What is love?

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-10 (NKJV)

In our modern times, there are many efforts to create a "multicultural" community. Most of them are nominally secular, but there are many which are religious in nature as well. The secular efforts tend to revolve around the idea that because we're living in post-scarcity times, conflict is harmful and unnecessary for survival, and so we should all just learn to get along. The religious efforts tend to revolve around the idea that because the material world isn't what is most important, conflict is harmful and unnecessary for eternal survival, and so we should all just learn to get along.

Christians are not excluded from this, and while there is support for the idea that Christianity is "international" or "multi-national", Christianity creates a monoculture of its own, and a lot of folks genuinely don't understand that. To build this case, we need to start with a somewhat controversial passage where Jesus is speaking about those who would follow him.

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. - Matthew 10:34-39 (NKJV)

So, right off the bat, Jesus clearly states that following him is going to cause conflict with even those who we share the most. If family is beset against family because of Jesus Christ, what is going to happen to the larger community? Family can be viewed as the smallest unit of community, and if Jesus Christ is causing disruption at the foundational level, then everything else built upon that foundation will also be impacted.

God has always desired a direct relationship with his followers, even in the Old Testament.

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. - 1 Samuel 8:6-7 (NKJV)

It was not God's desire that hierarchies and systems of authority be put in place between him and his people, but their rebellious nature and "stiff necks" required a constant escalation of authoritarianism to keep them in line, up to and including being conquered by foreign enemies and having all their wealth pillaged. While God's people sought to make their own way, the promises of God were null and void, regardless of the permanence he offered through them, because his bargain with Israel was not unconditional.

Likewise, Jesus Christ explains, through various parables and analogies and whatnot, that what people naturally value in this life will not remain so. Many folks know the parable of the rich young ruler who would not give up his material possessions to follow Jesus Christ, but this theme was a common one among his teachings.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

If such things are true, it's not that the things we naturally value are bad or intrinsically wrong, but that they should not be our priority. The things we have by our own hands should not be what drives our choices and shapes our behavior.

And if we're actively implementing this in our lives, we're going to have conflicts because others may not have the same priority, even within our own families.

Recently, I had shared with my wife some materials on the nature of many popular holidays, even among Christians, and just how synthetic those traditions are. When the vast majority of holidays have no scriptural support for their practice, let alone evidence that the early church found such things worthy of celebration. A big example of this is Christmas.

Many folks are familiar with the "put Christ back in Christmas" meme, but the date for Christmas was set hundreds of years after his death by a pagan ruler of Rome. Scriptural evidence as to the timeframe for Jesus birth points to a different time of year than winter, because the traditions of the Hebrews would not have had them with their flocks out in the fields at night in the middle of winter. Even worse, people want to make the celebration of Christmas "acceptable" by treating it as a "redeemed tradition". Do folks not know of the history of the Talmud?

Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:

‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”

He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. - Mark 7:5-9 (NKJV)

If traditions, if family, if the values that a Christian has are at odds with those around them, what hope is there for unity?

That's where love comes back into play.

Love as comes from God overlooks disparities on those things and brings his family together because the priority is singular in Jesus Christ, not on various traditions, families, etc. There are byproducts to the pursuit of Jesus Christ, and that is love for one another, but we cannot get that result by trying to just love one another through brute force. Nor can we ignore that there will be unity through Jesus Christ that is impossible by any other means.

Love, genuine love, as talked about in the opening passage of scripture, is something that people simply cannot summon for anyone else of their own accord. We can't afford it. We're already owing a debt we cannot ever repay, and we think we could shoulder someone else's burdens? Such thoughts are arrogant and foolish!

Genuine love is something that we need God's support in order to manifest, and if we are truly seeking after Jesus Christ and are becoming more like him, then our priorities will look like his priorities, and our sacrifices will be done in love just like his sacrifices. But we aren't the one whose sacrifices matter to others. Our works "in Jesus' name", are not the Gospel.

