I’ve been working on a rather long post about the question raised by Rod Dreher on the Crunchy Con blog–where do we go from here? Then Frederica Mathewes-Green posted this, distilling the answer perfectly:

And I think the best way to change a culture is to seed it with holy people. I think what’s made Evangelicalism less effective than it might be is a tendency to dream of big cultural-impact projects, rather than the humbler route of turning out millions of transformed, humble, holy people.

I’ve been reading Jacques Ellul’s The Presence of the Kingdom. For Ellul, the counter-cultural Christian must live, not act:

We have lost the meaning of true action, which is the testimony of a profound life, action which comes from the heart, which is the product of faith, and not of myth, or of propaganda, or of Mammon! What matters is to live, and not to act. In this world, this is a revolutionary attitude, for the world only desires (utilitarian) action and has no desire for life at all. We cannot exaggerate the significance of the fact of being spiritually alive.

Movements fail. The most effective reistence will always be living a holy and good life, aware of our failings, ever-focused on the Kingdom.

Posted on 28 March 2006