Apostoic Venn: Blogcast Ep.22 - Should Christians Engage in the Culture War Online?

The Story of Robert Morisson and the Day of Small Things - Why Christians MUST Engage

By D.S. Cook for Apostoic Venn.

Christians should not engage in the culture war. Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

Christians should not engage in online debate. Argument cannot persuade a lost soul.

Christians should not speak truth in the comment sections, disregarding outcome.

How many minds have you ever changed in these ways? Zero? Then be silent.

I have heard these “thou shalt nots” many times, in regard to believers who choose to raise their voices in a culture determined to self-destruct. Often, they come from critics outside the faith, who would enjoy nothing quite so much as to nevermore experience God’s law presented. Allergic to the “thou shalt nots,” of their creator, they are more than pleased to set themselves up in His place, and craft some for you with admirable creativity. God’s moral law is a serious inconvenience to the desires of those worshiping at the altar of self-gratification. But from this source, the plea for silence is not surprising.

What is a surprise to me, and a source of consternation and disappointment, is the prevalence of these notions among believers. Those recipients of Christ’s command to “Go and make disciples of all the earth” and Paul’s orders to “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching”, have decided that towel-throwing is the best pastime in which to be engaged at this moment. Throwing in the towel, giving up on speaking the word publicly, is the only thing to do when faced with an uphill battle this steep, they have concluded. Then, to assuage the complaint of conscience in light of the clear command of scripture to speak, they do one better. They convince themselves that confrontation of wickedness is itself ungodly. Jesus never did this. The apostles never did this. The prophets never did this.

While it remains unclear to me which Bible they are reading, it is not the Bible I want to present to you today, but a story. It is the story of a man named Robert Morrison, who single-handedly changed the landscape of a godless nation forever by engaging with its culture. If you have been persuaded, or partially so, by the human voices demanding your silence instead of God’s Word requiring your speech, if you have gone semi-pro in the sport of towel-throwing, please sit back for a few minutes, and learn of a hero.

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It was 1807. The Scotsman stepped off the good ship Trident onto the docks of Macau, and looked around. The sounds and smells of the shipping industry surrounded him, as did a language he could not speak. He was one of the few foreigners that had set foot in China in decades, a trader, a merchant; or so believed the Chinese authorities. But, all was not as it seemed. Robert Morisson was there under false pretenses.

It was not international intrigue that led him here. He did not come as a spy, though infiltration was certainly his aim. At 25, an age at which most men today are still boys chasing video game achievements, Robert was wholly possessed by a single-minded mission. He would bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to China, a closed nation, a fortress against the influence of the outside world. He would bring the good news of forgiveness of sins to these people, locked as they were behind a near-impenetrable wall. He would reach those who had never heard of Jesus, and who were forbidden to hear of Him.

He set up shop amid the tiny strip of dock-side factories and businesses around the sole southern trading port of Guangzhou, the only area in which foreign traders were uneasily permitted. He was alone, masquerading as an American businessman to disguise the nature of his true mission: Smuggle tracts, translate the Bible, and whisper salvation to his neighbors. “Do you really expect to make any impact upon this Godless empire?” the doubtful captain had asked him as he prepared to go ashore. “No,” said Robert, “But I expect God will.”

China may as well have been the gates of Mordor, and Morrison armed with a book. Imperial edict made it illegal for any foreigner to pass beyond the dockside, and to teach Cantonese to a foreigner was a crime punishable by death. The same penalty awaited anyone preaching or practicing Christianity. Still, overwrought by fear, trembling at what might be done to his body, or to any recipient listener, he began to labor and speak. He hired a private Cantonese tutor, visiting after the fall of night at enormous risk to both parties. He studied day and night to first understand, then speak, then write and translate the thousands of intricate characters. It is recorded that he labored without ceasing, barely sleeping. Once, a storm brought the roof of his tiny, cramped dwelling down around his ears, and he just kept working, praying in broken Cantonese. His candle-lit translation sessions never halted, while the streets outside hummed with indifferent citizens and watchful officials who would surely end his life if they only knew what he was really doing.

This work went on for years. Without crowds, fame, fanfare, or facebook followers. No open conversations with the locals, no church services, no public evangelism. He simply buried himself in the work, day after lonely, dangerous day. It took him six years to produce a translated New Testament, eight to produce his famous Cantonese Grammar. His widely published, groundbreaking Cantonese-English dictionary, still in circulation, and still relevant in education and diplomacy into the late 20th century, would take him 21 years to complete.

