Aside from the obvious (lose the Republican GOTV organizer’s email address) what practical steps can culture war churches take to move to a more theologically sound way of advancing justice and mercy in the public square? In my latest for The Green Room I focus on three specific steps, including:

The Past: Dominance paradigm churches overestimate both the moral and religious integrity of the American past. There is, to be sure, much that is morally good and authentically Christian in our national history. But it is important to see the ugliness and the Romantic, heretical religious individualism as well. Nothing other than God and his word (incarnate and written) is really pure.

This will not only (hopefully) cure us of poisonous nostalgia and teach us to set forward-looking rather than backward-looking goals. Knowing more clearly the story of how (e.g.) Christianity was essential to the abolition of slavery will also help us to see the deficiencies in our account of moral knowledge.

Real moral goodness is known by nature but it is not fully known by nature. The gospel, the cross and the whole biblical story from beginning to end help us understand what it means to be good in a way that those outside simply don’t have access to. This means the church does not just fight for the good in the public square; it has to develop and offer to each culture a unique understanding of what it means to be good in the context of that particular culture.

Next in the series, what fundamentalist/isolationist churches can teach the rest of us about cultural engagement.