Around the year 300 A.D., a teenager named Agnes was killed because of a choice that rejected a culture that elevated sex and power over the wholeness of body and soul. She represented a major threat to a sick empire because she would not play along. And simply by using the word, “No,” like a pin she punctured a gaping hole in the puffed-up and bloated world that she lived in.

As punishment, Agnes was forced into prostitution and eventually murdered for not partaking in the expected behavior of her time. This is heroic. This is real heroism, not the Marvel kind, and not the self-declared kind done by those carry their sins on signs like a trophy.

The teenage Agnes stared down the peer pressure of an entire empire. This was not like a crafted Greta Thunberg media story. This was not manufactured by a massive marketing campaign that pretends to be a lonely voice crying out in the wilderness. This is not like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. This is not like a young Marlon Brando in The Wild One who is asked, “What are you rebelling against?” and replying, “What have you got?”

No, this was real. This was one single girl, saying “No” to personal sin in a fallen world.

By sticking to her convictions, Agnes was killed, but in doing so she gave the bully a black eye. The ego of a bully that celebrates sin never recovers from these kind of heroic refusals to submit. The courage of Agnes is pure and beautiful, and she is not the only one. There is also Philomena, Lucy, and the thousands of others all the way to Joan of Arc and Maria Goretti. A multitude of the early Christian martyrs were teenage girls. There are so many of them in the four-volumes of Butler’s Lives of the Saints that it should give you pause to ask: if Catholics hate women so much, why are so many of our churches and hospitals and universities named after them? Seems an odd brand of “hate” to dedicate buildings and millions of prayers to them. But let’s move on.

Agnes’ simple act needed no explanation or intellectual interpretation to understand. It’s power is in its simplicity. As Jesus said, don’t worry about that which can kill the body - worry about that which can destroy the soul. Death in this life brings you home if you believe in Christ. The body will follow the soul. We can worry about that reconnection later, in the last judgment. After all, governments and peer pressure cannot kill the soul. They can only kill the body and maybe delete a row in database. The modern “cancelling” does not kill the soul, because souls do not abide in the cloud or in databases. As for the body of Agnes that they thought they killed, it will be resurrected on the last day.

Agnes understood this perfectly well.

(Note: Is there anything more difficult to understand in Christian theology than “The Resurrection of the body”? Ok, fine, maybe “He descended into hell…” and “The Communion of Saints.” I will need to have whole series on the twelve lines of the Apostles’ Creed at some point.)

Here’s a prophecy:

A teenage girl has changed Christian history many times. Probably more than we even know. And another will be along to do it once again.

I suspect this will happen soon, once the youth tires of TikTok and other current fads, which all have the shelf life of a can of soup; it’s good for a few years, but then you forget about it, and eventually just throw it out. The only difference is that soup is actually good for your body. The sense of permanence that people have about our current cultural fads should give us all a good belly laugh.

Mary, the Mother of God, was also a teenager, who most famously changed the world. How did she do it? She said “Yes.” She said “Yes” to God, not to the world, the flesh, or the devil. So did Agnes.

Saint Agnes is another one of these teenagers from the early Church that rocked and shocked the world because chastity is always counter-cultural. The reason people resent and mock chastity is the same reason we resent anything: resentment masks our own guilt. Resent rhymes with repent. To all that you resent, you must repent. That’s kind of like a Johnny Cochrane line, one of OJ’s lawyers, who said “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

The increase in American anger over the past seventy years is in direct proportion to our sins, because the conscience knows our past, and we resent the outside world because we can’t resolve our sins alone. Did I say we? I mean “I”. “Me”. Let me stop projecting. Because of sin, I have the vitriol and blame, honor and shame, because if I cannot honestly forgive, I must have an outlet, and that outlet is fear, the resentment of institutions, God, and other people. I have to blame something to drown the conscience.

It’s not rocket science. This is why the most vociferous pro-abortion people have usually had abortions, and why the loudest conservatives against sexual immorality have an immoral sexual past of their own. National pride and Gay Pride are both forms of the worst sin, which is…pride. It’s so basic that it’s comical. If you merely read the Bible up to Genesis chapter 3, you can stop and know that sin leads to fig leaves. Sin leads to hiding, blame, anger, and suffering.

The modern declaration of “Don’t tell me what to do” is the new version of “I will not serve,” which is what the devil uses for a motto (Non serviam). Humility is the antidote, but who wants to hear about the way of the Cross? We don’t want to listen to the conscience. All of the noise in the culture is cranked up so that we can’t hear the “still, small voice.” But soon a St. Agnes will come along, and her little “No” to the culture, and her “Yes” to God, will pull the plug on the babbling nonsense coming out of the speakers. Only in silence can the conscience again be heard. This is why regret for what happened at the party only comes to the party-goer in the quiet of the following morning. (I will resist re-discussing the Prodigal Son.)

We tend to resent most what we ourselves have done, and if we never openly repent, it eats at the heart like acid. Did I say “we” again? I mean, “I”. Me.

Consider your most vocal online friends, and I would be willing to bet that what they are ranting about is a spiritual mirroring of their own sins, which they have yet to confess. Don’t laugh, because it’s difficult work to do, and it takes years, or a whole lifetime to process. Humility is the most difficult virtue. The onion is thick on so many lives grown in the inorganic fertilizer of the 20th and 21st centuries, where we have been told to love ourselves rather than to love God and love others. The cult of “self-love” is strong and it is an education that comes from the father of lies, not from God.

Sin is disorder, and we want order, and unless we address our sins, we remain disordered. In our strange attempts to find the good, we talk ourselves into sin. No one sins thinking it will lead to disorder. We sin with the hope that all will turn out well. No one lies thinking, “I reject God.” We lie to protect ourselves, thinking that it will keep us safe from harm, criticism, insecurity. But sin is like an illness that moves us away from the good, and becomes a disease that always results in tragedy over the long term, particularly if you persist in it until death.

Refusing to address our sins leads to strange outlets, and one way or another we want to take control, because we think we can order the world. Our woundedness terrifies us. Thus, control of people and the world is born of our desire to play God. And we are not God. Hence, what I hate is most often a symptom of sins I have never confessed, and the conscience is the one thing that cannot be controlled. I may be able to have some control over finances, friendships, family, companies, politics, food, news, sports, and even the weather, but I cannot control the conscience. Yes, I can pretend it’s not there, and even believe that I am not burdened by it, but I am, and the more I deny it, the harder I am trying to play God. This is exactly what the devil wants, and has always wanted of us all. The term “hard-hearted” used so often in the Bible is just what we call today “self-love”. But self-love is not healing if it’s merely a smokescreen for unrepented sins.

Modern culture yearns for authentic voices, but we doubt such a thing exists, and mock purity and weakness. The condemnation that erupts when we hear of someone’s error or fall is a massive chorus of people who have not addressed their own brokenness. No matter how many Oprah magazines or mindfulness sessions we attend, our sins will not be forgiven outside of Jesus.

So the sick culture coughs and ambles along like an angry tyrant. But another Agnes will arrive and the world of sex, drugs, and anything-goes will be stunned by her authenticity, by one young woman who refuses to agree to the lies about sex and power. And she will be martyred for her choice.

She already may be alive today.

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