Being a faithful witness is becoming more challenging these days. People are openingly angry at all forms faith, especially Christianity. A quick glance at the New York Times’s bestseller list reveals two books selling by the truck load. “Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris, is reviewed as “a wonderful source of ammunition for those who, like me, hold to no religious doctrine.” Another critic jubilantly gushes, reading the book “was like sitting ring side, cheering the champion, yelling ‘Yes!’ at every jab.” The barrel of the gun and the sting of the fist, however, are aimed directly at Christians.

Another bestseller is Richard Dawkins’s “The God Delusion” weighing in at 416 pages of hot air. Even Publishers Weekly rightly cautions readers, “For a scientist who criticizes religion for its intolerance, Dawkins has written a surprisingly intolerant book, full of scorn for religion and those who believe.” [According to Dawkins] the biblical Yahweh is ‘psychotic.”

Dawkins is also quoted as saying, “At some point there is going to be enough pressure that it is just going to be too embarrassing to believe in God.”

Recently the New York Times ran a week-long series on church and state. With titles like, “Where Faith Abides Employees Have Few Rights,” and “As Exemptions Grow Religion Outweighs Regulation,” there’s little doubt that Christians are in for a season of harsh criticism, if not outright scorn. So how ought we to prepare ourselves for what may be a long winter of cultural disdain?

First of all, the situation isn’t new, and neither is the answer. The Apostle Paul, a former Christ-scoffer, responded to pressures of his day by reaffirming: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for all those who believe: first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile” (Romans 1:16). In 1 Peter 2:15, a favorite verse of mine, Peter instructed us to silence the ignorant talk of foolish men by doing good.

The truth of the matter is that the ones heaping scorn on Christians are probably the ones who most need our prayers. So, in the end, the best way to prepare ourselves for such an onslaught is to increase our own devotion to Christ through works of faith. If our lives are aflame with care for the least, the last, and the lost, we will know we’re where God wants us to be.

And don’t let this anti-Christian barrage intimidate you. Just keep making the case for a Biblical worldview ever more aggressively.