When Jesus said that Christians are the salt of this earth and the light of the world, he meant that we would involve ourselves in the affairs of this world to influence and change them. No, he did not say to engage in the things that are wrong, but to do our best to make the wrong things right.
Our influence is not being felt because too many of us are content to stand on the sidelines and allow the world to sink deeper and deeper into wickedness. We excuse ourselves by saying, "It is none of my business."
Major William E. Mayer, an armed forces psychiatrist, made a study of POWS in the Korean war. He tells the story of a man named Gallagher:
There was a man named Gallagher. He was tried and convicted in a New York military court...on two charges of first-degree murder in a POW camp. He was a monster. He was in a hut in North Korea, and in the hut there were some men whom he considered socially unacceptable; they had very bad dysentery--and so Gallagher threw them out. It was 30 degrees below outside that hut, and they died right away.
So we tried and convicted him of murder. Now we know that nothing, such as saying "don't hurt your fellow American," is going to reach Gallagher or the few people who are like Gallagher. But they're really not our problem; I don't think they ever will be. They couldn't possibly be.
We have a worse problem than that. The Gallagher type of problem, you can see and you can deal with; you can fight it. The worst problem is the one this point is designed for. It's the other forty men in the hut. It is the witnesses we collected for that trial. Their interrogations would go through something like this: We'd say: "Soldier, did you see Gallagher throw those men out of the hut?" The soldier would say, "Yes, sir I did." "And what were you doing at the time he threw them out of the hut, soldier?" "Well, I was huddling together with everybody else to try to keep warm; it was very cold up there, and you had to get heat from the other people's bodies." "What were you doing to try to keep Gallagher from throwing these men out in the freezing cold?" "Nothing, sir." "And why not, soldier," we ask. And invariably, or almost invariably, the answer would come back: "Well, sir, I just didn't feel it was my business to interfere." And so the men died.
Are we not like those men when we ignore the problems of this world? We need to use our influence as people of God to change the wrong in the world.
Yes, I must agree with this man's conclusions completely. We talk a "good talk," but we are a little short on action. Are you concerned about the direction of our country? Are you helping to find a solution? If not, why? --KG