22 Christian Engagement in Secular Society : Politics , the Gospel , and Moral Infl uence

K. T. Magnuson is Professor of Christian Ethics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Prior to this, he was Assistant Professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. His received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Magnuson has writ ten ar ticles on many topics, includings marriage, sexual moralit y, infertility, and contraception. Introduction Political solutions that entail bringing Christian moral convictions to bear on public policy and legislation may at times be described as the art of the impossible. This seems particularly true in our “post” culture—what is said to be postmodern, post-Christian, and perhaps generally post-past. One of the features of the contemporary moral landscape in the West is to consider many moral issues, which were once thought to be in the public domain, to be matters of private choice (call it “post-public” morality). Curiously, despite an emphasis on community in the postmodern era, the privatization of morality has only increased. This has had a profound effect on political and legal judgments on issues such as contraception, sex, abortion, marriage and divorce, homosexuality, euthanasia, stem cell research, cloning, and assisted reproductive technologies, to name a few. Though such issues are increasingly relegated to a supposed private sphere, it is clear that they involve very public consequences. Given that this is the case, the question that is pressed upon Christians—and all citizens—is this: How should we seek to engage with and infl uence our culture, if we should at all, when it comes to matters of morality? If, for instance, we believe that a certain type of reproductive technology is immoral, should we seek to prohibit it in the law? There are a variety of options by which we may have infl uence, each of which may have a place. However, the fi rst and most signifi cant way in which Christians ought to infl uence the surrounding culture is by the witness of proclamation, personal infl uence, and example, and not fi rst and foremost by the political process.