In the Introduction to his new book (Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious) Christopher Catherwood writes,

“To me, people who claim to write ‘objective’ history – that is, history without bias – are almost invariably people who, when writing on religious history, have a strong bias against evangelical belief, the existence of the supernatural, or the guiding hand of God in providence. Our political prejudices are man-made, however strongly we believe in them, and I am always careful to try to weed out such opinions from my analysis of the past. Christianity is God-made, not human, while, say, a Baptist or a Methodist bias might be unfair regarding other equally good Christian perspectives. But a strong belief in the truth of the atonement, of God’s very existence, and of a meaning to history because God is in charge of it is surely to adopt a biblical rather than human interpretation of what happens and why. As Christians living in postmodern times, we ought to reclaim the idea that there is a final truth that God has revealed through Jesus Christ on the cross and that we live in a universe of which God is in control, and therefore it has meaning.”

This is precisely what we are fighting for in these postmodern times: objective, timeless truth centered in a God-intoxicated view of history. No soldier in this battle for truth is properly equipped to fight on its frontlines without a proper understanding of history. It is precisely because of that deficiency we find ourselves emersed in a philosophical/theological debate over what it means to be God’s people in a postmodern context.

And no defintion of what it means to be God’s people is complete without the cross.  The cross stands at the center of human history. How you view the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday informs everything you believe and do.  The cross makes demands to which a majority of this world’s citizens are not willing to submit; and yet the word of God prophetically warns that “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”  Immediately preceeding this stern prophecy is the declaration of the humility of our Savior – the One who is by very nature Life – Himself being humbled by obedience to Death, even the death of the cross.

The exaltation of Jesus Christ – His declaration as the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead – was a direct consequence of his humiliation by the cross (Philippians 2:5-8).  The cross is the focal point.  It is the preaching of the cross exclusively which opens the hearts of unregenerate men and women to the things of God. Regardless of the cultural context in which we find ourselves, this message ALONE – without the assistance of human ingenuity in packaging it – is the message which truly saves. 

When the Apostle Paul found himself in the midst of the spiritually dark and immoral culture of Corinth, he purposed to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  There were no attempts by Paul to make the message of the cross understandable to the culture; he specifically points out in 1 Corinthians 2 that he intentionally avoided couching his message with enticing words, lest their faith stand merely in the wisdom of man rather than in the power of God.

The primary enemies of the cross today are within the church, just as they were in Paul’s day.  Having focused the attention of the Philippians on the centrality of the humiliation of Christ in the cross, and thus the importance of keeping the cross central to the life and mission of the church, the Apostle warns the Philippians against those among them who, while walking with them, are themselves “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18).  Those enemies of the cross still walk among the church today, calling the church to speak the language of the culture rather than the soul-saving message of the cross. These enemies may indeed be well-intentioned, but knowingly or unknowingly they are robbing the church of the one thing that makes it distinctive from every other belief system and religious worldview: a sinless Savior willingly laying down his life for His sinful people in order to purchase them for God out of every kindred, tongue, tribe and nation so that He might present them to God holy and blameless and above reproach.  In place of this message, the enemies of the cross have offered a message of promising your best life now and heaven, too.  Nothing could be more antithetical to the message of the cross, and more detrimental to the life and witness of the church in our postmodern culture.