Thermostat, not Thermometer

My last post talked about religious freedom. Citizens should savor religious freedom for it's positive impact on the culture, even if they do not believe in God themselves. If you had a super magnet that would sweep over the US and pick up everything established and supported by Christians throughout it's history, what was left would be unrecognizable. Not even the most ardent atheist and progressives (I hate it that they have corrupted the beautiful word 'liberal') would want to live here.

Here's my recommendation to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day: reread his stirring letter to the clergy written from a Birmingham jail in 1963. Note this challenge to the church, every bit as meaningful today:

There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that
period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer
for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer
that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat
that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a
town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them
for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators." But they went on
with the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," and had to obey God
rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too
God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." They brought an end to such
ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.
Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an
uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from
being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the
average community is consoled by the church's silent and often vocal sanction of
things as they are.
But the judgement of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the
early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions,
and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth
century. I am meeting young people every day whose disappointment with the
church has risen to outright disgust.