Christmas in July?

Well, not exactly. I have doing some thinking lately about what our role as Christians should be in our culture. Sometimes I don't think we act as we should. The biggest question I have always had, (and should probably address it to someone like Al Mohler,) is what is the role of a Christian in a sinful society supposed to be?

Christians are active in society. Sometimes it is in an ardent defense of Biblical principles, like the stance being taken by conservative Christians against gay marriage. Other times it is of a more ridiculous nature, like the outrage over having a greeter at Target tell you "Happy Holidays" during the month of September. In both cases, so far, the Christian point of view has been respected by the government, (at least the federal gov.) and many of the retailers went back on their PC policies due to the stir Christians created. My question is, should we be making this kind of stir?

As far as the gay marriage issue, I think we should because we are a democracy, and essentially our form of government is that the people get what the people want. Since we are part of the people, we should make our voice heard. But in the retail world? Should we chastize a retailer because they made their greetings more PC to try to avoid ofending a Jewish customer? I don't really think so. However, the specific instances aren't really what I am concerned about.

We, as Christians, go around a lot, and tell people what they should do. We are trying to hold unregenerate sinners to life underneath a Biblical worldview. They don't like it, and Christianity then comes off looking like a judgemental system built up on a series of do's and don't's.

We should be trying to reach a sinful culture with the gospel. This comes through conversion of individual hearts to believe in Christ and His sacrifce on the cross for our sins. Then this person will live righteuosly. (Well, at least they will try not to sin.) This is the goal.

Does Christian legislation accomplish anything for the Kingdom? The church in the day of the apostles grew under persecution by Roman emporers who were doing anything but promoting godly living through their influence in their cultures. The church has grown to close to 100,000,000 strong in communist China where there is certainly no restraints on the government ot promote righteous legistlation. Over there they have government encouraged abortion, and penalties for having more than one child. Here, Christians would be up in arms about that, but is that doing anything to prevent the gospel from spreading? No!

Perhaps grief is appropriate for the children in China, but that nation that murders its infants is also where the most rapid expansion of the Kingdom of God is happening in the world today. I don't believe that we should sit down and let our government get as immoral as possible, but at the same time Christians need to realize that ultimately, whether or not America endorses gay marriage is irrevlevant. (Imagine that, a secular government in a secular nation passing a secular law. It shouldn't be surprising.) What matters is whether or not souls are coming to Christ. We are to be lights in our culture, not laborers trying to force our culture to be beacons of light. It just won't work.