Throwing stones

One of the things that embarrasses me about the church is that we always seem to be throwing stones. There is a superiority somehow that society is bad and sad and wrong, so we proclaim our values, about sexuality, about childcare, about divorce, about abortion, about Sunday trading, about Rock music, about free love, about all sorts of stuff. It isn't so much the values, it is the way we do it, it is so often discouraging and unkind. I am heartily sick of it, and I fear for what we do to others. So it is with whoops of joy I read these words in Peter Ould's blog.

This is the challenge for us in the 21st Century isn’t it? Do we think we should spend our time on a reactionary culture war, constantly opposing (and abusing) everything we think is wrong? Or perhaps we could stop, accept that we are in a largely non-Christian society like the first few generations of the Church, and try to learn from them how to engage with a world that is, like it or not, not operating in even vaguely the same paradigm that we are.