Are We Fantasy or Non-Fiction?

The breaking news of John Allen Chau and his fatal mission to the North Sentinel Island spread shockwaves across the globe.  The story was a tragic one. Whatever one might think about his religion or methods, he was a man who felt so passionately about something that he was willing to lay his life down for it.  A whole new story unfolded afterwards however, in the reaction of the world to his death. 

There has been a slow rot in the church of the western world for many decades.  Like weeds growing up over a barely used house, the feeling slowly grew amongst western Christianity that the world was becoming less of a place we had influence over or were even welcome. 

The common response a post-modern world has to faith of any kind is, "that's great for you personally but just be sure to keep it to yourself." Over a generation that response has become perhaps the only Golden Rule of a secularized society.  John Allen Chau scandalously violated that Golden Rule.  And in the backlash of the world's indignation, a curtain was torn back; a curtain hiding a world that had been playing out behind a velvet wall for decades.

As I processed through the story and the response to it around the world, I felt something that can only be described as a dawning sense of loneliness. I'm not talking a lack of friends or family here, but a sudden loss of fellowship with humanity at large. I've walked throughout my life as a committed Christian and to that faith I stand strong today, but even with that I felt a sense of common bond to the rest of humanity, whether I felt that bond through being "good" or "millenial" or "globally minded". 

With the response to John Allen Chau's death, I realized that I was not unified with these broad swaths of Earth's population.  In fact, they despised me and everything to which I had devoted my life. Where I once counted billions as my allies, I could see that if they knew my heart they would think me hateful, or at least strange.  Those walking with me in this life have whittled away to a much smaller community not of all Christians themselves, for that term is filled with those who will happily keep that life in the confines of a sanctuary, but of active and vibrant followers of Christ. 

We, the people of the Way live in a world (at least the western one) that has faded into something no longer welcoming of us.  (Was it really ever?) If ever we had a dawning awakening of our alien status in the world, surely it is in this decade.

Perhaps the Middle Earth of Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings describes our society more than we realize. Throughout reading Tolkien's trilogy I was deeply impacted by his many descriptions and references to a past world of strong towers and glittering cities.  In the book, those cities have turned to ruins with moss and weeds growing over them, or they have been stolen away by the hosts of a dark land. In this world there is good and evil and then many simple people living their normal lives with only a small idea of the shadows growing around them.  The good in these books are certainly in the minority, so few and seemingly so feeble. Where once armies of tens of thousands stood, now each battle brings just hundreds or at most a few thousand from the ranks of those who would stand against the forces of darkness.  Where once kings ruled, now they are Rangers and wanderers who are thought strange and dangerous by the townsfolk who see them.

But Tolkien doesn't wholeheartedly idealize the past world.  Even when He describes their glittering towers and vibrant flags blowing in the wind, there was corruption and a growing rot always hinted at underneath the surface. 

Today we live in a post-Christian world.  Wherever we look there are ruins and markers of the past.  To see this firsthand, one need only travel to Europe to see its empty or converted cathedrals, the abandoned markers of a dying age.  Where once perhaps we thought ourselves kings, now we are like the rangers of the north.  We don't have the numbers to fight in epic, glorious battles so we wage war against the creeping darkness in seemingly small ways.  We are thought strange reminders of a time that the world is all too eager to put in the confines of fantasy and folklore.

But just like the rangers of the north had a King amongst their ranks, so do we. That King will one day return.

We are not called to wage battles in the simple way of the sword, we are called to wage our battles in the hearts and minds of the world. Where indifference, self-glorification and hate grow strong, we must be ready to counter it with the Gospel, love, service and holiness.  Our weapons are the Holy Spirit, the Bible, true doctrine, Jesus' saving grace, and each other - the Church.

If I feel loneliness now it is a passing thing.  Yes, I feel myself shunned from a world that will never understand John Allen Chau or the faith to which he, and I and perhaps you cling.  But in the place of an identity founded on a oneness with humanity, I can find fellowship and comrades in the havens and common cause of the people of the Way. 

God please help us to stray true to you, your Word, and each other - the Church - as the shadows fall and the world darkens. Thank you for the Kingdom you promise.  Help us to honor the King while we walk through this present darkness.  Amen.