Times like these when the Christian faith is being attacked means that our pursuit of community will need to intensify. We will need to form closer bonds and deeper relationships with one another. Those who are often content being alone will discover very soon that the only voices who tolerate your basic dogmas are those who share the values and virtues of the faith. Choose ye this day!
In a time not too far from now (unless God changes the cultural forms and fixtures of the day), Christians will be compelled to either lose friendships or keep their opinion to private conversations. Some Christians will quietly give up their convictions in order to fit in and avoid conflict. But those who are faithful will seek communities with a shared mission who does not take Christ lightly nor his calling flippantly.
Christians will be called back to their first love in a more intense and genuine way and seek the old rituals that made Christendom what it is: hospitality, friendship and the Eucharistic life. These things which have lost its vigor and practice in the Church will become once more the things that identify her and allows her to sustain an authentic Christian witness.
If the cultural forces continue to move away from the authentic values of the Church, members will have to see the community as an alternative city fully ready to provide counter-cultural measures that build the Church once again. We will have to restore our sense of the good by loving one another and surrounding ourselves with a Creed that cannot be torn by the mobs but that is embraced by a genuine community of believers.
