Identity through Opposition

I recently spent three days in Denver at a conference that had also taken place in Orlando in February. I was surprised to find that the response in Denver was much better. It seemed to me that there were more people at the Denver conference and they were more motivated to get involved in local and foreign missions. They seemed to be, overall, more committed to being part of what God is doing around the world and in their own backyard. I began to wonder why that is, and this is what I came up with:

Denver has a large community of people who are ferociously devoted to not being Christian. This community often overlaps with the extremely liberal groups of people that are found some places in Denver and all over the place in Boulder – which is quite the bastion of radical liberalism. I think this very vocal, very visible, very anti-Christian community has polarized the city a bit and caused the otherwise quiet, sometimes nominal Christians to become more serious, more vocal and more visible in their pursuit of and worship of Jesus. I think the Christians in Denver are more committed to their Christ precisely because the liberals in Denver are more committed to their liberalism. There are few things that make us define who we are and ferociously defend that identity more than opposition does.

For a great example of this on a global scale see China, Peoples Republic of.

Here in Orlando I don’t see that same sort of opposition. It seems that almost everyone here claims to be a Christian, at least by heritage if not by actual choice and lifestyle. I would argue that Disney and all it’s “I’m OK, you’re OK, let’s just be happy” propaganda is in opposition to the Christian life (which assumes a fair amount of suffering and sacrifice last time I checked), but I think it’s so subtle an opposition that most people don’t even realize it’s there at all.

Maybe we need something more blatant here – something that’ll cause the Christian community to take themselves, their faith, their Lord and their role as ambassadors here a bit more seriously.