Going along with the crowd?

Over the last several years I've found some helpful writings from the early church writings of the first few centuries of Christianity. Here is a quote I found interesting today (from www.commonprayer.net):

Cyprian of Carthage, a third-century North African bishop, wrote, “The world is going mad in mutual extermination, and murder, considered as a crime when committed individually, becomes a virtue when it is committed by large numbers. It is the multiplication of the frenzy that assures impunity to the assassins.”

It made me think of the old idea of peer pressure and going with the flow of culture rather than standing out and even swimming against the downstream flow of secular modernity.  Maybe Cyprian was correct in seeing how evil can become standard if enough people in a society or culture accept it? I guess it seems like the idea of strength in numbers and fitting in, etc.

Jesus spoke of this danger during His ministry - specifically in the message on the mount He gave in Matthew 5-7. Listen to His warming in 7:13-14:   

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

-English Standard Version

Whoa. This makes you pause and ask what beliefs or behaviors we might have adopted or currently justify that are far from the kingdom ways of Jesus.

Lord, convict us where we've drifted away from Your teachings and into the mainstream thinking and acting of our modern culture. May we be reawakened to Your kingdom come and will be done and may we be counter-culture followers and Your revolutionaries of love!

Photo by Y. Peyankov on Unsplash