Engaging Our Culture

Well, I left you last week, you may recall with a question which of the five approaches
that Christians have historically used to engage culture is the right one.
Is it Christ against culture?
Is it the Christ of culture?
Is it Christ above culture?
Is it Christ and culture in paradox or is it Christ the transformer of culture?
If you were here last week, you will recall that all five of these are summarized for us
by Richard Nebore in a classic book, Christ and Culture, first published in 1951 and recently
republished in 2001 in celebration of its 50th anniversary.
What does it look like to be salt and white and which of the five historical approaches
is the right one?
Well, I'm pleased to be able to tell you this morning that it's done and all of the above.
I always kind of like it when it's a win-win situation, you can't possibly guess it wrong.
Richard Nebore himself in his book points out that all of these are generalizations that
no one fits into any one group entirely and consistently, as well his critics have of
course had 50 years to try to analyze his work and to criticize it and as you can well
imagine they haven't been slow in doing that and over the years his critics have pointed
out two weaknesses in Nebore's treatment of Christ and Culture, both tied into the definitions
of the word Christ and the word culture.
Now the word Christ, you will remember, means anointed one.
It means Messiah, that's the Hebrew term for, the Christ in Greek and from a biblical point
of view, the Christ represents the sum total of the person of Jesus, his incarnation, his
life, his death and his resurrection, his ascension into glory and one day his coming return.
Now Nebore, coming I think out of a more liberal tradition, tends to view Christ primarily
from the point of view of a moral influence, that is huge implications in terms of his theory
implications that are too complex for us to get into at this point in time, but nevertheless
very profound.
Likewise his definition of culture is lacking.
He defines culture primarily as this, an artificial secondary environment which man superimposes
on nature, it includes language, habit, ideas, beliefs, customs, social organizations, inherited
artifacts, technical processes and values.
In short, everything that we do as human beings on top of what we naturally receive as part
of creation is part of our culture, the work that we do, the music that we make, the food
we eat, the clothes we wear, that's all part of culture.
And there's nothing wrong with his definition of culture, but as his critics point out,
he treats culture from a monolithic point of view, that's a big word, mono means one,
lithic means stone, literally it means one big stone, one big rock, one substance.
He treats culture as one comprehensive whole.
And so his theories then are limited to withdrawing from all of culture or keeping all of culture
intention with each other or transforming all of culture.
And as his critics have pointed out, that's a significant flaw in his thinking, because
culture is by no means monolithic, it is by no means all of one substance.
In fact, as an anabaptist theologian, one for the Midnight tradition, a fellow by the
name of Howard Yoder points out, some elements of culture, the church categorically rejects,
for example pornography, tyranny, cultic idolatry, cultic idolatry is the worship of an individual
or a philosophy or a concept, all of which Christians would look at and say it's wrong,
get out of the way.
One of the things that always intrigues me about the American presidential race is the ongoing
search for this one individual who will somehow save the nation.
And now there's talk, of course, about a return to Camelot, the ideal of John F. Kennedy
and how Barack Obama in some ways seems to embrace that for a lot of people.
That comes dangerously close to cultic idolatry.
Some elements of culture, the church categorically rejects, these are things Christians simply
cannot, in good conscience, be involved in if they're going to serve the true and the
living God.
He goes on to say, other dimensions of culture, it accepts with clear limits, economic
production, commerce, graphic arts, paying taxes he adds for peacetime civil government.
Jesus said, give to Caesar to things that belong to Caesar and to God, the things that belong
to God.
And so Christians, as well as non-Christians, engage in business, they engage in art and
they engage in sharing in good government.
There is nothing wrong as long as these things are clearly limited.
He goes on to say, then, to still other dimensions of culture, Christian faith gives a new motivation
and coherence, agriculture, family life, literacy, conflict resolution, empowerment.
God's people have a particular interest in stewarding the earth properly, which is very
interesting because historically in recent years most Christians have been slow on the
take up on environmental issues.
I'll talk about that if I remember a little bit later on because there's a reason for
that.
Family life, keen interest among God's people because we believe it's the basis of society.
Conflict resolution, who more than Christians are peacemakers trying to resolve misunderstanding
and removing ancient barriers, empowerment, setting people free to become who they are.
A number of weeks ago we talked about the fact that wherever the Christian faith has gone
historically, people have been set free.
They have become increasingly what God in Christ has destined them to be.
And he goes on to say, still others, it strips of their claims to possess autonomous truth
and value and uses them as vehicles of communication.
Philosophy, language, Old Testament, ritual, and music, autonomous means independent.
