A school art project in Portland became news at the start of the year. A college sophomore ripped the vertical half of a Bible, painted it fiery orange, and laid it on one side with a drawing of a man with a goat for its head looming over it. The figure is dressed in robes seen in depictions of Jesus in Catholic paintings while the goat head is often associated with the devil. It would have passed media scrutiny if it had not been for a church that meets in the school building where the work was being exhibited.

“This is someone’s sacred text being desecrated, destroyed and displayed in a public place,” said a church member.

The reaction is exactly what the creator wanted. “My job as an artist is to create something that's going to elicit a reaction. It's elicited a huge reaction, both positive and negative from what I've seen," he said adding, “I was thinking a lot about questioning authority in general…People question different types of authority, but for some reason religious authority seems too taboo to question, so I thought I would give it a shot.” The student identifies himself as an atheist, by the way. And with that, what can we really expect, right? Not necessarily.

Not all atheists are antagonistic at such a public level towards Christianity but for those who choose to do so, their acts must not catch us off guard. If anything, Jesus told us to be expectant. Some might say that this would never happen to other religions and no argument there because Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). Falsities will only have Truth in their crosshairs. But know what else we were warned about? That goats and weeds will do the same. More than being offended and rising up in arms against an outsider, we should be more offended and vigilant towards those inside the church walking among us who rip the pages of our sacred text with their false teachings.

Atheists, agnostics, and people from other faiths are not the enemy for they are our harvest (Lk. 10:2) who are blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4). It is the wolves in sheep’s clothing (Mt. 7:15) instead that we need to watch out for. A believer can and will easily reject what outsiders, particularly the antagonistic, will say but not those from within especially the charismatic false teachers whom we invite over for dinner and whom we ask to pray for us to bless our new homes and businesses. These are atheist Christians professing to be God’s servants but live like there’s no God. They serve themselves and lead the flock astray (Mt. 24:11). And for this, the Word offers them no grace with a demand to depart from His presence (Mt. 7:21-23 ; cf. 1 Pet. 2:1-22, Gal. 1:9, Tit. 1:10-16). As true believers, we must call these false teachers out while calling the outsiders in and demonstrate the love of God.