Antifa is once again in the spotlight after anti-fascist slogans were inscribed on the bullets used by Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin.
When I read this news, it reminded me of a piece I wrote a while back. This is from my book, “12 Ways You Can Make a Difference in this Crazy, Mixed-up World.” Antifa’s question is one that every Christian ought to seek to answer.
You can hear Antifa scream this question repeatedly in the YouTube video posted here.
Listen to this article:
When a group of Christians gathered for an outdoor prayer service, the unbelievable happened. Unbelievable, that is, if you are an American. It happened on Saturday, August 7, 2021, in
Portland, Oregon, USA.[1] A group identifying themselves as
“Antifa”[2] (short for “anti-fascists”) attacked a Christian group in a Portland park. Antifa members threw explosive fireworks into a crowd of children. They slung rotten eggs, urine, and feces on the adults. 
And they pepper-sprayed the pastors who approached them to ask them to stop.
Where were the police? They were called, but they never answered. One hundred and fifteen Portland police officers had resigned the year before, after protestors demanded that the city “defund the police.” (The city had reduced police funding by twenty million dollars.) At the prayer meeting that day, an Antifa member shouted one particular question that should catch our attention: “Where is your God now?!”[3] To make a difference in this crazy, mixed-up world, you need to be prepared to answer the question, “Where is your God now?”
Pagans have mocked believers with this same question for centuries.[4] Enemies of the psalmist demanded, “Where is your God?”[5] Moses faced a similar question from those he was leading: “Is the Lord among us or not?”[6] The Antifa’s question reminds us of our nation’s great need to see God’s work in our generation. As Job wrote, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him.”[7]
The question, “Where is your God now?” is even more urgent because true Christianity is rapidly losing its influence in America. Twenty-nine percent of adults describe themselves as “atheists, agnostics or ‘nothing in particular.’” Forty percent identify themselves as Protestants, but only sixty percent of those who identify as Protestants say that they are “a born-again or evangelical
Christian.” [8]
This is not the first time that America has faced such a spiritual crisis. In the early 1730s, Jonathan Edwards described his town this way:
Licentiousness for some years prevailed among the youth of the town; there were many of them very much addicted to night-walking, and frequenting the tavern, and lewd practices, wherein some, by their example, exceedingly corrupted others.[9]
In addition, Edwards also noted a strong partisan divide, much like what we have today. (Just think about news shows and the banter on talk radio.) Edwards wrote,
There had also long prevailed in the town a spirit of contention between two parties, into which they had for many years been divided; by which they maintained a jealousy one of the other, and were prepared to oppose one another in all public affairs.[10]
These historical parallels guide us toward genuine hope. 
We are facing the same kind of spiritual crises that our ancestors faced, and they have shown us where to find the answer to the question “Where is your God now?”
Though in 1730s America it seemed “religion lay as it were a-dying, and ready to expire its last breath of life in this part of the visible church,”[11] it is important to remember that these terrible conditions were followed by a heaven-sent revival that has since been called the Great Awakening.
So today we must also pray for genuine revival, just as our believing ancestors did. They drew near to God, and so must we. As Cal Thomas wrote, “If our goal is revival in America, it must be focused on honoring and glorifying God—not ourselves, not our politics, and not our economy.”[12]
Draw Near to God
To turn back to the Lord, we must act upon His promise: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”[13]
Every individual and every nation that desires to draw near to God must seize upon this promise. The Christian life is not lived by promises made to God, but by claiming the promises from God.
How do sinners and saints draw near to God so that He will draw near to 
them? That is what this book is about. In this crazy world, this is no time to be mixed up. Confession and repentance are the great need of the hour.[14] When we draw near to God through confession and repentance, we will see God. We will have an answer for those who mock us, asking, “Where is your God now?”
Recognize the Real Problem
All people can see the evidence for God, but some are suppressing that knowledge. Those people may insist they cannot see God, but the apostle Paul explained the real problem: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.”[15] As the English proverb puts it, “There is none so blind as he who will not see.”[16] Blinded by pride, many people refuse to see what God is showing them. Is it any wonder that we live in a crazy, mixed-up world in which people deny reality?
