And I realized then that the answer to “why write? Why talk? Why read? Why publish?” is that we are not primarily writing and reading and publishing to “fix” the City of Man. I mean, maybe things will in the future “swing our way,” and maybe our words will have had something to do with the restoration of social conservatism in America. But maybe not.

But the thing is, that was never—it never should have been—our major vision for writing anyway.  Why write, in the first place? The answer is the same answer you’ve got to give to “Why garden?” “Why have babies?” “Why build a house?” The answer is, because we are called to, we are called to be makers, because we are made in the image of a creator, and this is part of what it means to be fruitful, to have dominion, to be humanity, restored in Christ, as God intended us to be. It is by being the best humans we can be, the best makers we can be, that we will do the best for the culture at large.

If we’re writers, then we write because it’s our part of the human task to do this, to write essays and publish them, the way we might bottle peaches, or crochet granny squares, or install insulation. When we are in Christ, and being in Him, offer him our work, it lasts into eternity; I think it ends up as part of what we’ll be able to get from the libraries and bookshops in the New Jerusalem. It’s not about “turning America around;” it’s about living in the Kingdom now, being ambassadors from another city, being a light in a dark world. Living the cultural life of eternity, starting now.