Christianity is full of impediments to faith; otherwise faith would not be faith. Faith is always in opposition to the powers of human wisdom. While in India last month, the faithful Lutherans there told me about their struggles with their culture. As we talked these things over, I often had to say that the Lutherans of North America struggle with very similar things; "the devil uses the same tactics everywhere." Our greatest battles are not against culture per se, but rather against the demonic abhorrence of the humiliation and weakness of God. There is much that is offensive to old Adam and His tempting master, Satan, in the Christian teaching. Old Adam does not want to be engaged by Christ and the cross. He does not want the suffering it implies nor the apparent weakness of God that it shows in the world. Old Adam cannot "see beyond" what is right in front of him and which he interprets as signs of God's love and God's attitude toward him. Only faith, that is divinely-given by God the Holy Spirit can "see beyond," by not seeing its walk, but following the voice of the Word of God.

Sometimes the gurus of "church growth" encourage the church to get rid of her culturally objectionable practices as she goes about her business of proclaiming the Lord's Word in the world. The theory is that if we could just remove the stumbling blocks that keep people from joining the church they will come to faith in Christ more easily: "If we could just get rid of chanting in the church, more people would be attracted to join it." You could replace the word "chanting" with a thousand other examples, but the significance would be the same. This is something like suggesting that lipstick applied to a pig would make her more beautiful. The big deal issue of the cross still looms over the church, overshadowing every other "objectionable" thing the church says and does. "So you don't like chanting, because it sounds 'weird.' If you want weird; how about the fact that the church worships a dead guy as very God and Savior and the only way to heaven, who was crucified by the Romans a couple millennia ago and claims to have risen from the dead?" How do you put lipstick on that?

Maybe if we concentrated on proclaiming the gospel of the Crucified instead of focusing on removing the so-called impediments to faith, we might find ourselves doing the work of the church. The apostles and their successors, men who were hardly a highly recommended cadre, within a short span of years proclaimed the news of the crucified Savior to the whole world and found its faith embraced by people everywhere, in every culture, language, tribe, and nation. In Rome, where Augustus was denominated "savior," the Roman Christians denied that the Emperor had ultimate control of faith and life, despite all the glory which clung to the Seven Hills like a golden mist, and cast all their crowns at the pierced feet of the man from Judea, crucified by a Roman governor in the name of that same Emperor. You don't get much more countercultural than that. What lipstick would have made this conversion more palatable to the Romans? Yet this proclamation was the backbone of the church's teaching and confession; a teaching and confession that was "proclaimed in the all the world" (Rm 1:8).

"Paul says, 'Your faith is proclaimed in all the world' (Rm 1:8), not your verbal disputations, nor your questioning, nor your syllogisms. There were many hindrances to the teaching. Having recently acquired their empire, the Romans were euphoric and lived in riches and luxury. But fishermen brought the preaching there. They were Jews and of the Jews; a nation hated and held in abomination among all men. The Romans were bidden to worship the Crucified, who was brought up in Judea. Along with this doctrine the teachers proclaimed also a sober life to people who were practiced in softness, and were immersed in the things of the present. Those who proclaimed this doctrine were poor and common men, of no account, and born of men of no account. But none of these things hindered the progress of the Word. So great was the power of the Crucified as to carry the Word everywhere.

"He says it 'is proclaimed in all the world' (Rm 1:8). He does not say, 'It is manifested,' but, 'is proclaimed,' as if all men had them in their mouths. Indeed when he bears witness of this in the Thessalonians, he adds another thing. For after saying, 'Your faith in God has gone forth everywhere,' he adds, 'so that we need not say anything' (1Thess 1:8). The disciples had come into the place of teachers, by their boldness of speech instructing all, and drawing them to themselves."

"The preaching never came to a standstill, but went over the whole world more rapidly than fire. About this Paul only says this much: 'is proclaimed.' He says rightly 'is proclaimed,' showing that there was no need to add anything to what was said, or to take anything away. For a messenger's business is this, to convey from one to another only what is told him. For this reason the priest is also called a 'messenger' (Mal 2:7), because he speaks not his own words, but the words of the One who sent him."

John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 2.1