Eventually, trading by day and hiding his work by night, he gained enough community familiarity to join the East India Company as a translator, finally securing legal residence and steadier funds to continue his secret efforts. All the while, he was smuggling tracts and small portions of Scripture through the trade ships from Britain and the Americas. He would give these out to anyone who would receive them discreetly, the threat of discovery and death looming over every interaction. The isolation was heavy, his loneliness severe, and the fruit of his labor seemed nonexistent.

Then, in May 1814, seven long years after his ignominious arrival, the moment he had prayed for came. In a secluded spring, Robert baptized the first Cantonese convert, a type-printer who had worked on the casts for Morrison’s dictionary and come to know of Christ through his friendship, and reading his translated texts. The baptismal rite was simple, performed in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Morrison later wrote in his journal with unshaken hope: “May he be the first-fruits of a great harvest, one of millions who shall come and be saved.”

Cai Gao’s faith was infantile. His knowledge was shallow and incomplete, but his heart was fully won over to this carpenter, the son of God, who had sacrificed himself to pay the price of human sin. Slowly, there were others converts, but not many. In his entire twenty-seven years of service and labor in China, Morrison brought only about 10 Chinese nationals to the waters of baptism. He completed the full Bible in Chinese by 1823, founded the Anglo-Chinese college to train future workers, and laid the foundations that no one else dared to lay. What sane person would give their entire lives, against impossible odds, amid great peril, for only a slim change at a few hearers? Morrison did not care what was sane. He cared what was right, what was true, what was good. He cared not whether he died trying, only that he obeyed Christ’s command to go and try. When he died in 1834, exhausted, sick, and preceded to glory by his wife and all of his children because of disease and hard living, the visible church he left behind in China was minuscule.

But, the seeds Morrison sowed in obscurity took root. His Bible and dictionary became the tools for generations of missionaries and Chinese believers. That single conversion, that single baptism in the spring, triggered a domino chain that only God could set up. The following decades saw millions of Chinese converts to Christ, and the gospel spread like wildfire through the walled fortress that Morison had given his life to unlock. Neighbor to neighbor, son to father, brother to sister. He was one, slender, exhausted match, and his little flicker threatened to blow out through the length of his seemingly thankless years. Yet he ignited a blaze that he would barely live to see, and was joined in his heavenly reward by a mighty downline.

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Dear readers, of whom we have very few; let us not grow weary in doing good. In due season we shall reap. (Galatians 6:9). Let us not grow weary in speaking truth, no matter how dark the world becomes around us. As we wade into the comment sections, the break-rooms, and the endless outrage cycle of our culture war, do not disengage. Do not heed the enemy’s whisper: “This is doing no good. You will never enlighten these minds.” Do not retreat to the sidelines, or cede the public square to the prince of this world.

If you would pour your life into speaking and defending the truth for a million watching eyes and as many dollars, then the same remains worthy when only one soul reads your comment. It remains radiantly worthy, as Robert Morrison showed us, when one heart stirs, when one mind pauses to reexamine the false claims of culture and pursue the truth. He had imprisonment and death to fear. You have nothing to fear but rejection, insults, and the little mocking emoji the world will leave as a calling card on your comments. Do not be cowards. The baptism of Cai Gao became the first domino to fall after seven years of Morisson’s labor. We are afraid to leave seven comments on the internet, be it to confront an evil, to speak a truth, or call a lost sinner to repentance.

Your small voice in a comment section could change the course of history.

If it’s worth doing for many, it’s worth doing for one. The Stoics grasped a shadow of this truth. Seneca recounts an unknown craftsman who, when asked why he labored so painstakingly over a beautiful work that would reach only a few, replied: “A few is enough for me. So is one, and so is none.” The value of the act itself, untethered from popularity and scale, or visible fruit, is worth every drop of sweat, every hour of isolation.

But we Christians go further. We do not labor for virtue alone, nor for mere self-improvement. We labor because it is good, right, and true in the eyes of the One who sees in secret and rewards openly. Being a lone voice for reason, logic, morality, and gospel, amid the sea of dissent and hatred, is worth every effort; in the daily grind of the real world or the chaos of the online forum.

So, timid Christian, stop asking the wrong questions.
“How many will benefit?
How many will change?
How many will even notice?
How many will mock me?
How many will insult me?”

Ask only this:
Is it good?
Is it true?
Is it righteous, in accordance with God’s virtue and gospel?

If the answer is yes, even if the harvest is unseen in this life, then say it. Pour yourself out. Speak. Engage. Persist.

For the Audience of One is watching. And He turns small seeds into unknowable increase.

Join with us here at Apostoic Venn, in commitment to engage with the culture. The field is ready. The day of small things is the day in which the King delights.

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