And the history of philosophy, and you could add to that lots of religion, and I would add
to that the study of science today, they're elevated as being the embodiment of truth.
And we need to bow at the shrine of all of these, and Christians recognize that there are
elements in philosophy, there are elements in a variety of religions, there are elements
in science that we can in good conscience embrace.
But it's by no means the ultimate answer to truth.
And so we strip them of their claims to possess autonomous truth and value, and they become
instead vehicles of communication.
The church uses philosophy, it can use science, it can use a variety of things as vehicles
then to try to communicate God's truth to the world.
And so what's really happening here then is that of the five things that Neewer talks
about, sometimes one applies, sometimes another applies, and it's all determined by who
you are, what is the culture that you find yourself in, and how it is that you are invited
to respond.
There are still other forms of culture are in fact created by Christian churches, that
is to say hospitals, service of the poor, generalized education, I was intrigued to discover
generalized education that is to say the emphasis on the fact that everybody ought to have
an education, and not just the rich, the powerful and the elite, comes out of the Thomas Aquinas
tradition, who in emphasizing the Christ above culture position had a tremendous impetus
to have everybody have education.
So there are unique contributions, the Christian church has made to our culture, such as care
for the poor, hospitals, generalized education, I've often said you won't find atheists
building hospitals or pushing education in the way that traditionally Christian folks
have, many of the great universities today, Harvard, Yale, any number of them were really
founded as Bible schools originally, and then of course drift away.
So to summarize it then, the older puts it this way, what is essential for the church
is a model of plurality, which acknowledges that varied approaches to culture are appropriate
depending on the setting, the strength of the church, the strength of the opposition,
and the particular issue.
So here's what he is saying, there are times when Christians need to stand against culture.
When culture pushes pornography, when culture pushes abortion onto me and a conscientious
Christian will almost inevitably take a stand against that and say that's not right,
we oppose it.
There will be other situations in which a Christian can work together with society in terms
of advancing the general good, maybe environmental issues, or particular manifestations
of the economy.
There are times and places for us to step into things, and there are times and places for
us to retreat, and the big question then in terms of practical everyday living is how
do you decide which is which?
When do you go along with culture?
When do you oppose culture?
When do you keep quiet?
When do you make a loud noise?
That's where the rubber hits the road for God's people, and that's where you see this
whole range of responses historically.
All the way from, I'm going to throw myself into the world and be just like the world
too.
I don't want anything to do with the world and everything in between, and as I've been
thinking a little bit about how in the world do we get a handle on that?
So that would not just live by a bunch of rules that are arbitrarily applied depending
on our likes and our dislikes, it's occurred to me the best way to examine this is to look
with you at the person of Jesus, because remember it's Christ in culture, and to be a Christian
is to be a Christ follower.
And so if we are to learn what salt looks like, and what light looks like, if we are to
know how to engage our world, then Jesus is the model.
And so starting today and carrying on maybe next week or the week after, we're going to
take a look then at what that looks like.
And as we look at the person of Jesus, there are a number of things that immediately come
to the foreground, and here's the first, Jesus fully enters into our culture.
The words of John 114, familiar to probably all of us, the word became flesh, and made
his dwelling among us, we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from
the Father, full of grace and truth.
Paul says the same thing concerning Jesus in Galatians, "When the time had fully come
God said His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law that way
might receive full rights His sons."
As you've heard me say before, the first heresy concerning the person of Jesus was not
that He was not divine.
Rather the first heresy concerning the person of Jesus was that He was not fully human.
That's nosticism.
You find it emerging repeatedly in John's writing.
He says, "Anybody that doesn't believe that Jesus has come of the flesh is not of God,
He is of the Antichrist."
Fundamental to the Christian message is that Jesus fully entered into this world, took
upon Himself not only our flesh and blood, but fully entered into our culture.
And if you and I could go back in history in a time machine to the days of Jesus, and
we were to be like one of His disciples watching Him and living with Him and following Him,
that we would discover that Jesus was very much like any other human being in terms of
identifying with His culture.
He would speak the language of His day.
He would wear the clothing styles of His day.
He would eat the kind of food that was common in His day.
And He would share to a considerable degree in the social life of His day, as a matter
of fact, one of the criticisms addressed to Jesus is that He hung around with publicans
and sinners and came to some of their parties.
This concept of entering into our culture is, I think, clearly and powerfully expressed
in the campus crusade film, Jesus.
I don't know if you've ever seen it.
It was produced way back in the late '70s, but according to the New York Times is the
most viewed film in history, which I thought was very interesting.
