Christianity has never been about just sitting around and waiting for heaven. It is about having our lives transformed by Christ, and then seeing other livesand even our culture—impacted and transformed as well.

Yesterday I wrote an article featuring 30 quotes on the biblical worldview. Some folks might think that this is all rather esoteric and ethereal stuff, with not much practical application to everyday life. And some Christians can also think this way, believing it does not have much relevance for them.

But they would be quite wrong. Not only is the Christian worldview something that can be discussed and debated by theologians and philosophers, but it has a direct bearing on the sorts of lives we live in the here and now. At least it SHOULD have a real and concrete impact on us and the surrounding culture.

Christianity has never been about just sitting around and waiting for heaven. It is about having our lives transformed by Christ, and then seeing other lives—and even our culture—impacted and transformed as well. I quoted N. T. Wright on this in my earlier piece:

“The work of ‘salvation’ in its full sense, is (1) about whole human beings, not merely ‘souls’; (2) about the present, not merely the future; and (3) about what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us.” (Surprised by Hope)

We all know of the old saying which goes like this: “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good.” It has been around for a while now. American writer, physician, poet, and educator Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) may have been among the first to say it.

And one person to especially popularise it was country singer Johnny Cash. In his 1977 album “The Rambler” was the song, “No Earthly Good”. The lyrics include:

Come heed me, my brothers, come heed, one and all
Don’t brag about standing or you’ll surely fall
You’re shining your light and shine it you should
But you’re so heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

If you’re holding heaven, then spread it around
There’s hungry hands reaching up here from the ground
Move over and share the high ground where you stood
So heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

The gospel ain’t gospel until it is spread
But how can you share it where you’ve got your head
There’s hands that reach out for a hand if you would
So heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

But plenty of Christian thinkers, apologists and worldview experts have also said similar things—although perhaps not in song form! Five of them can be cited here. Back in the 1940s C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity said this:

Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more—food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.

In his 1971 volume Ethics: Alternatives and Issues, Norman Geisler has a chapter on “The Christian and Social Responsibility.” In it he speaks to the responsibility believers have to the whole person. He is worth quoting at length:

Read More