[TomSmedley]

A "culture war", if that means legal or political action, is NOT WHAT JESUS TOLD THE CHURCH TO DO.

A faith that dangles in space by itself, in isolation from the rest of life, is gnostic, not Christian. See Eph. 2:10 for the why of our salvation.

[Taliesan]

Let's let the NT define the heresies, and not the other way around, thank you very much. No one is advocating a faith "isolated from the rest of life". To pose the argument as a choice between Colson's "culture war" and "gnosticism" is to pose a classic false dilemma. There are other choices, which are not necessarily widely practiced. (For the record, I share Colson's apparent distate for a focus on "winning souls to Christ".)

Fulfilling the Great Commission is a task not in any sense "isolated", but it is personalistic, since abstractions and institutions are not Jesus' interests at all.

In fact, the tendency to disdain any object of concern other than the individual person is just about the defining element of Jesus' personality -- as depicted in the words of the canonical text, not the one we wish we had.

As an aside, I think you wanted to call me a docetic, not a gnostic. Gnostics were often un-isolated, to a fault.