Over six billion times it has been viewed by people.
If you understand the world population is only 6.6 billion, then you know that even if
you include multiple viewings in there, a lot of people have seen this film as a matter
of fact, it's been translated now into a thousand different languages, and it's used all
over the world.
And supposedly, over 200 million people have made a profession of Christ after viewing
the film.
If you've never seen it, the thesis behind the Jesus film is that it is an almost literal
interpretation of the book of Luke.
The narration of Jesus, the fashions, the foods of Jesus, very finely tuned to be an accurate
reflection of the Gospel, according to Luke.
When I first heard about these years ago, I said to myself that I'll never sell, because
how in the world are you going to make people sit through that?
Well, it shows you how good my prophetic abilities are because I've been badly put to shame.
Jesus entered fully into our culture, but now listen to this, all without ever sinning,
all without ever being unfaithful to the Father.
And from that, I would draw two important conclusions.
Culture is not inherently evil or sinful.
I remember when I was a youngster going to elementary school in the Netherlands.
One of my classmates belonged to what we used to call "dizvete kalsiketic."
Some of you will remember Black Stockings Church.
This was a church community of reformed persuasion who believed that bright colors were sinful,
and they dressed themselves and their children totally in black.
And I can appreciate the sentimentality behind that because it was an emphasis on our
sinfulness and our sinful condition gets awfully tricky because it doesn't take much to become
proud about my humility and my awareness of my sinfulness.
But for all their motivation, I think they misinterpret both the reality of nature and
the reality of culture, look around you.
And I'm glad God does not operate in black and white, aren't you?
I mean, look at the brilliance of color everywhere.
And that's true about nature, that's also true in the diversity of culture.
God is a God of incredible diversity.
And while culture is often distorted by our sinfulness, it is not inherently sinful.
Now you may think every kind of music except the kind that you listen to is sinful, but life
is not that simple.
Because not inherently sinful, clothing styles in and of themselves are not inherently sinful.
One language is not better or superior to another.
Culture is not inherently sinful, it was created good, but it was twisted by sin.
Now why do I make a point of that?
Because the more Christians have been intent historically on being holy and walking with
God, the greater is the danger to having a disembodied spirituality.
That is to say a spirituality that doesn't fully take our humanity into consideration,
that doesn't allow for feelings or emotions that simply talks in vague spiritual abstractions
and that doesn't allow for real living in the real world.
And you know where you can see this?
You can see this historically in the approach that Christians have taken to things like
novels in films.
Now in recent years there's been a substantial market for Christian novels and they've
gotten a lot better, but they used to be pretty chinsy.
And to this day there are again rare exceptions, but typically speaking most Christian films
or Christian movies, well they don't do very well in the box office, they don't do very
well even in Christian circles half the time.
Why?
Well there are many reasons, but one reason is we often suffer from a disembodied spirituality.
We don't know how to engage this world and we don't know how to engage life in ways
that are good in wholesome.
And so the often lack intensity, the often lack emotional integrity, the often seen artificial
and plastic.
Culture is not inherently evil and embracing life in the here and now in a good way is not
an ungodly activity, but in that culture God wants us to remain faithful to Him.
That is to say he does not want us to sell out in all that we do.
And so our speech ought to glorify God, our music ought to be in harmony with the will
of God, our daily work ought to express his values, our relationships, the way that we
dress, the way that we behave, the way that we engage life ought to be a reflection of
who Jesus is, Paul put it this way, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all
for the glory of God.
And so any notion of dualism, any notion of here is my religion and it's not going to
affect my daily life or how I do my business or how I engage in politics or how I engage
in economics.
The idea that somehow those two can be separate is a total distortion of everything that Jesus
stands for.
And so when you hear politicians speak and I know how difficult this is and this is why
these are such major issues, but whenever you hear a politician speak and he say, "Well,
this is my personal opinion, but I'm going to adopt this as a policy statement.
You're talking about dualism.
You're talking about a split individual and the gospel does not allow us to do that.
The challenge of the gospel is for God's people to live life on a daily basis in the midst
of our culture, fully human, but filled with the Spirit of God in a way that doesn't compromise
our relationship with God, but that honors the will of God."
Now, if you understand what I'm talking about, you will recognize what an incredible
challenge that is for us to be salt and white because you see in the one hand, this is difficult
enough in the areas of sin that are clearly black and white, places that we ought to stay
away from.
Paul summarizes those you will recall in Galatians chapter 5, "The acts of this sinful nature,"
he says, "are obvious, sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness,
orgies, and the like.
