The World Is Not Ours to Mend
by Donavon L Riley

The culture war stirs up such fever among Christians because it is no war at all. What we call “culture” is not a living thing—it is a corpse, breathless and unmoving. To take up arms in a culture war is to strike at the carcass of a beast long dead. What good is it to pound our fists against a body that cannot feel? The world we fight against is already six feet under, and the only thing we raise with our efforts is dust.

But the Church—ah, the Church—is the sole wellspring of life. Its liturgy, when bound to God’s Word, is the sacred hearth where we gather to be given breath again. It is the cultus that keeps our hearts beating, not through human artifice but through the Word, through Christ, through Spirit. In that rhythm of forgiveness and hope, the dead are made alive, and the despairing find the strength to wait for salvation.

This is why the old cry, “Death to the world,” rings with such appeal, even for those who cannot quite say why. Deep down, they know. They know the world is a graveyard of idols, a tomb built of its own vanity and greed. Why hurl yourself against what is already rotting? Why claw at coffins, hoping for life?

“Be in the world but not of it.” It is a hard saying, but it is also the clearest map we have. Be in the world—yes, live among the dead—but do not let their death creep into your soul. Do not take up their ways, their endless quarrels over ashes. You are alive in Christ by faith. Your heart beats because He has breathed into you.

Why do you seek the living among the dead? Why wander through the tombs as though they could teach you how to live? So much energy is spent hammering at the walls of this dead world, trying to fix its rotting planks and crumbling mortar. But the world is not ours to mend—it is ours to leave behind.

Pray not for the world’s repair, but for its end. Pray for the conversion of hearts, for the coming of Christ, for the kingdom that does not crumble. We are not called to resuscitate a corpse; we are called to witness to the One who brings the dead to life. The world will pass, as all things must. But the Church, held in the hand of Christ, lives.