Tag: Culture

Christians, churches and culture

Christians, churches and culture

Silva

Today is the March For Life in Washington, D.C. For 49 years Americans have been killing the unborn out of convenience. It’s no surprise our culture is a mess of contradictions and conflict. Is American culture by and large sick? Yes. Why? Perhaps because it has been growing in the blood of 60+ million abortions.

What do we do? It depends on who’s asking.

If “we” is a man or woman committed to following Jesus Christ and the Bible’s teaching that the strong must advocate for and even fight for the helpless, then vote, blog, podcast, canvas neighborhoods, run for office, call your political leaders, share the gospel, create school clubs or non-profit organizations, hold conferences, write books and pray–all for the purpose of seeing abortion end.

We happen to live in a culture (mostly) governed by the Constitution that makes all of this possible and even desirable. I’m often surprised that Christians somehow don’t believe we have power enough to effect cultural change. How did the culture get the way it is? Men and women of all political inclinations and religious persuasions have done all the things I listed above. There is no special power to change culture: it is done by the consistent use of the opportunities and freedoms we have at our finger tips.

If “we” is a local church then preach the full counsel of God’s word, eat the Lord’s Supper, pray together (all from Acts 2:42) and plead for the Lord to return and roll up the evil world like a scroll (2 Peter 3:10) delivering the New Jerusalem.

You’ll notice the scope of activity is very different than the first? The business of the church is to grow a different kingdom in a different manner. The Bible tells us the power of the Holy Spirit is not for the sake of building worldly institutions: family, school, government or culture. It is for the building up of the church, the Temple, the House of Living Stones whose Cornerstone is Christ.

Why is it that there are some in Christendom who believe there aren’t two “we’s” here? That the work of the church and the work of the Christian aren’t distinguishable? Would they have the State ordain Ministers? Then why would they have the Ministers give orders to the State? “State Church” experiments in human history have rarely produced faithful churches–they still don’t. Have “Church State” experiments fared any better?

There simply is no benefit in conflating the work of a Christian in the culture with the work of the Church in the culture. There is no greater power for the Christian if this was so; indeed, there is only the danger of the culture contaminating the church (the mainline churches who have abandoned Apostles’ Creed Christianity for some social variant is proof of this).

It is also not true that if the Church were to build its house in the ways mentioned above and stay out of political or cultural advocacy that becomes a version of isolationism. Culture changes from the inside-out, not the outside-in (education is far more effective and long lasting than litigation / legislation). Faithful churches make cultural change each Lord’s Day as the word and sacraments tinker with the souls of the redeemed to give them courage and Christlikeness. As a result, individual believers are subjectively motivated to glorify God in all we do and objectively equipped by the truth of God’s word.

Our culture doesn’t need the church telling it how to behave–that’s not the church’s role. It needs individual Christians motivated and active in making change to unjust institutions working with men and women of all stripes.

Now What?

Silva

Beloved, last week was a wrecking ball of a week in our culture.  I want to be honest with you: let’s not pretend that this is just another transition of power for I believe it is not.  I have been a student of politics and this is unlike any of the transitions in the modern era. Something has happened to us as a nation, in part, I believe, because something has happened to us as a church.

Now, established in many levels of government are elected officials who have expressed or demonstrated antagonism towards: the Church and its worship, the unborn and their protection, the gospel and its promotion.

In many of these elected officials, there is evidence of criminal conduct, unethical practices and inclinations towards personal gain.  That isn’t new, but now, through many of these elected officials, the philosophies of man that are directly and openly antagonistic towards the gospel have open doors for influence.  Philosophies such as “critical race theory” and “intersectionality” that promote a victimization mindset and open rebellion against all established norms as a policy including, e.g., tearing down statues, riots, “defund the police” and shutting down worship in churches.  

However, lest we believe our troubles are only found there, we have to recognize that we as a church have for too long given up our prophetic voice in our culture, buying into pragmatic ends that aren’t truly consistent with God’s word and His kingdom.  For example, whereas at one time we judged men unfit to serve by their immorality, many have revised their views and now baptize anything that can bring benefit to our flesh: our retirement, our comfort and our health.

It strikes me that at almost every level, the nation is divided.  How have we become this way?  Beloved, the church is not innocent.  We have not always served the disadvantaged, advocated for the downtrodden, acted for the good of a person’s soul rather than his psychological well-being.  It is complicated to live as salt and light in our culture and we have not been too terribly successful.

In short, now we are reaping in our culture what has been sown since the American Revolution, the Enlightenment, the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, the Moral Majority of the 1980’s and the ubiquity of the Internet.  Additionally, the havoc wreaked by COVID-19, the opportunism of many in politics as a result, the fear and panic it has engendered in our population, all point to the same thing: as a culture we are no longer anchored to the transcendent.  Every man is doing what is right in his own eyes and not the Lord’s.  And, beloved, we are too often guilty.