The Way of Grace
Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”[17] Jesus is the way because He alone paved the way to heaven by His finished work. Truth is that which conforms to reality. And, as Paul says in Ephesians 4:21, “The truth is in Jesus.”[18] The life is the new life we receive in Christ through our regeneration, or being born anew. So sinners and saints draw near to God through Christ’s gracious work. The apostle John testified about Jesus that “of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.”[19] It is only through the enablement of Christ’s grace that anyone ever draws near to Him.
How do sinners and saints draw near to God? Both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ preached the same central message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”[20] But what does that mean?
The Beatitudes
Jesus opened His Sermon on the Mount with a description of what this repentance looks like.[21] And, for our purposes in this book, it is especially important to notice that Jesus predicted the result of repentance and drawing near to God:
You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.[22]
People who wish to make a difference in this crazy, mixed-up world should follow Christ’s Beatitudes. These opening statements in the Sermon on the Mount are designed to bless and transform everyone who follows them. This book will devote at least one chapter to each one of these Beatitudes. On their foundation we can build citizens who will be like pungent salt and brilliant light in their cities and states. They will make a difference in this mixed-up culture.
To make a difference in this crazy world, you need to be prepared to
answer the question “Where is your God now?” To be the salt of the earth is not spectacular, but it is a basic necessity. As we shall see, the “salt of the earth” people of past generations knew how to persist and prevail in prayer to help people see God. To be the light of the world is eye-catching, and it is absolutely necessary for those in darkness. God can do this great work in us. When we learn how to become the salt of the earth and the light of the world, we will have a powerful answer to that question: “Where is your God now?”
© Gordon A. Dickon, 2025 www.LiveServeLead.com
Endnotes:
[1] Jeff Kropf and Lee Wootan, “PDX: No Show Cops to Antifa’s Attack On Christian Group,” interview by Lars Larson, The Lars Larson Show, August 9, 2021, https://www.larslarson.com/pdx-no-show-cops-to-antifas-attack-on-christian-group/.
[2] Peter Beinart, “The Rise of the Violent Left,” The Atlantic, September 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-violent-left/534192/; “Antifa (United States),” Wikipedia, last modified
September 3, 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa (United States).
[3] Jon Brown, “‘Where’s Your God Now?’: Police Stand By While Portland Antifa Assaults Christian Worshipers, Maces Pastor,” The Daily Wire, August 9, 2021, https://www.dailywire.com/news/wheres-your-god-now-police-stand-by-while-portland-antifa-assaults-christian-worshippers-maces-pastor.
[4] Joel 2:17; Micah 7:10.
[5] Psalm 42:3, 10; 79:10; 115:2.
[6] Exodus 17:7.
[7] Job 23:3.
[8] Gregory A. Smith, “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated,” Pew Research Center, December 14, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/. George Barna’s research indicates that many of those people do not hold to a biblical definition of what it means to be “born again.” See also Lea, “Do American.”
[9] Jonathan Edwards, “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God,” Northampton, Massachusetts, November 6, 1736, online at http://www.jonathan-edwards.org/Narrative.html.
[10] Edwards, “A Faithful Narrative.”
[11] Joseph Tracy, The Great Awakening: A History of the Revival of Religion in the Time of Edwards and Whitefield (Counted Faithful, 2014). Kindle.
[12] Cal Thomas, “A Fundamental Shift in America and the Need for Revival,” Centennial Review 15, no. 5 (Summer 2023): 3, https://centennial.ccu.edu/review/summer-2023/.
[13] James 4:8.
[14] See also 2 Corinthians 7:1.
[15] Romans 1:18–19.
[16] This proverb is variously attributed to John Heywood (1546).
[17] John 14:6.
[18] Ephesians 4:21.
[19] John 1:16.
[20] Matthew 3:2; 4:17.
[21] Matthew 5:1–11.
[22] Matthew 5:13–14.
For a history of Antifa, see the video: “Antifa in America: The Truth Behind the Mask”