In many corners of the world these days the climate of hostility hangs
over any overt Christian faith commitment. Any kind of Christian
commitment is now assumed to imply intolerance and often prompts
reactions that range from a low-grade hostility and exclusion in the
West to the vicious and murderous assaults on Christian believers in
Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Syria and Iraq and elsewhere.
Such issues are not new. Christians have faced them ever since Nero's
lions, and even before that. Jews also have faced the same questions all
through their history, most tragically sometimes enduring horrendous
persecution from states claiming to be Christian. So it is not
surprising that the Bible gives a lot of attention to these questions.
The book of Daniel tackles the problem head on, both in the stories of
Daniel and his friends, and in the visions he received. A major theme of
the book is how people who worship the one, true, living God--the God of
Israel--can live and work and survive in the midst of a nation, a
culture, and a government that are hostile and sometimes
life-threatening. What does it mean to live as believers in the midst of
a non-Christian state and culture? How can we live "in the world" and
yet not let the world own us and squeeze us into the shape of its own
fallen values and assumptions?
The book was written to encourage believers to keep in mind that the
future, no matter how terrifying it may eventually become, rests in the
hands of the sovereign Lord God--and in that assurance to get on with
the challenging task of living in God's world for the sake of God's
mission.