I warned you as I did before, those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."
Those are those aspects of culture that Yoder talked about earlier that Christians are
not to engage in, the Bible says, "Avoid such things and avoid such people."
It's hard enough for us to stay pure in those areas.
It's that much more difficult in the areas that are not so clearly black and white, areas
that are gray.
Give you a couple of examples, your young teen daughter wants to go to school or wants
to go to party at an outfit.
That makes you blush.
Practical realistic question, what do you do?
Center back upstairs or let her go.
Your kid gravitates to a type of music that you are absolutely sure was conceived and
born in hell.
Now what do you do?
Throw out all his CDs or do you allow him to listen to whatever?
Your kid goes to a party and you know they're likely to be drinking there, maybe even drugs.
What are you going to do?
How do you not only yourself participate in the world and remain pure, but how in the
world do we raise kids in a world to remain pure?
And I'm not so naive as to think I can give you easy answers to that this morning.
But I can give you some principles.
One principle is this, it is your right as parents to decide what the standards are
in your household that you expect your kids to stay in by.
They live under your roof, you provide food clothing and shelter, it's your call.
So when you make that call remember, the object of raising children is to internalize values
so that by the time they leave home they own those values, not just because it's been
imposed on them from the outside, but because they own it on the inside.
And that's where it gets tricky for God's people.
Because on the one hand we want to protect our children from evil.
On the other hand if we protect them too much, evil becomes such an incredible temptation.
That the moment they get away from under our thumb, they've got to try everything under
the sun in order to experience what they feel they have missed out on.
And so parents need to choose their battles very carefully.
You need to protect your kids from things that are really going to harm them, but at the
same time you've got to give them enough freedom so that they can enter into life having learned
for themselves what's important and what is not.
The Amish interestingly enough, I discovered this past week, have a term for this.
They call it "rum springa." I would think the Dutch equivalent is a runt springing.
It's to jump around.
And it refers to the Amish practice in some Amish groups that when a kid turns 16, until
they decide to become a member of the community by believer's baptism, they are set free within
some limits, I suspect, to find out who they are and what they want to do.
And so they can throw some awfully wild parties.
In fact, some of the wildest parties in North America are thrown by the Amish when they're
in this place.
And I'm not recommending this as a lifestyle, by the way.
But you know, in some groups as many as 90% of the kids come back, because it's often
been said, "If you've been raised in an Amish community, you'd never find yourself
at home anywhere else."
And if you've been raised outside of the Amish community, it's almost impossible to find
yourself at home inside, because it is a very different culture.
My recommendation for parents, by the way, in Christian community, is that a lot of parents
would say themselves a lot of grief if they got together with other parents in Christian
community and decided on what the standards would be for their kids.
Because you know how it goes, your kid comes home and says, "Oh, I want to do this that
and the other thing."
And you said, "No."
And the kid says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no."
They let them go to this, that, and the other thing, half the time you don't know if they're
lying or not, but it would be helpful for you to know what the parents have actually said
and to stand together.
Because the challenge today, you saw the youth culture clip that we looked at last week.
The challenge today is how do we keep our kids in the world, but not out of the world.
And that's not only true for our kids, that's also true for all of us.
Well, there's lots more that I could say about that, but I need to move on.
Christ enters into our culture fully.
Culture is not inherently sinful.
The challenge of the Christian life is to honor God in all that we do in the midst of
our culture.
And then, of course, Christ redeems our culture.
That is to say, His purpose in coming into the world is not just to take us out of the
world into some kind of disembodied heaven where we can spread wings, support halos, and
play the harp eternally.
Now, it is to restore all of creation, so that all of creation will again be yielded
to the authority of God.
That's why in our circles, we talk about creation, fall redemption.
God made it good, sin messed it up, God in Christ comes back into the world, and He seeks
to renew it, and He seeks to restore it.
How does Jesus do it by becoming one of us?
By facing everything that we have ever faced, by living life in obedience to God, by dying
on the cross, being raised from the dead, ascending into heaven, putting out His Holy Spirit
and one day coming again to judge the living and the dead.
And a lot of people think the judgment is a frightful and an awful thing, and it is,
but it's part of God's redemptive purging of a fallen creation, so that every cause
of sin, iniquity, is removed from the earth, and that God's purposes are again established
forever and ever.
Think of it as a doctor's hatred for cancer.
Think of it as an economist's hatred of recession.
Think of it as a citizen's hatred of war, injustice, and lack of mercy.
