"We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us." 2 Corinthians 5:20 (NIV)

As I was considering topics for this week's column, a book caught my eye and I took it off my shelf. Inside I read a passionate plea for "re-presenting" Christianity to a world where faith has become almost a dirty word. "Amen," I thought.

I noticed, though, that the book wasn't written in the past year or even in the past decade. It was written in 1960.

I was both encouraged and mildly depressed to know that Christian scholars were concerned about the marginalization of Christianity back in 1960. It was encouraging to know that they acknowledged a problem and were urging fellow believers to take action. But I was mildly depressed to read words from 1960 that could be applied with equal or even greater force in our own day. Somehow the church hasn't gained much cultural and intellectual ground since the rallying cry first went out.

You'll be happy to know that it hasn't always been this way. Of course, all human societies are probably destined to contain believers and non-believers living side by side. But in the first few centuries of the church, as the faithful began to spread the message of God's love in Jesus, they began to have a tremendous impact on a culture in crisis. And as Rome declined in power and influence, church leaders assumed leadership roles across the empire and helped create what we know today as Europe.

As Christians, we don't have to wring our hands and despair for the future. Frankly, there's been entirely too much of that lately. Culture, after all, isn't just about the unsaved world somewhere out there. It's about us, too, because we are part of culture. We therefore have reason for hope.

Through wise engagement with the non-Christian elements of our culture, we can redeem them for our Lord. The early Christians understood that—and so should we.

— Matt Donnelly, for the ChristianityToday.com staff

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