'What they can where they are and with what they have.'

 I had planned to do a book report on Dwight Longenecker's book Beheading The Hydra: A Radical Plan For Christians in an Atheistic Age. But then I read this article at The Federalist by Louis Markos entitled How To Preserve A Moral Culture Through 'Creative Subversion.' It is better than anything I could have written, so I encourage gentle readers to go read it. It pretty well sums up Longenecker's thesis. After explaining the philosophical changes that led to modern society, he tells us what the Bible says we should do to counter the "isms" that has ruined our culture.

Such is Longenecker’s diagnosis of a dying world infected to the core by the venom of the multi-headed hydra. But does he offer a cure?

Interestingly, rather than propose a right-leaning program of direct confrontation with the heads of the hydra or a left-leaning policy of accommodating their subtle poison, he offers something approximating Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option. We must change ourselves, he argues, and live out that change in such a way that we will simultaneously expose the lies of the hydra and incarnate an alternative way of living.

Longenecker refers to this inner change as “creative subversion.” Here is how it works. Rather than fight materialism in the academy or embrace Christian consumerism, we must demonstrate to the world our refusal to absorb and imitate its cupidity by tithing generously to our church and other charities. Likewise, rather than debate atheists on television or construct our own modern versions of Deism, we must show forth our belief in an active Creator God by living lives of continuous praise and intercessory prayer.

In other words, Longenecker argues that the way to change the culture is to live as if we really believe what we profess to believe. Lead by example. Or, in Longenecker's words Christians are to do 'what they can where they are and with what they have.'