So, now more than ever, the church of Christ must be a praying church.  Our prayers, however, must be proper before the Lord.  All along, He has been building His kingdom, a kingdom that stands apart from the kingdoms of men.  Must we pray that our government, academia and entertainment reform and return to promoting what is good?  Absolutely. Every day.

But, the trajectory revealed to us in the book of Revelation indicates our culture will descend away more and more from seeking the Lord and promoting the good.  If we are going to penetrate the culture effectively with the gospel, we must not be ignorant but we must be prayerful.  That:

  1. All faithful citizens, Christians whose allegiance is to the Lord come hell or high water, would be men and women of godliness, compassion, service and courage.
  2. All believers would not be fearful or silent but winsome and joyful witnesses in all our spheres of influence. 
  3. God would strengthen His church to be a place of refuge, wholeness and “home” to our culture as it decays into violence.
  4. The church would be truly discerning promoting what is good and praiseworthy, turning away from idols and temporal promises.

Beloved, this is no time for fear.  But it is also no time for pining after a time in our country when (we think) things were better.  Our cultural rot has deepened and it needs the church to be free from it, finding our home and hope instead in Jesus Christ.  The culture needs to “kiss the Son” (Psalm 2:12) but so does the church!  It needs us now more than it ever has. And the gifts of God in the Word, the Church and the Spirit are more than adequate to meet this cultural challenge.  Let us ask the Lord to fill us with His Spirit that we might be the church our generation needs.

Heaven soon,
Pastor Gabe

Relationships are not efficient

Relationships are not efficient

Silva

I recently returned from a missions trip to Hamburg, Germany.  What a marvelous trip; it is remarkable (though not surprising) to witness first hand and participate in what God is doing through the hamburgprojekt, a young church there.  With a brother from my church we were able to mentor, train and visit with courageous brothers and sisters.  We hope to write more on that later, but there was one element that deserves mention ahead of those details: relational inefficiency.

Recently a pastor friend of mine remarked in my presence that as much as we would like to believe otherwise, relationships are just not efficient.  If you think about a favorite American past time, the “to do list,” versus relationships, we can see just how they differ.  To do list’s:

  • Are strictly controlled
  • Don’t surprise us
  • Don’t act in ways that are destructive
  • Don’t need to grow in holiness
  • Go away when we want them to
  • Don’t say stupid things
  • Can be delayed
  • Can be shortened
  • Take only as long as we want
  • Aren’t shy or guarded
  • Don’t yell at us…

You get the idea.  I guess it is no surprise why they are so popular to us.  All of this is probably clear, huh?  Relationships aren’t like to-do lists at all.  “Of course,” you say, “that stuff’s obvious.”

I think I underestimated how much I often put people in the same category as a to do list.  I wouldn’t really know that I had done so until I…well, left the country for another culture.  Now, no one that I know would suggest that Germans are inefficient!  Yet, one thing that became clear to us what that in their culture (perhaps it is just with Americans) they take a long time to “be known.”  They are cautious and guarded (yet polite and fun).  When it comes to intimacy, they take their time, or, are “inefficient.”

I think we get that real rich relationships take time to build.  But I wonder in our culture if we have mostly lost the ability and desire to make the investments.  Facebook demands nothing, Twitter demands less.  Email reveals little, text messages less.  I was listening to Christian radio the other day and the host was encouraging folks that if they wanted prayer to text, Tweet or Facebook ’em!  At what point did we think calling into a radio station asking for prayer was even a good idea?!  Do we do that because we knew that if we called a good friend he’d make us actually communicate in ways that would put us off our calendars?

It has taken four years for me to build meaningful trust and communication with my Christian siblings in Germany.  At times it was tiring (surprise).  But, what struck me on our most recent trip (last week) was the remarkable fruit and joy that came as a result of our investments in each other.  I never imagined that I’d be able to share such profound and impacting life and ministry with men and women from a totally different culture!  I believe it was due to the commitment to relational inefficiency that is present in the German culture.  There is a sweetness to the slowness.  There is a profound pay-out for the systematic investments in relationships over a long period of time.  Talk about delayed gratification!

In our culture, most often, we are serial-relaters.  We have efficient relationships, that is, ones that don’t cramp our style and that get us where we want to go.  I am glad that not every culture is as inane as ours.  I don’t intend this to be a German-grass-is-greener post as if one culture rises above all others.  But, clearly, ours is not a culture that places tremendous value on systematic and long-term relationships for their own sake.  How many Facebook friends do you have?