Why Haven't We Changed the World?

Here’s my Question: Why haven’t we changed the world? “We,” meaning “We Christians.” We’ve had 2,000 years to get the job done. The usual answer is “original sin, dying world, vale of tears.” Perfection waits in heaven. Excuses. Every day is a new day. We act and world either changes or stays the same.
My theory is much simpler: bad philosophy. Or you might say, bad theology. What’s theology but philosophy with God added to the mix? And if philosophy is worth anything, it’s not about ideas but how we live.
Ask anyone—especially those who might once have called themselves Christian, but ask anyone: practicing Christians, media, what it means to live Christian and you’d most often hear the three-point plan: keep your pants up, your shoulder to the wheel, and do what you’re told. Let’s face it, that plan isn’t going to change the world. There’s nothing wrong with keeping your pants up, most of the time anyway, or with keeping your shoulder to the wheel, but they don’t come close to what we need.
The worst problem is in point three: “do what you’re told.” Those doing the telling--seen in the plan as having God’s authority--have a pretty poor track record. They’ve never needed to change the world because for them the world looks pretty good “as is.” We can and should demand better leadership--as futile as that may seem--challenging our world on a political level as Jesus did. But along with his political message Jesus promised that “the kingdom of heaven” is possible on earth. We’ve lost faith in that possibility. You won’t find it in the three-point plan. You have to look up to find it, not down. When we do, we’ll start to understand how to change the world.