We are called to be leaven in the lump of the world. In order to raise up the lump, the yeast must be kneaded in painfully. It must be broken up and then it must die. It’s death releases a new energy into the lump while the whole thing sits in the darkness.

We have lost the culture war because we never mounted a cultural opposition. Our strategy was to be shocked and mortified and also indignant and annoyed. We never made anything culturally beautiful. We never gave voice to what we believe with creativity and relevance for a new generation.

When some of us have – Flannery O’Conner, JRR Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Taylor Caldwell – their efforts have been embraced by the starving culture. But they haven’t been enough.

Please, no more self-satisfied rationalizations for sitting on the sidelines and watching the fields which are white with harvest rot before our eyes. We have been guilty of sloth and fear, and it is time to shake it off. Souls hang in the balance.

My point, not clearly stated unfortunately, was this: the embrace of the church by the state led to a vast increase in the worldly influence, secular power, and wealth of the Church — and moved the church farther away from its roots in humility, devotion, and simplicity of faith. The church in history goes astray when it weds itself to political power. The Inquisition was not her finest hour, to cite but one example.