Bert Waggoner had an insightful answer to a question about the Church’s response to legalized homosexual marriages in California:
We are not called to police society. We are called to be a people who genuinely, authentically love and display the gospel in order to be salt and light and bring transformation.
Here’s the thing:
The Church should not be frightened at the downward spiral of society’s morality. If anything, we should be cheering as now the Light of the Gospel can burn brighter in the 
darkness around us.
Christians in the West have relied on the government’s control of morality for far too long. We have gotten complacent knowing that we could send our children to the public school and they would be taught under a Judeo-Christian worldview. We like the fact that the government controlled how much sex or cursing we (and our children) saw on TV. It was nice knowing that we could stop sinful behaviors such as homosexuality, abortion, drug use, and free-sex by simply voting.
We liked it that way because it meant that we did not have think about it or deal with it. Out of sight and out of mind.[@more@]
To me, this is the reason a lot of the church is fighting to save Christendom. They want the government to regulate their morality, instead of by the body of Christ. They are afraid of what they might do if they saw a pornographic picture on a billboard. Or, better yet, they are afraid of answering their children’s questions when a homosexual couple moves next door.
IT MAKES ME SICK!!!
Just like in the Judges, God wants to be King in each of our lives – individually and corporately. He does not want us relying on a human government to regulated morality. If He wanted to do that, He would of done that at the very beginning when He made us.
We, the Church, need to be different – to live different, to act different – to engage our culture, while being different. We need not be afraid of sin or the sin around us. We serve the One True God – the One who made the Universe. Nothing can take us from His hand.
Let us stop trying to police society and live for God.
So what you are saying that we need to shine so brightly that if society changes it is because of our light instead of us forcing society to shine for us.
I’m thinking that the difference between the “shining to change” and “changing society by shining” is like the left side and right side of the same horse. My so called Christian beliefs affect my involvement from friends, neighborhood, work, church, city, state, nation, and world. (more so now in this digital world. seeing as how I can recognize handles as being the same person even though they are on several unrelated sites of interest.)
btw: whats the difference between your ‘Christian huddle’ and ‘withdrawing from government’?
Reply to Philip
Yelp. Society should see that the Church is different because of how we live. The Church should not force society into believing or acting a certain way.
Reply to Brass
Both ‘Christian huddle’ and ‘withdrawing from government’ are negative in my view.
To me, a “Christian huddle” is where the Church tries to control everything around it so that none one in the huddle see any ‘sin’. A lot of times this means controlling the society around the huddle by passing governmental laws forcing people to act like they want them too.
Withdrawing from government – well, that’s basically withdrawing from any interaction with the government, which is silly since we live in a world with governments… I believe there is more of a middle ground. =/