Article June 8, 1987 Issue

Second Thought

Looking again at news and commentary

William Willimon

Sojourners

From Sojourners, May 1986

"Sometime in my ministry, the church I served changed from being a church desiring to be salt to a church desiring to be honey to help the world's solutions go down a bit easier. At first I thought it was a problem of liberal vs. conservative, or peacemaking vs. war-making. But lately I've decided it reflects the more fundamental problem of the church and the world.

"If I remember church history correctly, the persistent problem is not how to keep the church from withdrawing from the world but how to keep the world from subverting the church. In each age the church succumbs to that Constantinian notion that we can get a handle on the way the world is run. Take charge, fit the world's standards of justice into a loosely Christian framework, substitute a little worldly wisdom for gospel foolishness, talk power rather than love, and call this Christian social concern.

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