Bulletin Articles
Culture and the Christian
Christians are called upon to live in a difficult world while, on the one hand, remaining holy and separate (2 Cor 6:14-7:1), and, on the other hand, engaging in it as salt and light (Matt 5:14-16). This is no small task. We need to know what we are dealing with as seek to lead others to Christ.
The philosophy of culture carries the earmarks of religious devotion. While secularists deny being religious and criticize those who are religious, they engage in the same behavioral patterns as the religiously devout. Their worship is of power, money, and self, their doctrines are the tenets of naturalism and worldliness, and they demand adherence to a self-derived moral code complete with disciplinary action taken against any who dare go against it (e.g., shaming, exposure, cancel-culture). The effect is that people must march to their cultural drumbeat or face repercussions stemming from societal wrath. They call out what they perceive as false teaching, mark their enemies, and evangelize their viewpoint with fervor. They may call these things by different terms, but the effects are the same. Claiming there is no god does not exonerate its adherents from doing what they criticize in others. Are we seeing shades of Revelation?
There is little to no grace and redemption in such a cultural stranglehold. How can there be? Within the halls of worldly wisdom, forgiveness is not a reality to be pursued or granted. Love is touted as primary, but it is self-defined and not extended to enemies. Kindness is pushed, but this is limited to those who agree with the proclaimed code of the day. There is judgment, but without mercy, even while arguing that we shouldn’t be judgmental. The irony is palpable. Read 2 Timothy 3:1-5. The last days are characterized by those who are “lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (CSB). It’s like a modern news headline. This is our world, and the differences between culture and the way of Christ need to be seen and stressed: “But that is not how you came to know Christ…” (Eph 4:20).
There are those claiming Christ who act the same way as the world. This betrays how we came to know Christ and that our new self is “created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth” (Eph 4:24). To lead people to Christ, we must, through Christ, break the shackles of worldly wisdom so that we may follow the wisdom from above, which is “first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without pretense” (James 3:17). Worldly wisdom produces envy, selfish ambition, and chaos, but “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.”
Even while the apostle Paul was in chains, his prayer was not one of retaliation or revenge. Rather, as he asked the Colossian brethren, “pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains, so that I may make it known as I should” (Col 4:3-4). He wanted opportunities to spread the gospel, so he followed up this prayer request with a plea to speak with grace: “Act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person” (vv. 5-6).
Don’t be deceived by the claims that non-religious people can be neutral or that they have some moral high ground because they don’t call upon a particular god. Claiming that what people teach is not religious does not therefore mean it is not attempting to accomplish the identical effect of telling people what to believe and how to act. Call it religion or something else, it does the same basic thing. Categorizing something as non-religious does not mean freedom to teach and do anything one wants with no accountability. Even so, Christians need to approach culture with a desire to do God’s will, to bring God’s wisdom, and to be lights shining in the darkness. We are not waging a physical war, our methods are not underhanded or cheap, and our intentions are sincere and serious.
We are reminded of Paul’s admonition: “For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:3-5).
Our armor is God’s and the Sword, the word of God, is of the Spirit (Eph 7:10-18). Our engagement with culture is not one of complaining and grumbling, but rather being luminaries “in a crooked and perverted generation” and committed to “holding firm to the word of life” (Phil 2:14-16). May God help us understand better our situation so that we may know how to engage a troubled world.