Every cause of sin gets ploughed out in that final day of judgment, and when God establishes
His renewed creation.
In the book of Revelation, you'll find four hallelujahs, as I recall.
All of them occur in chapter 19, and chapter 19 is in the context of the destruction of
Babylon, the great, which represents the political and the economic and the religious powers
of this world, who finally get destroyed so that God's people can come into their inheritance.
Now all of that has two profound implications.
Let me end with that this wording.
First of all, it means that culture does not get fully restored until the age that is
to come.
Peter says, according to his promise, we wait for a new heaven and a new earth in which
righteousness reigns.
We often think of heaven as a place out there, but what happens at the end of the book of
Revelation is that God makes His dwelling with us down here.
We live on our renewed earth.
Do we know what that looks like?
Well, I hasn't seen, ear hasn't heard, the heart of man hasn't begun to imagine the glory
that God has prepared for us.
And so through our scripture, we get these glimpses of human extravagant expression of
what that's going to look like, streets paved with gold, and the tree of life bearing
its fruit every season.
We don't know what's going to look like, but we know that until Jesus comes, culture
will not fully be restored.
Why is that important?
It's important because there is a strand of thinking, particularly in parts of our tradition
that lean towards the triumphal, that is to say, we can make things better now, and that
better is going to last forever.
We'll see in a few moments, it's important to engage your culture.
It's important to step into it, but we've got to understand that no matter how hard
we try, and how much we do, the here and now is still under the cloud of judgment and
nothing lasts forever.
And so you may build a best possible family in the world, and you may serve God for generations
and yet chances are, somewhere along the lines and we'll creep in and degeneration will
take place.
You can build a world's greatest institution.
You can build a world's greatest church, the world's greatest country, the world's greatest
parliament.
But you know, seasons come and seasons go, and death and decay in all around.
We see now that ought not to depress us, that ought to create in us that biblical hunger,
that biblical longing that says, "Lord Jesus, come quickly, oh God, how we cry out for
you to make all things near."
The here and now is always penultimate, not ultimate.
We look for a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness reigns, we're not going
to see perfection until Jesus comes again.
Now then of course always the big question is, does that mean we just, why bother, right?
Why bother being righteous, why bother building churches, why bother building institutions?
You know why?
Because the church is called to be a signpost of the age to come.
It is to say as individuals and as communities embrace Christ in culture and we learn to
honor Him and to love Him and to obey Him.
We become colonies of heaven planted here.
So every time you're at work and you refuse to bow to the spirit of the age, you refuse
to go along with the prevailing cultural milieu and you stand up for Jesus.
You are a signpost of the coming of the kingdom and every time you and your spouse love each
other and you love your kids and you walk it out through the challenges of life and you
experience the same ups and downs as the rest of the world but somehow the grace of Jesus
lifts you all above that every time you're a signpost of the coming of the kingdom.
And every time you're part of a Christian community and you learn how to walk in love before
God and a reconciliation with each other in a world where everybody's at each other's
threads, you are a signpost of the coming of the kingdom of God and that'll do two things.
It'll exalt Jesus and it will help people to find their way to Him because you're salt
and you're light.
And you know what else it does? It brings down the power of Satan because I have discovered
over the years, Satan doesn't care very much.
If you're spiritual in a sort of disembodied way, glory to God, hallelujah, one day I'm going
to go to heaven.
No.
Well, the devil doesn't like very much is when you take the culture that you find yourself
in and you start living for Jesus and you build music industries that aren't gone or
you build churches that honor God or you do business in a way that honors God or you do
relationships in a way that honors God, that sets all hell on its tail end because those
are signs that this present world and all that it stands for is passing away in that God
is getting ready to make a new heaven and the new earth.
Praise up the chosen generation and we'll march through the land, all that creation is
long here for a million of our wood, new waves, your loyalty, oh God that this be the hour, let your glory fall in this room.
Let it go forth from here to the nations, let your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to seek your faith.
The ruler of the nations, the world has yet to seek, the foe relieves of your promise, the church in victory.
Turn to us, Lord and God's trust, make us strong in your fight, overcome our weakness, that we could stand up and fight.
Let your glory fall in this room, let your glory fall in this room, let your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to seek your faith.
Let your kingdom come, let your kingdom come, let your kingdom be done, let your will be done.
Let your kingdom come, let your kingdom come, let your will be done, let your will be done, let your will be done.
Let your glory fall in this room, let it go forth from here to the nations, let your fragrance rest in this place.
Let your glory fall in this room, let your glory fall in this room, let your will be done, let your will be done.