What is the Gospel?

that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. - Romans 10:9 (NKJV)

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. - John 3:16-17 (NKJV)

And what is our greatest priority in this life? What did Jesus tell us specifically we should be doing?

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. - Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV)

Is our priority to "put Christ back in Christmas"? No.

Is our priority to feed and clothe the homeless? No.

Is our priority to make peace between warring peoples? No.

Is our priority to bring heaven to earth? No.

Is our priority to sustain communities and traditions? No.

Our priority is to tell all nations about Jesus Christ, the good news of salvation, and then walk with them through the process of sanctification, of being disciples, of drawing closer to Jesus Christ and behaving and thinking more like him each day.

That is how we love the world. That is how we love one another. That is how "the Church" will be a multi-national entity, because we don't lose our physical bodies and our history when we are saved, but it will be a monocultural entity as well, because regardless of where we start in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we're all converging on the same focal point. We're all heading to the same place, and as we draw closer to Jesus Christ we can also find that we are drawing closer to one another at the same time.

We manifest love by tapping into God's strength and by focusing on God's priorities, because what most people think of as "love" is a weak and unreliable feeling that leaves much to be desired. Love is the glue for relationships, but we don't know how to make it or use it, and so we must look to the one who loved us when we were anything but lovely to serve as the example and guide for how we are to then love others.

Focus on Jesus Christ, his teachings, and the rest will come in time. Do not fret when your path leads you away from friends, family, communities, because if you're drawing closer to Jesus Christ, you'll never truly be alone.

Conspiracy theory

I love that video, because it encapsulates the reason the "for or against" dynamic is so infuriating, especially when there is a false dichotomy and both "sides" only exist to distract people from what's really going on.

An example of this is "neo-conservative" media.

A controlled opposition of sorts, they're fond of playing to a false dichotomy to try and corral people into one of two positions on a topic that creates a win-win scenario for the manipulators, while often destroying the very people that think they're just aligning with "their side".

Free Trade is one topic where, for the longest time, many believed that it was a necessary component for international trade, for the economic health of a nation in dealing with other nations. The logic was at least superficially sound, but more and more voices are starting to question the "acceptable narrative" that was supposed to exist on "the right", and not for the same reasons or with the same reactions as those on "the left".

Another example of this phenomenon is with conspiracy theorists.

So certain are they of the particular arrangement of actual events according to what they understand, that when folks express doubt or criticism as to the foundational claims for their theory, the usual response is defensive, to presume that such overtly hostile agents are clearly working for the "other side", and that only ideological lockstep with their position is necessary to show that you aren't. The terms are polarizing and force a binary, a false dichotomy, and just like with "Free Trade", the truth and reality of the circumstances doesn't tend to fall into one of the formerly defined "sides".

Such "for me or against me" arguments work, at least for a time, while the conversation can be kept going. In the heat of emotion, it can be easy to sustain the most ridiculous positions on a topic, because we're being driven by emotion and ego, instead of rationality and logic.

While it can happen to anyone, how do we reduce the probability that we'll slip up like this?

Public school systems do not teach critical thinking. Critical thinking strives for objective analysis in order to make a judgment. Objectivity is a concept which has been under assault for more than a century by postmodern philosophy. This has led to an intellectual stagnation, if not degradation, where criticism and questioning is not interpreted as being part of the process to discover truth, but is treated as if it is a distraction from truth.

That is not objective analysis.

When folks are convinced that they have all the truth necessary to draw the line in the sand, and that folks who are detracting from the position they've taken are "the enemy", when it may very well be that the criticism and input from such parties can actually strengthen the existing position by them contributing truth that they had discovered into the process, they're denying that there is any further objective analysis required.

On that thought process, all truth has been discovered, period, end of discussion.

This process, of putting forth a hypothesis, gathering data, and then seeing where the data affirms or denies the claims of the hypothesis, is how Western Civilization grew to the place of prominence that it did, because the objectivity required prevented personal pride from getting in the way of truth.

