First, society and our morality are joined. Re-read Judges. Or review why Israel lost the first battle for Ai.
Second, I never said "moral impact," I said "impact".
As Christians we are called to impact the world for good. We are called to advance the Kingdom of Heaven and beat back the Kingdom of Hell until we are at its very gates - and those will not be able to stand against us.
We fight a battle on two fronts. We feed the hungry while we also attempt to teach them the Good News. But we don't preach the Gospel to the starving.
Shalom.
You may be interested, or not, in the link below which raises the issue of Christ and Culture; the Gospel and Law in relationship to civil society; etc.
http://www.forerunner.com/revolution/rush.html
And whatever God did at Ai, I agree with.
We have no expectation or mandate that we will "impact the world for good". This is not a New Testament mentality. It is another mentality, grafted on top of the text. We will pull drowning souls into the ark of the church until the end.
The picture of the world in the book of Revelation gives no room for any optimism for general society. In fact, Paul explicitly says several times that general society will WORSEN until the end.
I don't know how to break this to you guys, but the world will end in fire and terrible wrath. Draw a line from that end back to where we are now. That line is the future.
But this is easy to settle. Let's talk in 20 years.