In the long run, Christians will lose the culture war, the battle for hearts and minds in secular society. For Jesus said:

[Matthew]
{10:22} And you will be hated by all for the sake of my name. But whoever will have persevered, even to the end, the same shall be saved.

[John]
{15:17} This I command you: that you love one another.
{15:18} If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before you.
{15:19} If you had been of the world, the world would love what is its own. Yet truly, you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world; because of this, the world hates you.
{15:20} Remember my saying that I told you: The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.
{15:21} But all these things they will do to you because of my name, for they do not know him who sent me.
{15:22} If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would not have sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin.
{15:23} Whoever hates me, hates my Father also.
{15:24} If I had not accomplished among them works that no other person has accomplished, they would not have sin. But now they have both seen me, and they have hated me and my Father.
{15:25} But this is so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law: ‘For they hated me without cause.’

Already, we see that the world hates the teachings of Catholic Christianity, which are the teachings of Jesus. Sometimes they take their own distorted ideas, and claim that Jesus would agree with them. But truly they are rejecting more and more of the Gospel message, on faith and morals. They reject Christ because they are guided by selfishness and by attachment to various serious sins. They realize, perhaps only in the back of their minds or deep in their hearts, that if they accept the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, they will have to give up their sins. And so they find various ways to reject the Gospel, a piece at a time or wholesale, along with all who live the Gospel.

In the short run, we might succeed in winning some of the battles of the culture war. We can make abortion illegal in the U.S. (soon, I hope). We can change peoples hearts and minds, in secular society, to some extent on some issues.

But Jesus prophesied that the world would reject Christianity, and that all faithful Christians would be hated by the world. And His prophesy cannot fail to occur. Already, we see that the culture is redefining good and evil, such that Christian teachings — which are truly based on love of God and neighbor — are branded as a type of hate. Once so branded, society refuses to engage in a discussion or to permit freedom of religion. You must comply with what society claims is true, or you will be treated as a hateful thing.

By rejecting Christianity, society protects itself from that most dangerous and shocking part of the Gospel message: Repent. Admit that you have sinned. Reform your lives. For the kingdom of heaven is near.

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.

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