To See Ourselves as Others See Us

What do your non-Christian friends and family think of your faith? How do they see you? Does that response differ at all from how they felt just five or ten years ago?

It's hard to dispute that American culture is growing more hostile to Christianity. One proper response is to recognize that it's normal: Jesus told us that in this world we would have trouble (Jn. 16:33). And countless brothers and sisters around the world and throughout history have experienced not just a cultural tide turning against them, but even floods of opposition and persecution.

Yet what is normal for most Christians certainly doesn't feel normal to us. Given how the ground is shifting underfoot, I'd suggest that Robert Louis Wilken's book The Christians as the Romans Saw Them can shed a little light on our situation.

As we hear increasingly heated censures of the sharper edges of our beliefs and practice, it's worth listening to what some astute pagan observers thought about Christianity in its early days. How do ancient critiques stack up to today's challenges to the faith? Read more