This post is from September 2006. My experience in the 5 years since then have affirmed the relevance and truthfulness of Keller’s words.
Here are a few of quotes from Tim Keller’s Being Church in Our Culture:
Religion says “I obey therefore God accepts me”.
Gospel says “I am accepted by God therefore I obey”.
On the surface religion and gospel look similar but the lives and communities derived from them are radically different.If we cannot show the difference between religion and gospel then non-Christian people will think we are asking them to just be good. Non-Christians need to see Christians who so inhabit their city, inhabit their neighborhood, inhabit their professions so that by looking at the Christians they will have a picture of what they would look like as Christians.
As Christians in the culture, paradoxically, we are both radically different and radically the same.
Teaching provided by seminaries, churches, bible classes teaches us how to be church leaders not cultural leaders. We operate in a church leader grid. The progression of our training leads us through a hierarchy of leadership. The result is that we pull people out of their jobs into the church so they have less and less cultural impact. Our objective should be to teach people how to be more excellent and distinctive in cultural leadership.