If you are a Christian living today, you are offensive. Not merely because of the actions you take, the causes you support, or the company you keep, but in fact it is your very beliefs that are so offensive. The question that many unbelievers (but not many Christians) are asking in our time is "why must Christians believe such offensive things?" The very presence of that question reveals that people are familiar with our political/social conclusions, but not familiar with that which underlies and determines those conclusions. Put another way, it is a problem for Christians that people are more familiar with our political/social stances than they are with the gospel we claim to believe. However, righting our upside-down emphases will only serve to make us more offensive not less. This is because it is the truth of the gospel which is the greatest offense to those outside the Church according to Scripture. In this way, Christians who proclaim conservative-Christian causes without proclaiming Christ Himself need to stop settling for lesser offenses; go big or go home as they say. If we are known only by our social/political beliefs and not instead by the Savior we claim, I submit that we have not yet begun to be offensive; we are not offensive enough. I joke, but in all seriousness what are the consequences for putting the cart before the horse in this way, for being known for our political/social commitments and not by the words of our testimony? Why not let the greatest offense be the first and foremost offense? Below I take up the biblical pattern for the offense of the gospel to give us some insight.
John 11 contains the full story of the raising of Lazarus, but for our purposes we will be concerned not only with the raising of Lazarus, by merely a word from Jesus, but also the social consequences of this action. It is perhaps unsurprising that in John, who depicts Christ as "the Word" which was rejected by "his own," it is always the words of Jesus which give offense. In the context of the Pharisees it is particularly the fact that people are hearing and believing Jesus's words which causes the greatest offense.
In Jn 11:45-46, immediately after Jesus raises Lazarus, the Jews present do one of two things: believe, or tattle on Jesus to the Pharisees. The Pharisees affirm that "this man does many signs," which is just what Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees, had earlier confirmed "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him" (3:2). Together, these seem to indicate that the Pharisees believed Jesus's miraculous signs to be valid. The problem for the Pharisees, however, is not that Jesus actually does signs, but that "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him" (11:48). It is for this reason that "from that day on they made plans to put Jesus to death" (11:53).
While anecdotal comparisons with modern "cancellation" could more or less be applied here, it is most important to notice that the belief of the people in Jesus directly results in the Pharisees decision to kill Jesus; and not Jesus alone, but the Pharisees also sought to re-enact the death of Lazarus, hoping that this time it would stick. The reason for this action is again cited by John, "So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus" (12:10-11). It is clear that the Pharisees, even while acknowledging that Jesus performs real miracles, in the same breath condemn him to be murdered, all because of the people's belief in him.
People give Christians an unending list of things that they find objectionable with our worldview. They accuse us of having lesser moral uprightness, they accuse us of being hateful, they accuse us of trying to influence others, they accuse us of having no historical evidence for our beliefs, they accuse us of delusion; but the real reason that we are truly offensive to them, the reason which causes such gut-level consternation and vicious outcries, is our mere faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. It is this belief, not social/political stances, which led Stephen to be stoned (Acts 7), and all the apostles to be killed and exiled. This is what Scripture tells us, that it is Jesus, the cornerstone of our faith, who is also a rock of offense to others (1 Pt 2:8; Lk 2:34). This is also what made the Pharisees so aggressive toward Jesus, even while acknowledging the truth of his words. We should expect similar outrage if we insist upon the gospel as of primary importance.
Part of this has to do with the fact that Christians acknowledge our sinfulness, we own our personal sins, and recognize them as primarily transgressions of God's law, not Man’s law. To do this is to simultaneously admit that "all have sinned," including our neighbors. The world desires nothing less than to acknowledge God's authority in this world, nor that they are responsible for the ways in which they break his law. The effect was the same with the Pharisees, Jesus's words and works pointed to the fact that they were not so holy in themselves as they imagined, and the belief of the people meant that they were quickly becoming surrounded by people who also recognized these flaws. To be made to acknowledge that you are not the master of your own life, that you are not sufficient in yourself, that you are flawed and in desperate need of outside help, that you stand condemned by God's law, is not a comfortable experience for anyone. However, these words are spoken first so that true and everlasting comfort may be had at the foot of the cross in perfect forgiveness, given in exchange for false senses of security, superiority, and self-sufficiency which do not sustain.
It is here where we recognize that the words of the gospel of Jesus Christ, while certainly offensive, are not given primarily to cause offense, but to cause redemption. There is a crucial lesson to be learned here. We as Christians ought not to glory in giving offense to unbelievers, we ought to glory in the gospel being heard and believed. This means we do not wield our political or social beliefs as a cudgel against those who think differently, but instead we should excel in being able to explain how those positions are the natural conclusion flowing out of the truth of the gospel in which we believe. In other words, if the gospel is the greatest offense as Scripture indicates, we ought to be ever the more willing and able to lessen our grip, and the insistence of our tongues on political conclusions, favoring first and foremost the truth of the gospel in our interactions. Jesus allowed the gospel to be the great offense that it is to unbelievers, without adding extra offense from any political commitments.
Take Mark 12:1-16 as an example. Jesus had been preaching the gospel in parables to a crowd, Pharisees included. When the Pharisees heard this, they took great offense "for they perceived that he had told the parable against them." Therefore, the Pharisees seek to pick political fights with Jesus "to trap him in his talk." They asked about paying taxes to the Romans, an occupying military force. But Jesus would not be so easily diverted from the gospel by social and political traps. By saying "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" Jesus deftly maneuvers around the trap, and keeps the discussion on who God is and what he requires. In that the Pharisees refused to believe they were sinners, they therefore also confess no need of God's grace made available to sinners (cf. Lk 18:9-14).
For Jesus, the gospel is job #1. Everything else is merely a consequence of belief in the gospel. Since this is the case, let's also relinquish our grip on the political/social consequences of the gospel if we have not first done the work of proclaiming the gospel and leading others to firm belief. There is too much at stake here to put the cart before the horse. Let's let the greatest offense be the only offense for unbelievers. We must not allow our social/political beliefs to be ends in themselves, but only consequences traced faithfully for our neighbors back to the gospel. This is what it means to let the gospel be "of first importance" (1 Cor 15:3-4) and let all else come second.