hughbiquitous

One of my college professors, Dick Baer, is of a rare breed: an evangelical professor at an Ivy League school. He has observed that Christian witness is usually regarded, at best, as nonsequitur. More commonly, it’s ignored with a certain disdain:

For over five years I attended a weekly Cornell graduate student/faculty seminar that focused on issues of science, technology, and public policy. Perhaps every third or fourth week, I would make a comment or two based on my knowledge of Bible, theology, or Christian ethics… But again and again, I would get the same kind of response. No one agreed with me, no one disagreed. To put it rather crudely, but very accurately, it was as if I had farted. And when someone farts in public, no one applauds, no one boos. They simply act as if it hadn’t happened. Someone violated a social taboo, and the best way to deal with the embarrassment is to go on to the next item of business as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.

I can relate.

I suppose the best you can say about this is that Christian ambassadors are supposed to recognize that, as Greg Koukl often says, “the Gospel is offensive—enough.” Meaning, of course, that if you offend somebody when you present them with the Gospel, don’t let it be because of the way you present it. Instead, it must be because of your faithfulness to the message of the Gospel — including the “I told you that you would die in your sins” and “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me” bits. The sad fact is that even if you are as tactful and as erudite as can be, as my professor was, some people will still take offense. As Paul said,

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:15-17)

Excuse me while I preach to myself: may we all speak up in the name of Christ, even if it sends our hearers scrambling for their gas masks. And a big “boo hoo” if they do: we’ve got it easy here. When Paul did it, his hearers went scrambling for stones, whips, wild beasts, and the executioner’s axe. May we who name Christ be more embarrassed of betraying our Savior and His martyrs’ blood than of committing a social faux pas against the delicate sensitivities of an effete culture.