if we know we are dead. Only if we have forsaken our standing in this world. Only if we have joyfully embraced His shame, as He embraces ours.

Negative world brings with it a cornucopia of negatives. But it allows us to receive the honor of being persecuted for His name’s sake, which He tells us is a blessing. Which we are to rejoice over. The reward overpowers the cost into nothingness.

Do remember this though. What the world hates is less our convictions, more our courage. That is, if they can cow you into hiding your convictions, they’re good. If, however, their fear tactics leave you unmoved, then the rage comes. And it’s coming.