Performing only for each other

“Far-out animal-rights extremists get more consideration than do Christian thinkers. Why? Because they are at least out there. They have thought carefully and strategically about how they are going to influence the public. They are in the fray. We aren't, which helps explain why Christian ideas and values are so easily dismissed, even ridiculed. No one in public life wants to offend blacks, Jews, gays, or women. But hardly anyone worries too much about offending Christians. Art, literature, movies, music, and television can be anti-Christian with impunity. Politicians regularly put forth anti-Christian positions. No one ever calls them into account in a measured, intellectually persuasive, gently instructive way. Rather than meet such animosity in the arena of public discourse, our usually approach is to complain about it in sermons, Christian radio and television programs, or Christian publications. When we do that, we're preaching to the choir. We make ourselves feel good, but we haven't done a thing to change the situation. The place to correct an error in the New York Times is in the New York Times. And, again, just pointing out the fact of the error is only half the job. Laying out the truth in clear, understandable terms is equally important, as is articulating viable Christian alternatives.”

“The primary reason that there is so much error and so few Christian alternatives being considered in the ongoing flow of public policy discourse, is that basically evangelical Christians have abdicated. We have left the field. It is almost as if we are afraid to venture out into the world of ideas - to have our beliefs go head to head with those of other beliefs. We say we believe that God's Word relates to all of life and has the answers to all of life's questions. Yet we primarily spend our time and energies talking only to each other, writing only for each other, performing only for each other. This abdication has made it possible, even necessary, for evangelical Christians and their beliefs to be interpreted to the world primarily by non-Christians. The fact that they almost always get it wrong is our fault, not theirs.”

excerpted from Roaring Lambs by Bob Briner, emphasis mine.

pp 64 - 66