Finding our identity

Today, culture in the UK demands a common belief system.  Agreeing to and abiding by ‘British values’ is the plumb line today for measuring whether or not we are good citizens.  A corporate identity is being thrust on us and there is no room for dissention.  But what happens when our Christian world view and deeply-held convictions are in conflict with those of the State?  

The principles we need to have firmly embedded within us are illustrated by Daniel and his three friends when they were forcefully exiled to Babylon.  On arrival, Nebuchadnezzar, then the world super-power and destroyer of Jerusalem, signed them up to a university course in Babylonian language and literature in preparation for service to the State. 

But first they had to have a Babylonian identity, so they were given Babylonian names honouring the chief gods.  Everything from the friends’ past was seemingly removed and obliterated.  They quickly had to discover whether it was possible to maintain their Hebrew identity when everything familiar to them thus far had been stripped away.

Some years ago I knew someone who had been brought up in a pagan home and had the name of an Indian god.  When he became a Christian as an adult, he changed his name as a sign of his new Christian identity.  For Daniel and his friends, it was the opposite way round. 

It was at that point that they faced their greatest challenge – the one which made future decisions, however difficult, obvious to them.  They had to decide once and for all who their lives belonged to, the God of Israel or the State of Babylon.

We know from the scriptures that they made a crystal clear choice to continue to live as children of the One True God, with their Hebrew identity – a choice which took them into the direst of circumstances and which they knew would probably cost them their lives, if their God did not intervene.

The events which occurred in Babylon, when Daniel and his friends ‘nailed their colours to the mast’ and trusted God for the outcome, have inspired Jews and Christians alike to stand firm.    Never will their courage be as much of an encouragement to us however as it will in the days ahead.

Christians have been free to live their lives in comfort, backed by a benevolent State in the UK, over the last couple of centuries.  But that has all changed.  Secular humanism and Postmodernism relegated our culture to ‘post-Christian’ by the end of the 20^th century.  Now, in the second decade of the 21^st century, our culture is decidedly ‘anti-Christian’. 

As the State represses Christian freedoms more and more, all God-fearers will have to decide on their true identity once and for all, for allegiance to God and allegiance to the State will be in sharp contrast.

The Bible forewarns us that in the Last Days there will be a great falling away from the faith (Matthew 24:24).  Like Daniel and his friends, we must know that first and foremost we are sons and daughters of the Living God.  In the conflict between the lordship of the State and the lordship of Jesus Christ, there must be no contest.

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