Tension in Two Kingdoms

"The proper distance from a culture does not take Christians out of that culture. Christians are not the insiders who have taken flight to a new "Christian culture" and become outsiders to their own culture; rather when they have responded to the call of the Gospel they have stepped, as it were, with one foot outside their own culture while the other remaining firmly planted in it. They are distant, and yet they belong . . . distance born out of allegiance to God and God's future. . . . Both distance and belonging are essential. Belonging without distance destroys . . . but distance without belonging isolates." —Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace