You’re at your city’s gay pride event (such as the one here in Charlotte this August), you’re there as part of your church’s larger witness to the local gay community, and you strike up a conversation with a happy middle-aged homosexual person of your same sex. As you’re talking, you remember 1 Corinthians 11:1 (“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”) and consider whether you can look him/her straight in the eye and say “come follow me, imitate my life, abandon everything having to do with your gay culture (which you’ve known most of your life), and become fully entrenched in the local church culture I’m part of, and your former life will seem to have been nothing more than a bad dream as you walk with the living God within the context of a humble, loving, spiritual family.”

Would you be able to say this? Would it be the truth?

I would submit that the most important element necessary in seeing the transformation of the moral landscape of our culture is not status quo conservative Christianity becoming more vocal. It is true that we have every right to voice our opinions both in media and politics, but the mere increase in decibel level of conservative ideas will not, in my opinion, be compelling enough to the culture to result in any real long-term shift toward conservative values. Honestly, are the maintaining and promoting of our rights to declare homosexuality a sin and keep discussion of homosexuality out of our public schools really causes that are going to inspire the masses?

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Eph 3:10-11

More than conservative talking point propagation, I see the most important element in moral transformation as the demonstration of the manifold wisdom of God through the church to the principalities and powers of the air. What in the world, you ask, does this seemingly abstract verse in Ephesians have to do with transforming society? I’ll save a thorough analysis for a followup article, but there are a few things here that I’d like to point out regarding our present discussion:

1. The ‘manifold wisdom’ is demonstrated, not merely discussed or sermonized. To the principalities and powers of the air (and to some extent the culture at large), talk of wisdom separated from a culture that demonstrates that wisdom in an authentic, identifiable way, results in nothing more than a yawn or a shrug of the shoulders.
2. The goal of this demonstration is not the benefit of men in and of itself, but rather some hidden goal known only to God. This shift in objective away from the pragmatic goals of men frees the church, and enables it to gain the authority in the earth it was designed to have.
3. It is through the corporate church that this demonstration is made, not through individual leaders. Paul labored to see a corporate manifestation of the authentic church enfleshed. He was well aware that it was going to take a corporate man to accomplish these lofty goals, and he labored till his death building up that corporate man.

What will shut the mouths of spiritual powers and change the moral course of our nation? It will certainly not be the mere parroting of conservative values and ideals. The powers yawn and the peoples are not confronted with anything that would cause them to be challenged in their thinking. Rather, a manifestation of the church as family, living in a tangible measure of authority, love, and spiritual power, will serve as a witness of a wisdom from another age to the powers and the peoples. We must be released from the power of the pragmatic in order to become what we were meant to be.

Within a thriving church culture, calls for people groups (such as homosexuals) to abandon their identities for the sake of the gospel ring more authentically true (and make more sense) than do the same calls when ushered by media personalities or pastors speaking with little to no personal investment in the recipients of the call, for the sake of adherence to doctrine or moral values.

Bob Gladstone has lately spoken of two convictions of his: “First, we need a revolution in the church of Jesus Christ, a paradigm shift, to build the house in which God dwells. Second, the Spirit is saying the time for that paradigm shift is now.” If you want to invest in cultural transformation, invest in your local churches. Rather than investing in them becoming bigger or more vocal versions of themselves however (though that will be of some value), invest in them becoming spiritual families devoted to building up real-life kingdom cultures of love, honor, restoration, and God-saturated living. Families that demonstrate, rather than merely talk about, the wisdom of God to the larger culture.

Dispersed pockets of connected Jesus people* will transform the nation like no politician or religious leader ever could.

Marcus French, Editor of Voice of Revolution, is a Web Developer and SQA Engineer living in Charlotte, NC.

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