Have our efforts
been to transform society or
just to control it?

Religion stabilizes society, instills patterns of behavior that ensure a community's longevity. But is that what it's supposed to do? what it was created to do?

As for us, have our efforts been to transform society or just to control it? Have we left room for creative engagement (or burned our bridges)?

Empires have tended to use religion to exploit. So what do Christians do about a world in which religion for so long has been an empire (if not the empire)? What responsibility do we have for exploitation done in the name of religion?