Here’s a quick quiz you can use to test yourself on what kind of person you are. Also what kind of Christian. Grace doesn’t destroy or replace nature, but builds on it. And if your edifice of faith rests on shifting sands or a bubbling swamp, it won’t stand through the storm.

Which is more important to you:

a) Keeping your hands squeaky clean, associating with sophisticated and prestigious people, and steering far clear of any threat of persecution? Or:

b) Helping your neighbors, fellow citizens, and fellow believers in a time of vicious hatred for our faith?

Which incentive prevails in your decisions about living your faith in the public square:

a) Offering a “witness” to the powers that be — which hate the Church — that you are harmless, docile, and in no way threatening to them? Or:

b) Doing whatever it takes — within the moral law, if not current bourgeois norms — to guarantee that your children and their children will be free to live out their faith?

When you see fellow Christians act in ways that strike you as too aggressive and bold, is your reaction:

a) Fear, disgust, and an immediate desire to signal to everyone you know — especially prestigious or powerful nonbelievers — that you are in no way associated with these “dangerous” people? Or:

b) Dismay that these zealous people might suffer unjustly for their “imprudent” actions, admiration for their good intentions … and a nagging fear that they might be right, while you might be wrong?

The Great Sifting of Christians

Don’t answer these too quickly, or you might not tell yourself the truth. In fact, these are deep, fundamental questions that dog every believer through his life — even in the friendliest circumstances and most pro-Christian of cultures. That’s because temptations, compromises, and deviations are always at our elbow, tapping us on the shoulder, whispering in our ear.

If you have been paying attention since 2016, you’ll have noticed a great sifting of Christians, which sorted the sheep from the goats. Remember those “NeverTrump” Christians who sniffed at Trump’s candidacy disdainfully, and warned that he somehow posed a threat to all the norms and even the rules of democratic politics?

Those same people, mostly, are now either silent or complicit when the Biden administration operates lawlessly to prosecute its opponents. And simply refuses to enforce our immigration laws. And imprisons peaceful pro-life demonstators, while letting pro-Hamas riotors block the streets in Washington, D.C.

Those same people (such as Russell Moore and David French) are now cooperating with rabid secularists like Rob Reiner to tar pro-lifers and opponents of transgender grooming as “Christian Nationalists,” while pretending that the Christian civil rights movement was somehow … not political, not an attempt to use the State’s monopoly of violence to “impose the Gospel.”

Maybe those “norms” weren’t all that important to them after all.

Seeing pastors defending the Biden administration decision to pursue charges that could result in up to 11 years in prison against prolife protestors who were simply singing hymns while murder was being carried out behind them is the ultimate in camels and gnats. Blind guides.

— Megan Basham (@megbasham) February 1, 2024

When You Line Up with Caesar, Mammon, and Sodom, How Does that Make You Feel?

Here’s another question for you to ponder:

When you see that your take on a political question with moral implications lines up on the same side as the Deep State, major media, prestigious universities, and the entire political establishment, do you feel:

a) A deep-seated sense of relief, a warm fuzzy glow of safety, and a little thrill of superiority compared to “crackpot,” “extremist,” low-prestige dissenters from that elite consensus? Or:

b) A real concern that you might be following Mammon’s breadcrumb trail, taking your cues from the World and not the Church, and a respect (even if grudging) for those who are suffering for their convictions?

Again, don’t answer too quickly. Think back on how you reacted when the question at hand was the abortion-derived COVID vaccine, and efforts to force all Americans to take it. Or to the January 6 election integrity protest — and the way its participants were persecuted, compared to how George Floyd rioters were coddled.

“I For One Welcome Anarcho-Tyranny”

Are you comfortable living in a society with double standards, where people with one set of views and beliefs are abused by the government, while others can act as they please — so long as they agree with the views of the ruling regime? Where mobs can tear down statues of Columbus or George Washington, and go unpunished, but a Christian who beheads a statue of Satan faces hate crime charges for insulting a fake religion? Or where violent illegal aliens walk free, but good Samaritans face prison?

One of these people is in our county illegally, beat up cops, and was released without bail.

The other is a former Marine who protected riders on a subway from a violent psycho, is facing criminal charges, and was released on a $100,000 bail.

Democrats’ soft-on-violent crime… pic.twitter.com/LRePREGtrD

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 1, 2024

If you are indeed comfortable, then you might be a Sadducee, one of those collaborators with Caesar who arranged for Christ’s betrayal.

Or you might just be a Judas. Check your pockets for pieces of silver.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His upcoming book is No Second Amendment, No First.