Influencing the culture

Society has taken a nosedive into greater and greater evil, debauchery, violence, and corruption, and outside the church, the landscape seems filled with "modern barbarians." The temptation is strong for believers to jump into the cultural fray as self-righteous social/political reformers and condescending moralizers. All the while those self-styled Christian activists forget or ignore their true mission in the world and completely miss the answer to Schaeffer's question [“How Then Must We Live?”]--an answer that God's Word spells out quite clearly.

As noble as a desire to reform society may be, and as stirring as the emotions sometimes are when involved in the "rightness" of a political cause, those activities are not to be the Christian's chief priorities. God does not call the church to influence the culture by promoting legislation and court rulings that advance a Scripture point of view. Nor does He condone any type of radical activism that would avoid tax obligations, disobey or seek removal of government officials we don't agree with, or spend an inordinate amount of time campaigning for a so-called Christian slate of candidates.

--John MacArthur, "Christian Duty in a Pagan Culture," 11/2011