“Christianity can and should be a leading influence in human culture,” says Greg Forster, “We do this not by seizing control of the institutions of culture and imposing Christianity on people by force, but by acting as cultural entrepreneurs.” A prime example of a cultural entrepreneur in the Bible, notes Forster, was Job:
Job was a cultural leader because he served human needs. The connection is reinforced in the following verses, where Job seamlessly transitions back from his deeds of service to his position of cultural leadership. “Men listened to me and waited and kept silence for my counsel…” etc.
We become cultural leaders not by seizing control of institutions but by inventing new ways of serving human needs and proving that they work better than the anti-Christian alternatives. We are able to invent new ways of serving human needs because the Spirit has empowered and equipped us in unique ways – through the revelation of the Bible that gives us “inside information” about how the world works, and through the transformation of our hearts and lives. When Christians and Christian institutions serve human needs better than secularists and anti-Christian institutions do, people stop looking to them for leadership and start looking to us.
