One of the reasons I say that it is good for American Christianity to no longer think of itself as a “moral majority” is that such a mentality obscures the strangeness of the gospel. When a vision of Christian political engagement hinges on building a politically viable network of ideologically united voters, Christ and him crucified will tend to be a stumbling block, not a rallying point. I’m sure that if a journalist had been present when Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone,” the headline the next day probably would have been, “Religious Leader Calls for Pullback from Agriculture Policy.”

The call to a gospel-focused engagement is not a call to a retreat. On the contrary, it’s a call to a more vigorous presence in public life, because it seeks to ground such witness where it ought to be, in the larger mission of the church. Even some sectors of religious activism chafe at the honest accounting of apostolic Christianity as a minority viewpoint in Western culture. Minorities do not exert influence, they will contend, on the culture or the systems around it. The temptation is to pretend to be a majority, even if one is not.

Read the article “Why Politics Can’t Drive the Gospel” on russellmoore.com.