The world is right to hate us.
More particularly, the countries we live in tend to hate us, because we claim there is something more. We claim they are not the end, they are not ultimately sovereign over us. In fact, we claim they are eventually going to be brought to account for their actions. Sovereign countries don't like to hear that sort of thing. Presidents and kings and prime ministers would rather not think of themselves as merely exercising borrowed power. But that is precisely what the Son of God has declared.
But Christianity loses its character when we who claim to be Christians lose our subversive mindset. When we start to think of ourselves as citizens of this world, we eventually stop thinking of ourselves as citizens of the next. When we get comfortable here, we stop longing to leave. When we start identifying with the governments that rule over us right now, we stop looking for the day when He will come and overthrow them.
We're not called to overthrow those governments: that's His prerogative. And He will certainly do it, don't let His patience fool you into thinking He's given up on the idea. We are called to start others on the subversive path. We are called to encourage and spur one another not to back down from our attempts at subversion.
The world system won't just sit back and watch us subvert its subjects. It will do what it can to stop us: there are various ways to do that. In some times and places, it's attempted to stop us physically: it's killed, tortured, and brutalized us to make us stop. That hasn't generally worked very well, but the world hasn't given up the idea yet. Right now in America, the world isn't trying to persecute us too much. Sure, they like to bad-mouth us and make us look ridiculous (we tend to give them a lot of help in this particular endeavour), but we don't generally end up raped, tortured, and imprisoned. Here in America, the world has had a lot more success lulling us into inactivity through wealth, luxury, and comfort.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our subversive task is the counterfeits the world has managed to pawn off on us. We've accepted a lot of those at face value, and set up alliances with people and causes who aren't at all interested in our end goal. Some of these are fairly obvious (the unholy alliance of many professing Christians with the Republican party comes to mind), others are more subtle (churches that undermine the authority of the Word of God, for example). And closely tied into this effort is the campaign against us to convince us we owe loyalty to the present evil world. That's a powerful attack, and many or most of us have fallen for it at some time or another. In fact, that's been so successful, there are genuine Christians who appeal to the governments in the wicked world to protect their "rights" to try and recruit other subversives!
I suspect there is a greater plan at work in those attempts: I suspect there is a plan to escalate the persecution levels on us, using counterfeits to cover it up. "We don't hate Christianity... See? here is a list of several churches in your city that are continuing on without molestation..." Blending in is not a bad strategy to keep yourself personally safe, although it makes your attempts at subversion difficult or impossible.
The Son of God has left instructions for our attempts here. He's told us to submit to earthly rulers, pay our taxes, remember that the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men. But make no mistake, we can't love the kingdom we're part of and the kingdom we live in at the same time. We can't have our cake and eat it too. We can't settle down here and think of this world as home and still sincerely look for the Son of God to come from Heaven and take us away.
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