“The special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it. It says, in mockery of old devotees, that they believed without knowing why they believed.

“But the moderns believe without knowing what they believe — and without even knowing that they do believe it. Their freedom consists in first freely assuming a creed, and then freely forgetting that they are assuming it.”

— G.K. Chesterton

The Gospel is a powerful testimony of grace and brokenness for the secular city.  In the fall of man, we love to build ourselves up to maximum boasts and radical displays of self-sufficiency apart from the Lord.  This display is visibly featured in the city: we love to invest in highly lucrative businesses or build up lavish homes in our cities. …

But the Gospel does not testify to self-sufficiency; it testifies to radical brokenness, real humility, rooted in grace. … But the life of the Gospel, the life of justifying faith, is the life of putting away these self-actualized achievements to the cross of Christ, in knowing a new and better life in His name.

— From “Evangelism, the Lord’s Supper, and the Self-Sufficient City” by Rick Palma