Living in exile/The end of Christendom

I was reading an article the other day in which a guy was saying we need to adopt an "ecclesiology of exile".  So what was he on about? Well.....

Once upon a time Britian was a Christian nation and the majority of the population were regular church goers.  We lived in 'Christendom' and Christian values underpinned society in the UK.  But a lot has changed in the last century and now we are living in a society where Christians are very much in the minority.  The last figure I heard was that only 10% of the UK population attend church. Despite this we as Christians still try to impose our Christian values on our largely non-Christian society and lobby to pass laws based on Christian values which the majority of society no longer hold to.

The author of the article says, "We are not called to Christianize the state, there is no point prescribing Christian values for people who are not Christians. But we are in the industry of being a really, really annoying force of resistance in the world around us."

Once upon a time Christianity drove mainstream culture, now Christianity is very much different than mainstream culture. We need to accept our new status as being like exiles here and live like Daniel and his friends when they were in exile in Babylon - annoyingly different in a very intreaguing and inspiring way.  

We need to take a leaf out of the book of the Epistle to Diognetus:

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.