Where Is the Salt?

Why is the world so bad, and who is to blame for it? That question occupies a lot of our attention, particularly in these politically polarizing times. In different eras, Christians have responded to the world’s depravity in different ways. Sometimes the response has been to flee into safe enclaves of holiness, far removed from the decay of society. When this strategy does not work, it is often followed by an era of scapegoating. Christians will expend energy denouncing another community for society’s problems and downward slide. It’s not a coincidence that these two responses—isolation and confrontation—conform to the well-documented “fight or flight” instinct seen in threatened organisms. That’s because both isolation and confrontation are driven by fear.