“18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”” (1 Co 1:18–31 ESV)

At various times and seasons the Climate for the evangel is corrupted. Or so it would seem. Pockets of resistance, bull-headed Insistence on Truth, calm and Reboot unto Sanity: it is never a done deal that our Gospel be weakened by familiarity, by desire to fit into the common mold, by ornery insistence on some roundabout or indirect Route. Evangel’s truth Always and Everywhere mints Bombastic and Bullheaded, Stark and Found-in-Love patrons, artisans, workers, ministers.

Yet the public record… where are our Christs, where our Ministers? In ages past, was the Gospel passed down the chain of hereditary lineage by an easily-forgotten little squeak, pipsqueak of a voice? Was there always some Unction, Sanity, Clear Sailing Skies for the beleaguered sinner? Even if said sanity set in diametric opposition the furtive, temporally-brief, span of the Preacher.

Tales are told of evangelicals behind the iron curtain of another religion, and how it is all they can do just to subsist: we go ahead and Ask, is it our right or duty to Question another world religion in such fashion? Maybe not only our right but our duty. That is, Paul in the Areopagus, reasoned in terms of the patrons’ existing religion; all religion needs Reform, needs Pastors, needs Immediacy. 

Is it angular and insane to pipe up in the cohort, in the One Body of Service-men and -women, in the Orbital and Enmeshed, swaying and vibing in the breeze, about Christ who came to save you from your sins? Is this a time and season Verboten? Sadly, tales of unreceptive audiences are rarely paired with stories of A-plus Teamwork in the Faith: the orbital and enmeshed, swaying and vibing, gestating and heaving Body Militant become Body Christian. So that we might know where loved ones go when they Die. So that we might have the gumption to Move On from our hangups and to get a zany and over-the-top confrontational Attitude and Testimony: it would almost be Illegal, this Christian thing, were it not that by-and-large its practitioners… we would like to conclude, they are using their headship for the Common Good.

Illegal no longer, the murmured Catechism becomes the Professed Injunction, Mandate, Gospel. And our Prayer… our Prayer for the religionists of foreign Deities: it is just that some Vision of Christ, some One Meeting or Encounter, would fill and inspire their dreams waking and sleeping. We can forgive the Muslim or Buddhist or Hindi in our midst, if we can acknowledge our own schisms East and West, Rome and Canterbury, Rome and Worms. Heavy religious thinking is a sword and scabbard, dutifully brought to mind of its own sad Estate, but still its Promise that Christ will come again and… He’s gonna need all the help He can get. How many Times did already the pastor try and evoke a Second Evangelistic Era, but was shot down much too early?

The purview of the Soldier is to be mindful that Today is the Day for some Punch, while also Today is the Day for some shameless Peace. The Peace of being In Motion, in the Business, of War for Christ’s Name. A motion we can Abide in Fully Forgiven, Absolved, and Furiously Forward-Thinking. It becomes the day’s labors to be Warring, if done properly: mindful a stitch in time saves Nine. Mindful, already the poor are oppressed and the widows neglected. Mindful half the Population, the movers and shakers, are plundering in ways scarcely Believable to the innocent Childlike mindset of the Saint. If we aren’t ourselves in sin, we can forget that others indeed may be in sin. Yet the right balance: towards the self, suspicious; towards others, generous: calls for a Rising Up of the shriven ones, now made Holy in their Prospectus and Forward March.