In the World but not of the World?

Paul in Athens - Confronting the Lego culture

Now that Reformation Day celebrations are over we can re-engage the topic from my last post. As a reminder, it dealt with Christ-followers engaging culture and how false stories can unknowingly shape us into Christ defeating lives. I used the annual occurrence of Halloween to enlighten the subject and received much feedback both on and off the blog.

One comment from the blog begged the question as to whether or not Christians have inadvertently downgraded the Sabbath with competing stories. They went on to ask for a discussion on how to engage culture.  This question seems representative of a number of others I received, so I will give an answer and invite you to join in the dialogue.

I have three main thoughts on Christians engaging culture.

First, I think one of the big things Christ-followers must guard against is confusing cultural engagement with cultural capitulation. Often we embrace and participate in activities and claim we are engaging the culture when in reality we just want to be part of the world's story. We say we fear legalism. We appeal to neighbors and co-workers we don't want to offend because we are coaxing them into the Kingdom bit by bit. But are we engaging or capitulating? How do we know the difference?

One important distinction between engagement and capitulation is that the latter does not have an endpoint or direction. When a Christ-follower engages culture he/she must have a redemptive direction and hoped for endpoint and our actions must bear that out.  Often we enter things with no direction or desired change. It's as if we think our mere presence will radiate redemption because we don't swear or drink.....very much. In the meantime we don't have to make any changes that will deprive us of "fun" or make us look different than our neighbor.

This is not cultural engagement.

This is cultural impotence.

We often participate in our schools, jobs, sports, friendships, etc.... with such a non-distinctive presence that we are not culturally engaged. We are just there going with the flow of the prevailing story.  We are called to something higher and better.

A second thought Christ-followers must keep in mind on this matter is pronouncement. We are to make Christ known to the world. Our mouths are to share a story, and our lives are to make it believable. Sometimes we think just living good does the trick. It doesn't. The story of our "good" lives must be contextualized in the story of Christ dying for our sin. Seldom is a person going to make a faith commitment to whichever religion behaves the best. It has to answer deep truths about the world and our sin. Being good is helpful, but it doesn't always tell the story.

For a couple of years I worked in a department at a large bank. One of the people I worked with was one of the nicer co-workers I've ever had. He was a Mormon. I tried to raise my niceness quotient to  match his, but there is only so much one can do in this life. Let's pretend for a moment that I did match his niceness. Would a co-worker interacting with our "good" lives  move toward Christianity over Mormonism if I don't tell my story?

I am to be good. My life is a story that should put flesh on the biblical story.

We must tell the story. We can use our unique styles, but we must tell why we live the way we do to those who are lost. Pronouncement is essential for cultural engagement.

A final thought for cultural engagement is understanding what Christ meant in the book of Revelation when He said, "I am making all things new". He did not mean that everything we have today will be kept, but in a scrubbed-up version.

Casinos will not be made into new and better casinos. The community and people eroded by them will be made new. Being redemptive does not mean participating in everything that comes down the pike. Some things need to be abandoned, so higher things can be sought and lower things can die.

Sometimes, more often than we care to admit, the redemption of all things means abandoning some things.

Imagine if everyone who claims to be a Christian abandoned casinos. They would disappear and the communities would benefit.

Imagine if all Christians took back Sundays by abandoning competing Sunday commitments. Would we and our communities be better? Yes! We cannot just wave the banner of  "all things new" to justify involvements that keep us from better involvements and the raising up of Jesus Christ to the world.

How we treat Sundays is just one example out of millions of situations where we must think seriously and act purposefully about our place in culture. However, it is indicative of how much ground has been lost and should make us examine where else are we capitulating.

Maybe we are good on the Sabbath. That does not mean we are engaging culture biblically in other areas. We are always examining ourselves and allowing others to help us with the process.

We are here to assist in making all things new rather than having all things make us.