This heightened activism has yielded good results in many areas of public life, yet the impact remains far less than most had hoped. Why? Because evangelicals often put all their eggs in one basket: They leaped into political activism as the quickest, surest way to make a difference in the public arena \u2013 failing to realize that politics tend to reflect a culture, not the other way around\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
Today, battle-weary political warriors have grown more realistic about the limits of that strategy. We have learned that \u2018politics is downstream from culture, not the other way around,\u2019 says Bill Wichterman, policy advisor to senate majority leader Bill Frist. \u2018Real change has to start with the culture, all we can do on Capitol Hill is try to find ways government can nurture healthy cultural trends\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n
On a similar note a member of Congress once told me, \u2018I got involved in politics after the 1973 abortion decision because I thought that was the fastest route to moral reform. Well, we\u2019ve won some legislative victories, but we\u2019ve lost the culture (italics hers).\u2019 The most effective work, he had come to realize, is done by ordinary Christians fulfilling God\u2019s calling to reform culture within their local spheres of influence \u2013 their families, churches, schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, professional organizations, and civic institutions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back in August my blogging friend JOLLYBLOGGER quotes Total Truth as follows This heightened activism has yielded good results in many areas of public life, yet the impact remains far less than most had hoped. Why? Because evangelicals often put all their eggs in one basket: They leaped into political activism as the quickest, surest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion"],"yoast_head":"\n
Nancy Pearcy on Christianity and politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Back in August my blogging friend JOLLYBLOGGER quotes Total Truth as follows This heightened activism has yielded good results in many areas of public\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2005\/01\/nancy-pearcy-on-christianity-and-politics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nancy Pearcy on Christianity and politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Back in August my blogging friend JOLLYBLOGGER quotes Total Truth as follows This heightened activism has yielded good results in many areas of public\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2005\/01\/nancy-pearcy-on-christianity-and-politics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Adrian Warnock\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/adrianwarnockpage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-01-02T23:04:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Adrian Warnock\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@adrianwarnock\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Adrian Warnock\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2005\/01\/nancy-pearcy-on-christianity-and-politics\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2005\/01\/nancy-pearcy-on-christianity-and-politics\/\",\"name\":\"Nancy Pearcy on Christianity and politics\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2005-01-02T23:04:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-01-02T23:04:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/4dc7481b9baa3553d9a7698715084eaa\"},\"description\":\"Back in August my blogging friend JOLLYBLOGGER quotes Total Truth as follows This heightened activism has yielded good results in many areas of public\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2005\/01\/nancy-pearcy-on-christianity-and-politics\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2005\/01\/nancy-pearcy-on-christianity-and-politics\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2005\/01\/nancy-pearcy-on-christianity-and-politics\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Nancy Pearcy on Christianity and politics\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/\",\"name\":\"Adrian Warnock\",\"description\":\"Patheos Evangelical\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/4dc7481b9baa3553d9a7698715084eaa\",\"name\":\"Adrian Warnock\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e5ff2076e287d1578e3b13fc015d78be?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e5ff2076e287d1578e3b13fc015d78be?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Adrian Warnock\"},\"description\":\"The resurrection of Jesus changes everything. 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