Transforming the World

Here's a link to an interesting post by Mark Galli on the Christianity Today web site in which he makes the case that God has not asked us to transform the world.

To be sure, he says we can be "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." As such, we can indeed give the world a glimpse of kingdom life so that many will give glory to God. But there's nothing there about the world being transformed. What Jesus wants us to do primarily, it seems, is to love those right in front of our noses.

I remain puzzled as to why we're so bored with the very things Jesus asks us to do, like picking that foreigner up out of the ditch, giving away our goods to the poor, going to court with a young man who's being railroaded by the system, taking an orphan into our home, going the extra mile with the oppressive and manipulative, forgiving the offender, baptizing, and witnessing. I find these things really, really hard to do. I fail all the time. If I can't even do these things well, why would I believe that I could transform my culture, let alone change the world?

What do you think?