Can the Church Save the World?

Now, that is a big question and I admit it might be a little bit of click-bait. But I believe, in the end, it is not an exaggerated question. Theologically the Christian knows the world is fundamentally at odds with God and that God called his people to be ambassadors for the good news, so we believe the world needs saving and God is the only one who can do it. And, eventually, God will bring everything into himself in judgement and salvation.

But I am not talking in eschatological terms. I am talking about both the big and small contexts of our normal, walking-around, grocery-shopping, family-raising, social-media-scrolling lives. If you have been paying attention, things are a mess. In so many ways, life is drastically different than it was 3 years ago, and little to none of it is for the better. I do not plan on making the case that the world needs saving. I am assuming it is obvious.

I want to spark the idea in the hearts and minds of faithful Christians that they have been put on this earth right now with good cause. God is still at work, God is still using his church to salt the earth, and God will be patient with us all until the cup of wrath is full and the Kingdom of Christ comes.

The more I consider the things that are becoming dysfunctional in our culture, the more I see the faithful church as God’s pre-administered antidote. The theology of the faith answers the ideological dysmorphia of the world. It is worth reflecting on how off-course a culture has blown when it pretends not to know the difference between a man and a woman, and uses that pseudo-confusion to physically and emotionally mutilate a multitude of young people. Where our sin causes us to go wrong, the Gospel grants us the grace to go right.

The theology of the faith answers the ideological dysmorphia of the world.

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I resonate with what Robert Cardinal Sarah says in The Day is Now Far Spent:

“More profoundly, the Church makes herself the guardian of human nature. When the church defends the lives of children by fighting against abortion, when she defends marriage by showing the profound harmfulness of divorce, when she preserves the conjugal relationship by warning against the dead end of homosexual relations, when she tries to protect the dignity of the dying against the temptation of euthanasia, when she warns against the dangers of gender ideology and transhumanism, in reality she makes herself the servant of humanity and the protector of civilization. She seeks to protect the little ones and the weak against the unwitting extravagances of sorcerers’ apprentices who, out of fear and hatred of their own humanity, risk leading so many men and women toward solitude, sadness, and death. The Church tries to set up the rampart of humanity against the neo-barbarism of the post-humans. The Barbarians are no longer at the city gates and beneath the ramparts; they are in positions of influence and in government. They shape the laws and public opinion, often animated by a genuine contempt for the weak and the poor. And so the Church stands up to defend them. Convinced of the truth of Jesus’ words: ‘As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’ (Mt 25:40).”