Sacred Conflict Amidst a Decaying Culture

Worship in the Modern West

True worship will inevitably clash with cultures that reject Christ, and in the decaying landscape of the modern West, true Christian worship will begin to increasingly look like faithful warfare. It has rightly been observed that worship is warfare, and that is precisely because worship is a declaration of the rule and reign of the King. When such a declaration falls on rebellious ears, a confrontation occurs. When a culture which still has great measure of Christian influence is nonetheless paganizing, though that conflict may develop slowly over years or even decades, it is nonetheless inevitable. True worship involves a great deal more than singing, to be sure, yet it is certainly not less. In the societal waves that followed 2020, many Christians carefully considered the necessary content of such worship, as congregants were encouraged to quietly hum familiar hymns through masks while dutifully standing at appropriate distances. While many Christians watched the news coverage of massive marches and protests that were officially considered “safe,” gatherings of outdoor Psalm sings and prayer were deemed dangerous and met with the harsh response of the State.

But why such harsh reactions to Christian worship? How can hymn sings be considered acts of political violence? Why are whispered prayers in front of abortion clinics met with such vicious hostility? Hostility certainly does not arise because Christian worship is invading into a neutral space. The reason for such hostility is that neutrality does not exist, everyone is worshiping, and true worship is always an offensive assault against darkness. 

The Sounds of Pagan Worship

Consider the example of Jericho, a fortress city that stood against Israel’s divinely-commissioned conquest of the land of Canaan. It was not only an obstacle in the way of Israel’s dominion of the land of Canaan, but also a city of pagan worship. With a name roughly translated as “moon,” Jericho may well have entertained astral worship and pagan astrology—encouraging mankind to worship the celestial bodies instead of the God who had created them. Jericho exemplifies those pagan nations that God describes as having been vomited out of the land (Lev 18:24–30). 

Yet Jericho was not an offense to God because it lacked worship, it was an offense to God precisely because it worshiped the darkness rather than the light. Many modern sensibilities may conclude that worship is an open choice, and that God is quite pleased with any effort at worship that we may offer. Yet Jericho illustrates a far different dynamic: that worship is inevitable, and that the object and content of our worship is of vital importance. The question is not whether we will worship, but which god we will worship. 

Cultures express the values of a people, so we are right to affirm that culture is downstream from religion. Religious convictions form and shape our cultural expressions, which inevitably entail religious trappings: holy days, sacraments of worship, priests and ministers, and ultimately a god that is venerated. The modern West is replete with examples of such religious expression—we live in deeply religious times, though it is the object of these religio-cultural expressions that is disconcerting. In short, our culture worships the wrong god. 

Dedicating Things to the Lord

At Jericho, the city was dedicated to the Lord. Dedication is when things or people were set-aside for special use, whether for honorable use or for destruction. The latter was the case for Jericho, as God’s people were commanded not to touch any spoils of conquest. Jericho and its culture had become untouchable, in keeping with Calvin’s observation that things “devoted” to the Lord are considered “dead” (untouchable) that they may be put to holy use. 

This illustrates why the popular modern conception of religious pluralism is deeply flawed. Because worship, whether true or false, is warfare, religion is never an isolated or private affair. The sins of a people never remain secret. Sin is either rejected, or it is tolerated, then accepted, then protected, then celebrated, and eventually imposed upon others. There is, after all, a reason that brutal crimes are being overlooked while tire marks on a rainbow sidewalk that incurred an impassioned manhunt. False worship is a pollutant that infects the whole land, including its culture and laws. Then comes the antithesis to Jericho’s worship. After dedicating the city of Jericho to the Lord, God’s presence dwelt there—not in communion, but in judgment. Divine presence descended upon sinful man, yet without a Mediator. Subsequently, God’s people circled the city seven times, suggesting that a de-creation event was at work—an undoing of something in rebellion that would give way to the start of something new. 

The Sounds of True Worship

Why would God put such a strong fortress in their path? Despite God’s promises, Jericho seemed quite beyond their reach, and that was precisely the point of God leading His people to worship (priests blowing horns as the people shouted and praised) with such confidence. In short, God gave them an adversary so that they would fight against it.

This is not a militaristic goal of a woebegone era; it is a reminder that the Christian faith is one of conflict with darkness. Their instruction was to wage war, and their warfare was manifested by an outpouring of worship. As Kuyper observed, “the Bible places even greater emphasis on the battle we must wage for Christ as our King than it does on our confession and witness, and on the cross that is ours to bear”—faithful conflict is inextricable from Christian life. Yet the enduring hope for the Christian is that there is joy in this struggle, and that the promise of God is that Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25).