By Mark A. Taylor 
How do God”s people live in an ungodly world? The answer we”ve repeated most often usually includes the formula, “In the world, but not of the world.” Not as often have we enunciated specific guidelines for how to know whether the church is influencing culture more than culture is influencing the church.
Perhaps there was a day when the issue wasn”t as critical as now. Some of us remember a time when the messages of our culture seemed to reflect biblical values. People didn”t swear or shack up on television. Unwed mothers and gay activists weren”t heroes. Honesty was expected, and hard work was rewarded.
But, as Peggy Noonan noted in the July 16 Wall Street Journal, times have changed. “Everyone over 50 in America feels a certain cultural longing now,” she wrote.
They hear the new culture out of the radio, the TV, the billboard, the movie, the talk show. It is so violent, so sexualized, so politicized, so rough. They miss the old America they were born into, 50 to 70 years ago. And they fear, deep down, that this new culture, the one their children live in, isn”t going to make it.
The observation could have come in Sunday”s sermon. But when a political commentator writing in a national newspaper voices such concern, the words seem to take on special weight. How has the church stood by and allowed such a coarsening of our culture? And what can we do to turn it around?
Some Christians have tried to create a counterculture, a parallel universe. They have retreated into the safe havens of church-created enterprises as a defense against unbiblical influence. Each such attempt must be evaluated case by case. But surely we”ll agree that we cannot shape what we will not touch and we cannot change where we will not go.
Increasingly today our pulpits are calling us to leave the church building, engage the culture, and build relationships outside our comfort zone””all with the goal of demonstrating the love, joy, peace, and patience experienced only by those yielding to the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
Such submission is a daily challenge, especially for Christians confronted with a widening gap between biblical values and those of the culture they live in. But God wants nothing less. “Become blameless and pure, “˜children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life” (Philippians 2:15).
Clearly, the best choice for Christians in our dark world is simply to shine.
Who is influencing whom? When you have a corrupt institution, being part of that institution corrupts you, whether you want it to or not. As society becomes more corrupt, you cannot function in that society because reality is different and rules are different. The problem with American Christians today is they do not understand the fundamental dysfunction of our society goes way beyond the blatant perversity we see everyday. We think we can be in the world and of the world….if we go to church, pray, and read the Bible. It seems to me that there is a universal Christian culture that is not compatible at all with how we live today. It will not be renewed through Tea Parties and marches, but by putting on a new mind and heart–even if it means rejecting many of the traditional “American” values we have held so dear.
I always enjoy your editorials, but this article demands an “Amen!” Well said in so few words. We must touch what we wish to shape and go where we wish to change … and everywhere we need to shine the light of Jesus!