The Jesuits won Austria with schools and plays.

I have been reading a book given by my mother some time ago: The Book of Austria by Ernst Marboe.

Although it's a history of a place I half know, one can make useful observations for dealing with a post-modern culture. In order to counter the rise of the Lutheran protestant church the Jesuits were invited. They set up schools and established a tradition of oratory, rhetoric and theatre which took hold of the imaginations of the middle and upper classes and created a firm Roman Catholic foundation over the next 200 years until they were ejected from the country in the 18th century. Austria still has their influence through its society more than 150 years later.

What's the big deal?

They went to Austria to be missional and found the key for their generation and those to come. I wonder what equivalent there might be for the modern church, that would create a legacy - not of allegiance to religion as a political power broker and institution - but that would build a society with healthy, Godly values, where love and care was important instead of greed and acquisition?