We always find that, once we understand something, more questions arise, every single time. We have never gotten to "the end" of knowledge.

When we adhere to truth, when we genuinely understand and know what we're talking about, we then don't have to be afraid of new data. We don't need to be afraid of "new" truth being discovered, because what is found that we didn't know about won't contradict what we've already discovered to be true.

By the nature of reality, we can't have simultaneous and yet mutually exclusive truths.

There can't be a married bachelor. We can't count the corners of a circle.

So if a claim comes along which seems to undermine a formerly understood truth, this shouldn't scare us, unless the "truth" we discovered before was not the totality of the phenomenon that we were analyzing. In that case, the truth that comes along will still be able to account for our previous position and understandings, to explain how they really functioned, in addition to expanding that understanding to account for what had previously been missed or not seen.

It's a process that's occurred time and time again, why do we think it would stop now?

This type of information should be welcomed, because it would enhance our ability to really understand what is going on, instead of getting defensive and trying to argue that an incomplete view of truth is really "all we need". Claims should withstand scrutiny, and when people are averse to any sort of feedback, it speaks to an inherent weakness in understanding how understanding is built.

Sure, there are folks who will seek to exploit this to their favor, to poison the well or to mislead or misdirect or to try and derail the entire process. But these people are easy to spot, if you're being objective, because their aim is not to grow an existing body of knowledge, but to tear it down, or to try and place themselves in the center of truth, as a mouthpiece for truth.

We need to be able to determine what type of response is appropriate and then act, instead of just relying on instinct. This is referred to as an "OODA" loop, Observe Orient Decide Act. We need to be better about making the right choice, not just making one at all, if we want victory. We can't just be predictable puppets, led astray by our predictability, we need to be able to determine the right course of action and then act quickly and decisively, whatever that ends up being, not falling into the intellectual traps that have been set for us.

Don't get caught up reacting to what someone else says you need to react to. Don't let them define the terms for action, or inaction. You need to understand the scope of options available to you and why you'd pick one over another, and when you pick one, know that as soon as you've acted on a choice that the circumstances have changed and the OODA loop process starts all over again.

It's tempting to fall into a pattern of "for me or against", not because it's wrong, but because it is easy, and pursuing the easy path is what got us to where we are in the first place.

We can't break a cycle by repeating it. We can't move on if we're just doing the same thing we did before with new labels, a new lexicon, but the same delusions and ignorance as before.

What we want doesn't matter

Christmas : Christianity :: Civic Nationalism : The United States

If you fight for the byproducts of an identity, but won't fight for the identity itself, you will lose your fight.

I know a lot of folks who want to "Make Christmas Christian again", but don't want to call out heretics like Beth Moore, Joel Osteen, or Rick Warren.

If you won't defend Christianity, it won't matter what people celebrate on December 25th, and not just because there is no suggestion from God to do so.

The Old Testament includes explicit detail on how the temple was to be built, down to the specific precious stones and the order they were to be placed in on the clothing the priests wore. God knows how to request something specific when it matters.

When God doesn't request something specific, we aren't ever commanded to try and fill the gap, because the truth is that in pursuing God, worshiping with all our hearts, our minds, and our strength, that would already fill a lifetime without any new ceremonies or rituals. Our different priorities are going to drive different behavior, and defending that is work in and of itself, a work which has been ignored or deemed unnecessary for over a century.

We don't need to create new rituals and practices to fulfill what God commands of us. Even worse, creating them may cause new problems, because then the focus becomes those rituals and practices instead of the God they are supposed to be about.

If everyone was aligned in their worship of the same God, nobody would be concerned with what or how people celebrated on December 25th, because by default we'd have unity where it really mattered, and freedom to act within the framework of a genuine understanding of the difference between righteousness and sin.

