day no. 16,926: milquetoast or militant?

“And we may be sure of this, that a theology which is more concerned to be contemporary than to be true will have neither the right nor the power to influence the contemporary world; all that it can do is to win a grudging and contemptuous toleration by the world, on the condition that, whatever else it does, it does not challenge the world’s assumptions about itself.” — E.L. Mascall, The Christian Universe

You cannot win the world to chastity by agreeing to get into the backseat with it.  At best, you may gain some fleeting affection from it, but most likely you will only get a brief moment of its attention. And what you gain in influence, you lose in substance. If you win them to what you're doing, you only leave the church more worldly, not the world more churched. You cannot wish for more water in your boat without sinking to sea level. You cannot allow more sugar into your salt shaker without losing your saltiness. 

"We are not to go out into all the world and tell the nations that they might have a point.” — Douglas Wilson, So Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ

The world does not need a compromised church and the church does not need any more lukewarm water in its baptismal fonts.

Mark 16:15

And Jesus said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

We are not commissioned by Christ to concede to the world. We are the church militant, called by Christ to conquer in His Name, negotiating the terms of the world's surrender by begging them to come along quietly.

"The gods of chaos are going to be cut into pieces, and it is going to be Christian worship that does it... We are putting the world in order. We do not fight against flesh and blood, but rather with the gods of chaos." — Douglas Wilson,  Christ and the Gods of Chaos

We will either be milquetoast or we will be militant. 

We will either shake hands with evil or we will help Christ shake the world until all that remains is the unshakable kingdom of Christ.

Hebrews 12:28-29

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.