Changing the World – A Perspective

As I’m reading Andy Crouch’s “Culture Making – Recovering Our Creative Calling” I came across a quote that is instructive about won’t lead to long-term positive change in our culture. 

Crouch says “So hope in a future revolution, or revival, to solve the problems of our contemporary culture is usually misplaced. And such a hope makes us especially vulnerable to fashion, mistaking shifts in the wind for changes in the climate. Fads sweep across the cultural landscape and believers invest outsized portions of energy and commitment in furthering the fad, mistaking it for real change. The mass media, which are largely driven by fashion, can amplify the effect of a fad – for weeks, everyone is humming the number one song, the band is on Saturday Night Live and talking with Leno, the video is in heavy rotation.  If the song or the band has Christian affinities, websites will spring up overnight celebrating a new victory for the gospel in the culture. The short – term effects may be startling.  But the long – term effects are negligible” p. 59

As  I read and re – read these words I once again committed myself not to fashion but to doing the long and hard work, on behalf of Christ and by His grace, that it will take to make deep and lasting impact both on the lives of individual people and our culture in general.