But, because we have sinned with idol worship, the list of things which are "permissible but not beneficial" will be different for us than a nation which is not drowning in hedonistic materialism. The things they do will be different from us, and neither is "right" or "wrong" in that difference.

Because we have lost our identity, and have been consumed by pride, our path back to God will look different than other nations.

We will need to get back to the basics, to the heart of Christianity, learn to defend that effectively, and then slowly build up and out from there.

Defending holidays and such, under the current circumstances, is entirely pointless if we're not in agreement with which God that is supposed to be at the center of that holiday. If we're not following God's explicit commands when God has provided them, if we can't even get that right, then we've certainly got no place trying to come up with anything on our own.

We are a nation fixated on pleasure and celebration, and so we'll need to abstain from those until we can understand how to do them correctly. We have to stop sinning, no matter how convenient it is to keep going, to just go with the crowd.

Like an alcoholic, it's possible that we could enjoy an alcoholic beverage responsibly, but if we can't, then our only option is prohibition. If we can't help but create a false god, better that we do without such temptations at all than to try and bed evil and sustain an entirely false pretense of righteousness.

It doesn't matter what everyone else is doing. It doesn't matter how your behavior is going to be restricted compared to what everyone else may be doing.

The purpose of our lives is to glorify God, and God is not glorified when we deny the unrepentant sin that we have enabled or participated in.

We must repent, cut back all that has led us astray, all the distractions, and only rebuild from a position of truth and understanding.

If we end up back where we were before, so be it to the glory of God. If we don't, so be it to the glory of God.

Either way, our goal should not be a maximization of our pleasure and entertainment, but the glory of God, whatever that may require us to give up in doing so.

The sacrifice is worth it, and refusing to sacrifice something so arbitrary and temporal would demonstrate where one's faith is truly placed.

(Book Review) SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down The Thought Police by Vox Day

I think books can be lumped into two big categories which then further branch out into a near infinite number of branches of varying size: Fiction and Non-Fiction. SJWs Always Lie falls into the latter category, though it often feels like the former, though this is a Rorschach Test on the reader.

Social Justice Warriors Always Lie is not a difficult book to read. The words are simple enough, the concepts explained in terms that even someone completely unfamiliar with the context being discussed can be rapidly brought up to speed.

The challenge with SJWs Always Lie is encapsulated in the question that you have to ask yourself while reading it: "If this is true, what do I do now?"

There is a psychological phenomenon called "projection", which in Modern Culture manifests in how people presume that other people are inherently good, because people want to believe that they are inherently good. They believe something about someone else being true because that's what they believe to be true, or at least want to believe to be true, about themselves. They "project" themselves onto other people, without consideration as to whether this is a good idea or not. SJWs Always Lie challenges the concept that "other people are inherently good" by showing actual examples of events which have happened that are, at face value, something that seems stripped from the blog of some paranoid conspiracy theorist.

There is no way that people behave this way and still function, right? These stories must be missing some critical detail that rationalizes or justifies the behavior of these people, right?

Above all, I certainly haven't ever behaved like this, and am certainly not capable of this, right?

Because the criticisms of other people so often apply accurately to us because of projection, our Modern Culture has attempted to neuter certain forms of criticism as "offensive". "Political Correctness" is a means by which people are conditioned to conflate the perception of forgoing diplomatic politeness with an action of violence, and in turn that the response of onlookers and others should the same for both as well. It's a diluting of the moral weight that is supposed to distinguish between tangible wrongs and mere perceptions of wrong, and looking to use social pressure to control aberrant behavior.

SJWs Always Lie is primarily about SJWs and the way that they wield "Political Correctness" to ruins people's lives, from social gatherings to careers, and forces the reader to face the fact that sometimes people are not inherently good, and especially so when the people put on the mantle of "crusader for good". That those in the Modern Culture who are screaming the loudest for fairness and equality are the ones working hardest to undermine it. The ones demanding that tyranny and oppression be eliminated are merely seeking to replace the tyrants and oppressors with people that they like and can control. Those upset with "the system" are just dissatisfied with the hand the system dealt them, not that there was a system in the first place.

