We're not promised a friendly surrounding culture.

I've made comments like this on Facebook many times, so I thought it would be good to post it here.

We're not promised a friendly culture surrounding us. The scriptural norm is more like 'those who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted'.  I think part of our problem in western culture is that the church (in various forms) has taken having a surrounding culture that is friendly to us for granted, and regarded it as a right.

The only part of the New Testament that seems to me to even hint at having a friendly surrounding culture is 1 Tim 2:1-8(in the sense of 'so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity'), and there it is only implied that it might come as a result of us praying for all people (and not just praying for those in authority, as we sometimes pull out of it). I sometimes wonder if we're losing the 'culture war' because we've been trying to recover a friendly-to-us surrounding culture without having laid a foundation of praying for all people, including those who would oppose and persecute us. We've tried to battle a 'culture war' without laying the foundation needed to have the outcome we want. It's not exactly surprising that, in the world outside the church, we're losing. And we're seeing that world infiltrate the church.