Rubbish

When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day. 

 - From 1 Corinthians 4

We now understand the source of hate against Christians. Over the past fifty years, the institutionalized Church in the Western world has gone from being the source of bedrock virtues in our communities: Freedom of Speech, respect and dignity for all, the advance of equality, equity, and justice in human history. And it was even understood that you could not have righteousness, justice, freedom and peace, without an equal portion of the practice of moral purity, as a lifestyle of discipline and self-denial. 

If you wanted to live in a free society, you'd better have something good to say about such things as abstinence and sobriety. You can't have justice without purity. 

For two hundred years, we enjoyed the fruits of a very favorable social construct: if the Church advanced, life improved for the greatest, and most diverse mix of the overall population. 

It just did. And we all got it. 

But in a world dominated by constant visual stimulation and instant gratification, materialism and unfiltered language, victimization of The Other and glorification of party spirit and bias, it became harder and harder to just expect people to understand why purity and self-denial are good things. 

Absent any restraining factor, humanity - blessed with so many options and the power to make moral choices - began to choose more and more, whatever feels good, whatever turns on the most feel-good hormones in as little time as possible. It became impossible to distinguish feeling good from Goodness, itself. 

Without an overall sense of the value of a healthy and prominent Church, it is degraded in the eyes of the public, as a powerful institution that only exists to get in the way of our fun, and our feelings. 

Was the first generation Church subjected to unspeakable horrors and tortures? 

In 2022, it's getting easier to understand how easily that can happen, even in "progressive," "advanced" generations.