And the reader may be one of them, or have helped them, but instead of facing the embarassment and learning and answering "If this is true, what do I do now?", they'll write off the book as fiction. They'll denigrate the author as if that repudiates any of the points he raises. They'll declare that the book is offensive and "not PC". They'll do everything they can to avoid facing the reality in favor of fantasies that make them feel better.

In short, they'll lie. They'll lie to others, but worse, they'll also lie to themselves.

SJWs Always Lie is an easy to read Non-Fiction book about real occurrences and includes the appropriate response to take when you come under attack by an SJW. It's also a Rorschach test to see if you're an SJW or the Moderate that is exploited by SJWs in their crusades against "bad things". This is why it is controversial.

This book is a must-read because what it has to say about SJWs is as critical as what it will reveal about yourself, and to refer to a quote from Sun Tzu:

 “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Today we fight an ideological battle on a field of philosophy, but that does not change the tactics, preparedness, and seriousness of the fight. Whether by word or by sword, our very lives hang in the balance of the outcome of our current struggles.

Read SJWs Always Lie. Know yourself and know your enemy.

You can buy SJWs Always Lie in paperback or Kindle format from Amazon by clicking here.

What Christians Winning in the Cultural War Looks Like

Inspired by a recent conversation with my mother and a youtube video, I wanted to address on what grounds and what it means when a Christian is to fight or destroy, and what "winning" looks like in the current Cultural War.

First, the video:

This video takes us right up to the point of "what do I do with the information God has given me?" The video can really only ever go that far, because the Bible does the same exact thing.

The Bible has tons of context, historical, theological, and doctrinal information to explain why the reconciliation with God is necessary, and by what means that reconciliation is afforded to us, but changes tone from specific details to high-level motivations when it comes to behavior once that reconciliation has been accomplished.

So what is someone who is now reconciled supposed to do with that? I can see the specific things I am not supposed to do, but I don't have nearly as clear an image of exactly what I am supposed to do.

Sure, there are recommendations to do things like pray, to read scripture, and to meditate on things which are worthwhile, but even that still doesn't tell you what things specifically you should be meditating on. Can cute kittens be OK? Video games? Heroic actions described in fiction or non-fiction? Political figures? Earning money?

Or perhaps what part of the Bible should I read today? Or perhaps for how long during the day?

The short answer, as in the video, is that nothing should ever take the place of seeking out Jesus as the number one priority. This does not preclude seeking out anything else ever, but without the correct priority, we set ourselves up for failure. Once Jesus has been set as the first priority, the rest will be added to us based on what the calling is of God on our life.


Briefly mocked in the above video, believers do not have permission to sit back and wait for God to do all the work. This isn't to say God isn't already doing most of the work, but God invites us to participate in the process. The final "command" from Jesus, arguably the second highest priority given to all believers, was not "just stay at home, except for going to church every Sunday in the morning, and bask in the blessings of God while watching God make disciples."

The command was (summarized) to "go and make disciples and teach them". How this is actually done relates directly to the ongoing Cultural War we see in Western Civilization.

In the Cultural War, we first need to identify the "sides". The first is that of God. Not Christians or Christianity or even the Bible. People and paper aren't the definition of the faction. They are part of the faction, but the followers of Christ are not what defines Christianity. Jesus is. The church does not define Jesus, Jesus defines the church.

Put differently, God can exist in a vacuum absent of Christians or the Bible. Christians and the Bible cannot exist in a vacuum absent of God.

In this manner, the "other" side is sin. Not non-Christians, and not Satan. The manifestations and members of a faction are not the definition of the faction. Satan denounces God, but Satan is merely the most prominent member of the rebellion against God. Satan is the greatest example of sin, but Satan does not define sin.

