Culture Wars: To Whom Shall We Go?

“There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.”

-G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

It is tempting to cut and run when things get hard. As I am sure we have all experienced, what is best is not always what is easiest; what is right is not always what seems most obvious. Sometimes when things get rough, the easy thing is to assume a change is necessary. We might think, “This route is hard – so, obviously, the smoother path is the one to take.” But this is not always the case. In fact, more often than we would like, we are called to stay put, to soldier on, and to persevere in our faith.

Over the past few weeks, we have been reading through the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John at Sunday Masses. This past Sunday, the reading contained a scene (John 6:60-69), which is a perfect parable of a struggle that the followers of Jesus have endured since that day on the mountain by the Sea of Galilee.

A Hard Teaching

Jesus proclaims that He is the Bread of Life, come down from Heaven. He tells all those who will hear that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. He continues to ramp up this teaching, using increasingly graphic terms for the eating of His flesh, and re-emphasizing the truth of what He says whenever he is questioned. Ultimately, His largely Jewish audience has had enough, declaring “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (John 6:60) Jesus does not call them back, clarifying that He is speaking metaphorically; nor does He simply tell his Apostles to rest assured, He was only using an image to make his point. Rather, He turns to his Apostles and says, “Will you leave me, too?” (John 6:68)

That is the question that is presented to us on a daily basis in our culture. The culture at large elects to pick up and run away from the teachings of Christ, because they see them as too hard to accept. They are hard to accept for various reasons. Perhaps one cannot reconcile the teachings of Christ with their existing worldview; perhaps one actively chooses to deny the truth because it is inconvenient, difficult to live up to; perhaps one cannot reconcile the actual teachings of Christ with their perceived teachings of Christ, and split the difference by abandoning them altogether. However, regardless of the reason, deny the teachings, they do. And then we are tempted to go along, join the herd, take the easier path.

The culture is tempting us. The culture is encouraging us to abandon our beliefs. “This is a hard teaching” is the refrain. We are called by our culture to abandon the truth, to walk away from the words of Jesus, the Word of God. There is hostility in the culture’s demeanor towards the followers of Christ. Rather than simply encouraging us to agree with them, there is active hostility, attacks, and accusations of hatred and discrimination.

Those who left Jesus may have said to His Apostles, “How can you eat His flesh? How can you drink His blood? You should be ashamed.” Our culture says to us, “How can you hate gay people? How can you hate women, and deny them their right to abortion? How can you follow a patriarchal, white man who died 2,000 years ago?” In all times and places, the Church is confronted by such questions, and all manner of attacks and calumny are hurled at Christians, in an attempt to force acquiescence.

There is a dismissal of the “hard teachings.” Beyond simply disagreement, there is dismissal, even disdain, and disapprobation. Ironically enough for a culture brimming with moral relativists, the claim is that Christians are doing something wrong (whether that is being sexist, patriarchal, or what have you). Almost anyone you stop on the street would agree with some teachings of Jesus, and may even say that they admire Him as a moral teacher – in their estimation and understanding of His teachings, that is. But when a teaching is too hard to accept, the excuses begin to pile up. There is always some reason for not accepting a “hard teaching.” And, in all cases, this amounts to an abandonment of Jesus.

Will You Leave Me, Too?

In summary, the recurring story goes like this: there is a teaching of Jesus; the society hears it, declares it hard to accept, and walks away; Jesus’ followers are tested, and tempted to leave along with everyone else. If we examine our hearts closely, and look at the so-called “culture wars” through this lens, we will see that this has been the experience of Christians since the time of Jesus.

The Apostles were not the last Christians to face this issue, nor are we today the first followers of Christ who have faced such a dilemma. Throughout history, all over the world, Christians have been forced to confront their own faith and repeatedly answer that question: “Will you leave me, too?”

This issue has been manifested in many ways. Great martyrs have arisen by echoing the words of St. Peter, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” (John 6:67) and expressing their steadfast love, enduring faith, and obedience unto death. In the time of the Apostles, the Romans slaughtered Christians who refused to offer sacrifice to the emperor as a god; Queen Elizabeth I of England had hundreds of Catholics executed for their refusal to abandon their Church and accept her as their new ecclesiastical leader; Christian missionaries and their converts in the Far East were tortured, drowned, crucified, because they accepted the teachings of Jesus Christ not simply as an intellectual assent, but as the fundamental organizing principle of their lives, and refused to deny Him; servants and princes in sub-Saharan Africa were brutally slaughtered for maintaining the integrity of their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit.

You Have The Words of Eternal Life

And even today, Christians are being rounded up and enslaved, tortured, raped, mutilated, and murdered, in places such as Nigeria, China, North Korea, India, Syria, and Iraq. This genocide is not because of a cultural difference or a simple misunderstanding. These men and women, children, and elderly, refuse to bow down. They refuse to give in. They refuse to compromise their faith, because they recognize that the Word of God is Truth. Jesus has the words of eternal life – Jesus is the Word of Eternal Life. The Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Some of us are not in situations as physically dangerous as these. Some of us may not be called to put our lives on the line for the sake of our faith. However, we are all called to die to self, and to be willing to sacrifice whatever we need to for our God. For many of us, this means squarely facing the culture when it confronts us, remaining steadfast in our convictions, and recognizing that there is no alternative, no replacement, for Jesus Christ. To whom shall we go?

There is an important point that differentiates our situation today from that of the Apostles. In the 2,000 years since the earthly life of Jesus, the Gospel has been preached the world over, and there is hardly a society remaining that has not at least been exposed to it, if not largely accepted it. The life of Jesus, His death and resurrection, and hundreds of years of theological discernment, are at our fingertips, and essentially general knowledge. When His disciples walked away in response to the “hard teaching” about eating His flesh, they can hardly be faulted for not understanding, not knowing what they were doing. We have no such excuse. If we are to walk away from Jesus, we are culpable – we know quite well what it is we are walking away from: the Word of Eternal Life.

Do we run away from our faith when it puts us in an uncomfortable situation? Are we saying to Jesus, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” and walking away from Him? Or do we stand firm, grasp our Lord by the shoulder and say, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life?”

We are called not only to persevere in our own faith. We recognize that Jesus has the Words of Eternal Life. We are called spread the Gospel, to go out to the nations and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is no good for us to simply be pleased with ourselves for not walking away from Jesus. We have been given an immeasurable gift in our faith, and we must carry this gift into the world.

Perhaps the answer to the question “To whom shall we go?” is “Everyone, everywhere.” We should go to everyone, in all places, and bring them the Words of Eternal Life. As followers of Jesus Christ, we have been commissioned to spread the Gospel, and we can never be content. We are called to evangelize, to bring to our brothers and sisters the Words of Eternal Life.