everyone else is doing it

I’ve been reading a children’s book on American history and was struck by how recent the civil rights movement in the United States was. For some reason, the days of MLK and Rosa Parks seem far and distant to me, but they happened only a generation away.

When segregation ended in school, black students were taunted, mocked, and physically abused as they entered into formerly white schools. During the bus boycotts in Montgomery, houses were burned, churches were bombed and blacks were arrested en masse and put into jail. It wasn’t just a few stray individuals, but large portions of the society, many of whom were culturally Christian, that inflicted such violence. Attitudes and action that are so clearly “wrong” for us were completely acceptable then. They were the pattern of their world.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

I think that verse of scripture is often used nowadays to refer to excessive drinking and drugs and promiscuous sex. But I think “the pattern of the world” runs much deeper than a set of external behaviors. What accepted actions of our society today will be judged harshly in the future? What assumptions and attitudes do we hold today that will be deemed completely wrong tomorrow?

If we as Christians are to be salt and light to the earth, we are to live with critical minds, minds that test and question what we see and hear, from both society at large and the church. We must refuse to say that anything is acceptable simply because everyone else is doing it. If we are to bring God’s kingdom of justice and love down onto earth, then we must be wary of this world.