Sin could exist in a vacuum absent Satan or non-believers. That said, Satan or non-believers could exist in a vacuum absent sin. Sin is not an intrinsic or necessary state, but it defines the entirety of the rebellion against God.

Why these distinctions? Why tie everything back to God vs. sin? Because it greatly affects what we're talking about when we fight and destroy.

If God's enemy is not flesh and blood, then destroying flesh and blood is not fighting for God.

If God's enemy is sin, then destroying a manifestation of sin does not destroy the reason that sin was able to manifest in the first place.

The "enemy" is immaterial, it is an idea, a contrast to God, and this cannot be ultimately destroyed or fought against effectively by anyone but God. Final "victory" will happen when all that is sinful is permanently set apart from God.

So what is it then that Christians are fighting here and now? What exactly are we destroying?


Look to the parable of the sower. In this parable, the seeds (Gospel) are just being planted, and have not yet started to grow. In all but one circumstance, the growth of the seed is impeded by circumstances. While this parable does not reference servants like that of the wheat and tares, it can provide the context where the servants of God are called into action. Soil is stated to represent the heart, and so making disciples and teaching is thus tending to that soil.

For the seed which fell by the wayside, the seed was snatched away by birds. Christians are called to scare away those birds.

For the seed which fell among the rocks, it thrived for only a time and then withered. Christians are called to remove the rocks from the soil.

For the seed which fell among the weeds, it thrived but was then choked out by weeds. Christians are called to pull weeds from the soil.

How?

Christians are not the ones planting the seeds, not the ones which created the state the soil is found in, nor even the ones who can take credit for the growth of the seeds, but we are invited to participate in the cultivation and refinement of the soil, in addition to the care of the plants which grow from it.

So, again, how? By the power and wisdom of God, because on our own we would not have the strength, persistence, or knowledge to keep up the very difficult work. New birds replace the old. New weeds grow back. Rocks hide just below the surface, bloody our fingers, and some are just too big to handle on our own. The work is never done, so we need people constantly tending to every patch of soil regularly. The culture we live in then defines the nature and rate of occurrence of these circumstances, and we can have influence over culture.

God wants the truth to be planted and to grow in the hearts of all, and we are invited to participate in facilitating that process.

The current state of the Culture War is the result of Christians neglecting their duties, and this neglect was caused by not focusing on Jesus, by focusing on the duties themselves. Seeds are stolen because Christians invite birds in by trying to evangelize a belief they do not understand themselves. Weeds grow up from the materialism and statism that we foster when we support governments and companies who are helmed by people interested only in power. Rocks remain in the hearts of those who seek a relationship and love, but are instead isolated from a moralist Church that seeks to perform charity to alleviate guilt, not to build relationships.

These are not physical battles, they are ideological. They are philosophical. And it is this battle that Christianity has run away from in fear for far too long. It is time to stand up and fight the intellectual battles, to destroy the credibility of lies with truth, and to work with God to restore to us a culture which is influenced by God's grace and mercy and not sin. We do not do this alone, but God's plan doesn't have him doing it all alone either. We should not ignore that God has asked us to work in parallel with God.

We fight against sin by destroying the opportunities for evil to take root through tending the soil and seeking out God's guidance on how best to do that.

To close this already very long post, I'd recommend this sermon about Christians being "In Intellectual Neutral" from William Lane Craig, a Christian philosopher. He addresses the specific battle that Christians have not been fighting, and how we can start fighting back from his perspective:

"The gospel is never heard in isolation. The gospel is always heard against the cultural backdrop in which a person was born and raised. A person who was raised in a culture which is sympathetic to the Christian faith will be open to the gospel in a way that a person who was raised in a secular culture will not. For a person who is thoroughly secularized, you may as well tell him to believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy as in Jesus Christ, it will seem that absurd to him."

Scare the birds, destroy the weeds, and remove the rocks. Tend the soil and cultivate the truth of God in yourself and in those around you! :)