Christian, be Provocative!

What is it to be provocative? If I asked you this, you would probably conjure up mental images of scantily clad women, or perhaps the lineup from Magic Mike. Perhaps they are even shilling a product through all that bare flesh. Regardless, it seems clear that in 2026 being provocative can only mean one thing: sexually alluring.

Christians, hear me; it’s time to reclaim provocation.

To provoke, after all, is simply to elicit a response. It is to stir something that had grown still, to challenge something that had gone unquestioned, to force a person—even if only for a moment—to look up from the comfortable assumptions by which he lives.

And if this is what it means to provoke, Christianity ought to be among the most provocative forces on earth.

Christianity began with provocation.

A man stood before crowds and told the powerful that the last would be first. He told the wealthy that it was extraordinarily difficult for them to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He told men to love their enemies, forgive those who persecuted them, turn the other cheek, give without expecting repayment, and take up an instrument of Roman torture and execution every day and follow Him.

Then He claimed to be God.

That is provocative.

Christ did not provoke simply for the pleasure of offending people. He was not some ancient enfant terrible congratulating Himself whenever the Pharisees became angry. His words provoked because truth has a peculiar habit of disturbing us when we have arranged our lives around something false.

That distinction matters.

There is a form of provocation that exists merely to shock. Our culture knows this form extraordinarily well. Say the forbidden thing. Wear less. Blaspheme the sacred. Push another boundary. Create outrage. Generate clicks. Rage bait.  Wait for the angry responses and then use those responses as proof of bravery.

But shock has diminishing returns.

Yesterday's scandal becomes today's advertisement and tomorrow's background noise. What once caused people to gasp eventually becomes so ordinary that hardly anyone looks up.

There is nothing particularly rebellious about doing what everyone expects the rebel to do.

Christian provocation should be different.

The Christian provokes not by descending further into the ordinary vulgarities of his age, but by becoming so radically unlike them that his very life poses a question to the face of society.

In a culture obsessed with sex, chastity is provocative.

In a culture obsessed with acquisition, generosity is provocative.

In a culture obsessed with self-promotion, humility is provocative.

In a culture obsessed with comfort, sacrifice is provocative.

In a culture that tells us to discard people once they become burdensome, fidelity is provocative.

In a culture that treats children as lifestyle accessories or inconveniences, welcoming life is provocative.

In a culture where grudges can be maintained for decades and broadcast to thousands of strangers online, forgiveness is provocative.

And in a world increasingly convinced that happiness consists in arranging every external circumstance according to one's desires, the sight of someone possessing genuine joy despite suffering may be the most provocative thing of all.

The saints understood this.

St. Francis of Assisi stripping himself of wealth was provocative. St. Lawrence joking with his executioners while being roasted alive was provocative. St. Maximilian Kolbe volunteering to die in the place of another prisoner at Auschwitz was provocative. St. Teresa of Calcutta picking dying men and women out of gutters was provocative.

None of these people needed a marketing department.

Their lives themselves were an accusation against the world.

Not an accusation screamed with contempt, but one whispered by contrast:

There is another way to live.

That may be precisely what Christian witness has sometimes forgotten.

We occasionally imagine evangelization as an advertising problem. If only Christianity had better branding. Better music. Better social media. Better graphics. Better slogans. Perhaps then people would pay attention.  Maybe then we’d matter.

Certainly there is nothing wrong with doing these things well. Beauty matters. Excellence matters. Communication matters.

But Christianity's greatest advertisement has always been Christians who actually behave like Christians.

Imagine how provocative a parish would be if outsiders encountered a community in which the lonely were genuinely welcomed, the poor were known by name, children were treasured, marriages were fought for, the elderly were not forgotten, sinners were called to conversion without being treated as disposable, and people who had absolutely nothing to gain from one another nevertheless loved one another.

People would notice.

They might even become uncomfortable.

Good.  Embrace the uncomfortable.

Provocation has begun.

The purpose, however, is never discomfort for discomfort's sake. Christ did not overturn tables because He enjoyed the sound of furniture hitting the floor. Christian provocation must always point beyond itself. It unsettles in order to awaken. It wounds only insofar as truth sometimes wounds before it heals.

That means Christians must also resist the temptation to confuse being obnoxious with being courageous.

Being hated does not automatically make us martyrs. Sometimes people dislike us because we are behaving badly.

There is no particular holiness in posting something deliberately inflammatory and then congratulating ourselves when strangers become angry. Nor is every breach of courtesy an act of prophetic witness.

Christ could be astonishingly severe, but He could also be astonishingly gentle.

The same Jesus who called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs allowed a sinful woman to wash His feet with her tears. The same Christ who fashioned a whip and drove merchants from the Temple restored Peter beside a charcoal fire with the quiet question, “Do you love me?”

Christian provocation therefore requires discernment.

Sometimes love overturns tables.

Sometimes love washes feet.

Both can provoke.

Perhaps this is the crusade we need. Not Christians desperately trying to become more shocking than a culture that has already commercialized shock, but Christians rediscovering just how truly strange and wonderful Christianity actually is.

Go to Confession.

Remain married.

Have children.

Forgive your enemy.

Give away your money.

Visit the sick.

Bury the dead.

Pray for the person who hates you.

Refuse to gossip.

Fast when others feast.

Kneel before what looks like bread and proclaim that God is there.

Tell a dying man that death does not get the final word.

Live as though all of this is actually true.

Because it is.

Now that is provocative.

And you, dear Christian, must be provocative.