Religion as Socially Useful

An excerpt from Richard J. Mouw’s (President of Fuller Theological Seminary) blog on Fuller Theological Seminary’s site:

When the ancient Israelites were taken as captives to Babylon, the Lord sent them instructions about how they were to handle their new social situation: they were to “seek the welfare (shalom) of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29: 7). That certainly counts as the “social utility” of religious faith. I am convinced that it is a mandate that also speaks to us today in the United States. We must work for the common good—the shalom—of the larger civil society. But that social utility must be, as Jody Bottum puts it, a “derived effect”—something that benefits society precisely because it stems from a set of beliefs and practices that come to us as revealed truth from a Living God.