From Russell Moore:

“Who can deny that the outside world defines American Christianity not by Christ and him crucified but by political tribal affiliation because of what we have shown them about ourselves? … We ground our identity in culture wars because it’s much easier than bearing witness. It’s easier to find which of our neighbors are the “bad people” and to fear them than it is to actually speak to their consciences about atonement, grace, reconciliation, and newness of life. Is it any wonder, then, that the world expects to hear from us not the words of the Bible and the announcement of the kingdom of God, but simply a more extreme version of the political warfare that’s already invaded almost every aspect of our lives?

The way we recover that lost vocabulary is not by finding new words, but by falling in love again with the old ones. … We reduce our neighbors down to their positions on whatever political controversies our leaders say should differentiate ‘us’ from ‘them.’ … It was as if I were standing in front of the Grand Canyon, complaining about the lack of adequate cell service to download a YouTube video.

Maybe if more of us were struck by just how strange and astounding these truths are, we would find the world around us startled by them too. This wouldn’t make people like us anymore—that’s not the point. The point is that people should hate us for the right reason. When we reclaim a vocabulary of wonder, perhaps more of our neighbors will gasp when people become Christians in order to say, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).

And we will respond with what he taught us to say from the beginning: “Come and see.”