Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Recently, a denominational leader said to me that the best thing the church could do to handle

the challenges of this cultural moment would be to, quote, stay in its lane. After all,

the so-called culture wars have been grueling, he said, and the

church is primarily called to spread the gospel. When it comes to the most controversial issues we

face today, the best strategy is non-confrontation, instead to focus on what's most important.

Now, I think I know what he meant. There's certainly truth to the idea that Christians often

overemphasize politics. As I've said on more than one occasion, politics makes a lousy worldview.

And a culture without better answers to life's biggest questions, politics have to easily

assume the place of God, determining everything from our value to our sources of truth to who we're even

willing to associate with. When Christians embrace a political identity instead of a kingdom identity,

while the riches of Christ are exchanged for the porridge of political gamesmanship. However,

telling the church to just stay in our lane and out of politics is an equally unhelpful answer.

First, the stay-in-your-lane mandate is typically only applied to the unpopular issues, you know, like abortion, marriage, and family, religious freedom.

No one ever tells the church to stay in its lane and not fight against sex trafficking, or to no longer dig wells

for communities without fresh water, or to cease sustainable economic development and impoverished

nations. Christians should absolutely engage all of these worthy causes. In fact, they should

engage any and all worthy cause because the lordship of Christ and the implications of the gospel demand it,

but not because they're deemed culturally uncontroversial. That should have nothing to do with it.

Historically, the church's shining moments, in fact, have come often in direct conflict

with dominant cultural belief or practice. The Roman world, for example, needed Christians to take in abandoned

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