Here is Rachel Lu regarding the Benedict Option:
Believers, the culture needs you.
Jesus Christ was not a politician. His Kingdom was not of this world. Nevertheless, his political savvy was on full display on the final day of his mortal life. We generally don’t urge political appointees to be “Christlike” in their confirmation hearings, but perhaps we should.
Face to face with the conviction-hungry Annas, Jesus avoids testifying about his actual teachings by pointing out that half the city has heard him preach. He knows that the high priest is terrified of the court of public opinion. Standing before the Roman prefect, Jesus immediately seizes the upper hand by proving that he fully understands the swirling political currents prompting this fateful trial. Pilate, who does not understand, breaks down at once. (“Am I a Jew?” he explodes in frustration. “Your people have brought you to me. What have you done?”)
The entire Passion narrative presents us with a remarkable juxtaposition of profound, world-altering events and petty politics. We get glimpses into the motivations of all the major players: the Sanhedrin, wanting someone else to handle the dirty work of silencing this shrewd social critic; Pontius Pilate, a harried bureaucrat, reluctantly answering their wish because he is terrified of being labeled an “enemy of Caesar”; Jesus Christ, adroitly getting himself convicted without violating earthly law, to save mankind from their sins.
We are not the first people in history to grapple with a confusing interplay between sweeping eschatological narratives and the tawdry tangle of temporal affairs.
In our day, American Christians struggle to juxtapose a narrative of cultural decline against a faith that they believe will endure to the end of time. This past month, that discussion took an interesting twist following the release of several books that were written when most of us expected to be living under the enlightened reign of our first female president. Sober and bracing, these books explore the question of how Christians can remain Christian in a libertine, secular society. Suddenly religious conservatives found themselves in a conversation they would have had probably with far greater intensity had the Democrats won last November.
Read more: National Review
Image credit: Sunrise — from the Mike Huckabee 2016 campaign.
