Greetings and salutations. This is Life and Books and Everything. I'm Kevin D. Young.

Today I have my latest article for World. Be sure to check out the world opinions page

for regular articles that I contribute there and a number of other good folks. This one is

entitled Seven Principles for Cultivating a Christian P posture toward the World. Tim Keller recently

tweeted about abortion and politics.

Then James Wood wrote a piece for first things, respectfully critiquing Keller's approach

to politics and cultural engagement, which prompted David French to defend Keller and critique

Wood.

By now, someone has probably offered an article criticizing them all.

Rather than responding to the specific arguments in particular, I'd like to zoom out and ask a broader question. What should the Christians posture be to a hostile world? Not surprisingly, the question does not allow for a simple answer. The message and model of the New Testament cannot be reduced

to a single attitude or strategy, but there are important lessons to learn. Here then are seven

principles for cultivating a Christian posture toward our quote-unquote negative world. Number one,

set an example of godliness for the unbeliever.

We should live demonstrably different lives, keeping our conduct honorable so that outsiders

might give Christianity a hearing, or at least be put to shame for slandering us.

This means we refuse to repay evil for evil.

It also means we bless those who do not deserve it.

Even those who do good may suffer for righteousness sake. This is point number two. Be prepared to suffer.

And as I'm reading here, I'll just note there's a lot of scripture references in parentheses.

I'm not giving you those parentheses, but you can go find the article

and be sure to check out that I'm trying to make scriptural points and often referencing and

rephrasing scriptural sentences. So point number two, be prepared to suffer. Even those who do

...