Recently I read these provoking words in Os Guiness’ The Call, which was written in 1999, about 25 years ago. I wonder if he would still say the same thing today, or say it in the same way (or even say it more strongly)? I’d be curious to hear his thoughts in today’s cultural climate. What do you think of what he wrote? Here’s the long quote, which also has some relevance to the text for Sunday’s sermon.

“Nothing in the Gospels is more revolutionary than Jesus’ call to respond to injury in a new way. (“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”) Equally, nothing in the modern church is more anti-Christian than those Christians and Christian leaders in public life who play the politics of resentment and pass their followers off as “a small, persecuted minority” when they are not… Followers of Christ will be called many names, but our identity comes only from the One whose call reveals our names and natures. Followers of Christ may no more like shouldering the cost of their commitments than followers of other ways, but no one who knows what our Master bore can bear to shrug off the blame on others. In reality, today’s brotherhood of the victimized ones is a twisted counterfeit of the fellowship of the crucified one. All of us followers of Christ will flinch at times from the pain of wounds and the smart of slights, but that cost is in the contract of calling and the way of the cross.”