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As a result of the overwhelming suffering, injustice, and evil that frequently seems to rule the day, many of us may feel overwhelmed by a sense of despair and may think that improving these conditions is not only futile but also pointless. However...

Too often, our attitude toward the surrounding culture and those who make it up is judgmental and condemning. We thoughtlessly criticize anything that isn’t distinctly Christian. We vilify and ridicule the representatives of “godless culture” and rather than engage with and love the lost, we take offense and withdraw into our Christian enclaves. This is devastating to the church and it's mission.

If “all the Law” hangs on loving God and loving others, then to love God is to obey him and to obey him is to love others. But what does it really mean to love others? Should you walk down the street hugging everyone you meet saying, “I love you”? Should loving others be accompanied by feelings of affection? Are these feelings essential to loving others and if absent does this mean you’re not being loving?

Biblical discipleship is either absent or woefully inadequate to producing any tangible fruit, much less real freedom in Christ. Thus too many within the body are mired in sin management rather than freedom from it.

There is a sadness that reminds me what my sin has done to God's good creation. It is during such a season that I am compelled to look beyond this world to Christ alone for my hope and comfort.

This is the conclusion to my series, "Changing Culture: A Study in Cultural Engagement." Here, we come to our third and final example of cultural engagement: the early Christian church and its triumph over the pagan culture of Rome.

The legalization of abortion did not emerge out of a vacuum nor did it appear as a sudden and unexpected contrast to established values. Roe v. Wade was the inevitable consequence of incremental cultural changes that began with the Enlightenment.

Like so many Christians of his day, Billy Sunday believed a great moral and religious victory had been won with Prohibition. He, and they, would be wrong.

"Changing from the culture of death to a culture of life" is really an audacious statement when you think about it. Yet we talk of changing the culture all the time, as if this is an easy thing to do. So what will it take?