Obviously, God's plan for the world some kind of family life from the beginning and still does. I have a wife and son. But there is no indication what that pre-Fall family was supposed to be like in enough detail to pin Christian hopes on it -- precisely because the focus of biblical narrative is on creating a redemptive event EVEN WHILE WHILE FAMILIES WERE DOING WHAT THEY DO. Whatever families were supposed to be, God apparently felt the need to proceed on and redeem creation by additional means!!!!
The orders of creation are broken now and insufficient as agents of grace. Hence, a New Creation. Since we don't know what God intended the family to be like before the Fall in any detail, and clearly the family as an institution never accomplished anything like a "redemption", arguments that imply that God's plan to redeem culture is through the family are not biblical.
The truth is, christians talk about families changing their culture when their churches aren't changing their culture.
Tom Wright's work has demonstrated just how much Jesus' refusal to be a zealot got him in trouble. He may not have changed Simon's name to "ex-zealot" (I don't think he changed John's name to "ex-fisherman") but after they met Jesus John left his nets in the boat with his family -- and Simon was no longer a zealot.
The pattern, again, is beyond dispute: whatever you did as a "zealot" you stopped doing when you met Jesus. In every case.
I agree all the issues you list are important ones. They are addressed and solved by the Gospel.
There is no remedy for sin -- either its power or its guilt -- except a personal response to the redemptive work of Christ. One person at a time. Nothing else. To preach otherwise is not only futile, but heretical.
John called a Jewish ruler to obey the law. There are still prophets in the church, as well, whose office is to declare God's heart and mind out loud.
There is nothing wrong with christians speaking publicly and calling sin sin -- homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft, drugs, etc. But a christian who does not at the same time remember and say that you cannot find power to be free from sin except through Jesus is no longer speaking as a christian.
I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.
The level of zealousness didn't change; just the orientation of it--from misdirection to God-directed. Prior to Saul's conversion, he was zealous for the law and zealous for the traditions he felt he was protecting.
Post-conversion, he was just as zealous as ever--but now for Jesus Christ, the gospel, and the poor ("...I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles...All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." Gal. 2:7,10)
Too many evangelicals would reduce Paul's newfound focus to be only Christ and the Gospel. Those are the types who would cite Gal. 2:7 while ignoring Gal. 2:10.
The level of zealousness is not the problem; actually, it reflects part of who God is. Paul told the Galatians that "It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good..." (Gal. 4:18). Paul's purpose was good; only part of Saul's purposes were.
The church loses the culture war, and wins the spiritual war one person at a time. The culture kills more and more Christians. Jesus comes back, and the culture goes to hell.
While it's worth making some distinctions between the culture war and the spiritual war, the reality is they are part of the same fabric. They have the same combatants (although the Church is often AWOL on both fronts). Spiritual weaponry is required for both. The fact is the world is both a battlefield and a mission field.
To treat it only as a battlefield neglects The Great Commission. To treat it only as a mission field neglects The Cultural Commission.
You can say that we'll eventually lose the culture war. So what? That is not breaking news. Even Jesus said the Church would never win the war vs. beating off conditions churning out the poor. He said, "The poor will always be with you." So just because that's a war we can never win, we're simply supposed to lay down our attempts to feed, clothe and house them, and concentrate on only their spiritual condition?
No, we can no more neglect the condition of our culture than we can neglect the condition of the poor around us. Paul didn't compartmentalize his eagerness to remember the poor (Gal. 2:10) from his stewardship of the Gospel (Gal. 2:7). So why do evangelicals do that?
The "culture war" has many different types of victims: The poor, the possessed, the addicted, those embracing false identities, etc.
Let us stop trying to reduce the Gospel to mere words floating about: "...our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction." (1 Thess. 1:5).
The fact is that the Gospel is embodied in these clay vessels of ours. And how we respond to those in bondage to specific cultural minefields is relevant to our corporate reputation: "The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia--your faith in God has become known everywhere" (1 Thess. 1:8). Paul was specifically commending their "work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance (and suffering) inspired by hope" (1 Thess. 1:2,6).
You started off playing down stewardship of our culture as mere "good works"; Paul also was impressed by the Thessalonians' good works...but he didn't see them as "mere."
Tis agreed. But it's a little more complex than that.
You can say that the 1/3rd or so who survived Titanic were actually rescued "one person at a time"--for that is how people were loaded into the boats. But in reality, there was also a corporate dimension about it. People were saved en masse--both corporately one boat at a time--and also corporately as one major salvation thrust coordinated from the top on down.
Likewise, we only see the "one person at a time" strategy of God played out; but it's more complex than that. He's arranged for manned lifeboats (churches) to be strategically placed next to our culture's sinking ships. He's coordinating the entire major campaign from the top down.
Those sinking ships are our cultures in this world. The icebergs are real corporate sins like abortion, internet porn made available to our children and their parents, greed, etc. These "entities" (cultures) are corporate dimensions. And Jesus treated them as such:
"I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgement than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up the skies? No, you will go down to the depths." (Luke 10:12-15).
We Westerners put the focus on one-by-one personal evangelism and personal repentance. Jesus saw repentance as corporate ("they would have repented long ago"...see also "you and your household" of Acts 16:31).
The word "you" in our culture is individualistic; the word "you" in the original Greek or even today's cultures (like the Japanese culture) is treated as plural (as in you, yourselves).
Just as Abraham negotiated with God if a city would be saved for having X number of righteous people living in it, God looks on us as both individuals and as corporate creatures who either take on attributes of our culture or attempt to redeem aspects of our culture. (We either are part of the cultural problem or seek to be a redemptive part--Ezekiel 9:4-9).
When God at times handed the Israelites over to other nations (e.g.Ps. 106:40-42), he did so on a corporate basis even though there no doubt were righteous men in their midst.
Therefore, we are our brother's keeper in more ways than one. If the Church does not act like what salt's purposes were in Jesus' day--to be a preservative--then it is good for nothing and only fit to be tossed out with the rotten food.
We've all read the history books about cultures that died out. Jim Black wrote a book called NATIONS THAT DIE. It was important indeed for Christians in the Roman culture that died to proclaim the gospel; but there is also a Generational Commission. Our children (and their children, etc) are missionaries we send to a time we'll never see. And so it will be important for me to know that my children and their generations of offspring actually have a vibrant enough culture for them to be salt and light in; I do not desire to be partially responsible for fostering a culture that will one day doom saltless Christ-ones to be tossed out with the rest of that declining culture.
To bring it back to where I started with the Titanic illustration: Too many churches are catering only to the wealthy just as the Titanic's lifeboats neglected those travelling in "steerage." Where are the church lifeboats that target the 40% of women in our nation who've had abortions? Where are the church lifeboats who realize that due to the easy accessibility of porn, that a young teen can become an addict just as easy in a culture of spiritual revival as it can in a culture of red-light districts?
I'll tell you where those church lifeboats are. They're lining up to welcome the first-class passengers.
Correction: whatever you did as a "zealot" you stopped doing when you met Jesus became a fulltime apostle. Not every Christian is called to full time ministry, and it's a good thing, too - where would tithes come from if nobody had secular jobs?
For those NOT called to fulltime ministry, political activism ("zealotry", lawfully expressed), fishing, the arts, carpentry, and all other honest lines of business and cultural engagement are lawful for Christians, and the political realm arguably needs more Christian influence than any other.