My little nephew is an example for all Christians to follow. He was an original who did not hesitate to go against the prevailing position. He had one answer, only one, to every instruction, every request for action with which he did not agree: 'No,' a categorical, firm, and resolute no. This is the stuff we Christians must be made of, each and every one of us, like that little 5-year-old at the time, capable of saying No to anything that goes against our biblical position.
It only takes two Christians to get together for them to start lamenting the state of the world, corruption, and sin, but curiously, the same people easily give way to these things. We enjoy jokes about lifestyles that horrified us just ten years ago while simultaneously begging God to intervene to stem the moral decline of our society. What a contradiction! It's inevitable, however, since we often shy away from expressing our disagreement for fear of standing out.
It's funny because humans in general like to trumpet their originality, but, We also have a tendency to want to blend in. This results in people who say they want to love Jesus, but who fear being different from others or worse, being perceived by others as being different, and therefore becoming objects of ridicule. So they live their faith like a submarine and hardly dare to mention the name of Jesus.
It must be said that in some circles, saying you're a Christian provokes raised eyebrows and questions about your mental state. So here we are at church on Sunday, vigorously singing that we're going to take the gospel to the nations. Then back to real life, to work, a little murmur like any prayer at lunchtime before the meal, and that's when we dare. As for our vision of the world, different from that of those around us, it remains carefully hidden, stamped as a private matter.
Josiah was a nonconformist. He succeeded his father, an unjust man, who himself had succeeded a father, Manasseh, who had committed horrible infamies in Israel, for which he had only repented towards the end of his life. Josiah led the nation back in the opposite direction, eliminating idolatry, desacralizing pagan altars, purifying the temple, rejecting the dominant way of thinking, and reinstituting the (Jewish) Passover, which had not been celebrated since the time of the judges. He expressed his disagreement with his surroundings and proceeded to radically transform them. He dared to go against the grain and brought about a reform.
The means we use may be different, but the call is the same—reform. And reform requires that nonconformist perspective, and that at the individual level; the ability to stand up and say, 'I disagree with you.' In the midst of a disapproving society, it means being able to say, 'No,' to injustice, to go against the grain of prevailing thought, and to actively pursue righteousness. And if you have to stand out, if you have to be different, so be it; in any case, you cannot reform that to which you have subjected yourself.
It's true. We are often quick to complain about a situation to those who share our opinion, but we are often very shy when it comes to proclaiming our values to those who have a contrary opinion. As I often say to my students: “true rebellion is not to sink like everyone else and be the worst, but to go against the grain and be the best!” It's so easy to steal rather than work, to lie rather than tell the truth, to sleep around before getting married rather than committing… I like to say “no” when society says “yes” and I like to say “yes” when society says “no”!