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The year 2006 marks the 50th anniversary of Christianity Today. To help us reflect on the role of evangelicalism in the next 50 years, we have undertaken The Christian Vision Project. The project, directed by Andy Crouch, invites leading thinkers to reflect on the shape of Christian faithfulness in the 21st century. The three-year project focuses on culture in year one (underwritten by the Pew Charitable Trusts), mission in year two, and the gospel in year three. For year one, we've asked our writers to answer this question: "How can followers of Christ be a counterculture for the common good?" We've borrowed that piquant phrase from the Rev. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, whose own response will appear later this year.

We begin with an essay by Michael S. Horton, professor of apologetics and theology at Westminster Seminary California and one of the leading voices in the contemporary revitalization of the Reformed tradition in America. He is editor of Modern Reformation magazine, host of a nationally syndicated radio broadcast, and author of a number of books, including the forthcoming Too Good to Be True (Zondervan) and God of Promise (Baker).

It was confusing to grow up singing both "This World Is Not My Home" and "This Is My Father's World." Those hymns embody two common and seemingly contradictory Christian responses to culture. One sees this world as a wasteland of godlessness, with which the Christian should have as little as possible to do. The other regards cultural transformation as virtually identical to "kingdom activity."

Certainly the answer does not lie in any intrinsic opposition of heaven and earth. After all, Jesus taught us to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Rather, the answer is to be sought in understanding the particular moment in redemptive history where God has placed us. We are not yet in the Promised Land, where the kingdom of God may be directly identified with earthly kingdoms and cultural pursuits. Yet we are no longer in Egypt. We are pilgrims in between, on the way.

In Babylon, God commanded the exiles to "build houses and settle down," pursuing the good of their conquering neighbors (Jer. 29). At the same time, he prophesied a new city, an everlasting empire, as the true homeland that would surpass anything Israel had experienced in Canaan.

So both of my childhood hymns tell the truth in their own way: We are pilgrims and strangers in this age, but we "pass through" to the age to come (not some ethereal state of spiritual bliss), which, even now in this present evil age, is dawning.

The challenge is to know what time it is: what the kingdom is, how it comes, and where we should find it right now.

In the Old Covenant, the kingdom of God was identified with the nation of Israel, anticipating the Last Day by executing on a small scale the judgment and blessings that will come one day to the whole world. Yet Jesus introduced a different polity with the New Covenant. Instead of calling on God's people to drive out the Canaanites in holy war, Jesus pointed out that God blesses both believers and unbelievers. He expects his people to love and serve rather than judge and condemn their neighbors, even their enemies (Matt. 5:43-48; see also Matt. 7:1-6). The wheat and the weeds are to be allowed to grow together, separated only at the final harvest (Matt. 13:24-30). The kingdom at present is hidden under suffering and the Cross, conquering through Word and sacrament, yet one day it will be consummated as a kingdom of glory and power. First the Cross, weakness, and suffering; then glory, power, and the announcement that the kingdoms of this world have been made the kingdom of Christ (Rev. 11:15; see also Heb. 2:5-18).

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January 2006, Vol. 50, No. 1