Excerpt from "Where Is It Most Difficult to Be a Christian?" by John Piper
But in America nobody is going to kill you for being a Christian. Rather, the dangers here are more subtle—and probably more dangerous. In fact, it just might be more difficult to be a strong, vibrant, Christ-exalting, mission-driven Christian in America.
You know the parable in Luke 8 about the four soils. On the first soil, the hard path, the sower sows the seed and the bird (representing the Devil) plucks it up. The second soil likewise loses its seed. That happens when the sun, which represents persecution, burns it up. (Maybe that would be like the difficulty of being a Christian in a country where it is illegal.)
Then Jesus tells about a third soil where thorns grow up with the seed and choke out the word. Those thorns are then identified as the pleasures and the cares of this word. That's America.
That third soil is America where to be a Christian is sometimes just easy. It's clubby. You go to church, the music is nice, the AC is nice, the lighting is nice, the friends are there, the children have something fun to do, the sermon is more-or-less interesting, and we can go home saying that we've been Christians.
Christians in other countries, however, are underground and must keep their voices quiet. And if they're found out then they go to jail. Those are two very different situations.
It's easy to just slide in to traditional religiosity in America. We need to be summoned again and again to a biblical vision of counter-cultural, pilgrim-like Christianity, where this world is not our home. We also need to take steps to make sure that we put governors on our lifestyle and that we engage in acts of love that may be costly. We need to channel our wealth towards those who need it most, in terms of receiving the gospel and all that the gospel brings.
So it's really dangerous to live in America, and I think we ought to be very careful that we not equate the American way with the Christian way.
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