Christ and Culture

While we struggle to make sense of how to live out our faith there are really only five positions you will see regarding Christ and culture.

1.      Christ in culture (transformer of culture)

a.       Focus is on influencing not engineering.  Christians endeavor to convert and redeem all man’s cultural life for the glory of God.  Focus is on influencing.

b.      Man’s cultural pursuits are a good but infected by sin.  Needs restoration and redemption.
Model is about living out the Gospel, permeating it through changed lives and living out the Gospel in all aspects of life

2.      Christ away from culture, living in paradox

a.       Christians live in the world but are oblivious to it, resting on tradition and waiting for God’s kingdom.  Appears to have a premillennial tint in some respects.

3.      Christ over culture/above culture

a.       Very puritanical, battling culture

b.      An attempt to live in both realms bringing them together asserting Christ’s dominance.

c.       Ends in trusting human means and even government, frequently theocratic in expression

d.      In the Erastian form where Government runs the church and appoints it’s officers it can shackle the church.

e.       often leaves little room for the church to speak prophetically to the culture confusing institutions

4.      Christ away from/against culture

a.       Antithesis/protecting

b.      Christian’s must break from their culture radically

c.       Anabaptists such as the Mennonites.  Out of the world but not in it in the least.  Does not allow to be the salt of the earth or light of the world.

5.      Culture of Christ, Christ of Culture

a.       Equates and assimilates.  Christians find in Christ the high ideals for their cultural life and values.  The moral example, whatever that example may be.

b.      Typical among theological liberalism.  God is perpetually speaking of his changing/continued revelation through the culture’s observation (this word often is key).  With scripture, views it as observations or thoughts on God absent of God’s revelation of himself, he is outside of and not in the text.

Every Legal system assumes and even demands a moral framework upon which it is founded.  Moral frameworks are inherently religious and philosophical because they define themselves answering several basic questions.  They have an assumption about the nature of man, the nature of God and the conduct that is demanded of man.  The Torah in Judaism, Confucius and Buddha in China, Hinduism influences India and most telling to us today the Quran stands as perhaps the biggest example that comes to our minds.  Whereas Jesus gave the moral law of the Old Testament the Quran gives a legal one as well and it was intrinsically political which is why Islam is in the turmoil it is today and has produced militant interpretations such as Daesh (ISIS).  Those countries that have a concept of “human rights” have directly or indirectly borrowed the concept from a Christian framework which is why the West is so concerned with it and why its former colonies claim the same.

The bible understands this framework as a given. The injunction to Adam and eve was a moral and legal demand to obey God and not eat of the forbidden fruit.  The legal penalty was death.  Nothing has changed.  All are subject to God’s laws, hence all suffer the penalty of sin.

When God brought Israel into the wilderness he followed this understanding.  The first thing God did wasn’t give the in depth legal law code that would form Israel as a political entity.  He instead gave a moral law, the 10 commandments upon which to base what would come after.  He reiterates this process again and again, after telling Israel “I am the Lord your God.”

The giving of the 10 commandments in Exodus 10

The unbeliever is found guilty by God because they are still under his dominion and under his laws, we need to remember this while still understanding they aren’t saved.

Our culture today has an agreed upon postmodern ethic that demands we not bring religion into our politics, and I’m hearing this from Christians.  Submitting to this we are really letting ourselves have an authority other than Christ.  We are allowing a pagan ethic to dictate our public interaction in the public sphere.  In short we are telling Christ his power and dominion ends at the ballot box or with public debate.  How are we to be the salt of the earth?  Furthermore, won’t society benefit from the Gospel being applied to their laws?

Psalm 2

The Psalmist tells the governing officials to “Fear the Lord’ and to rule justly.  You cannot honor the lord without consenting to him as God, and without keeping his law.  The magistrates serve as models for God to his people and agents placed to serve him.  The Government and rulers are judged if they fail, and they're people with them.

Matthew5:17

He came to fulfill the law for us, but doesn’t abolish them for the Moral law reflects God's character. Paul clarifies this.

Romans 3 describes the law as showing us what sin is, it is still a good instruction on how to live while showing us our own moral failings. As we grow Romans 6 shows us we follow the law of righteousness (morally) more and more.  The Law student's question and Christ's answer is a summation of the laws of God in Matthew 22:34-40, and the giving of them to us affirms the OT.

The Ceremonial laws are gone, but the moral law still abides.  This ties to the Gospel going out to all the nations.  We are a Holy Kingdom, but there is no longer one national identity that God’s people must be conformed to.  Now the Germans can be Germans, the English English, the Chinese Chinese and all God’s one holy people without having to become Israelite.  The only laws that are rescinded are the ceremonial such as circumcision at the Council of Jerusalem, no such rulings or declarations are made concerning moral conduct like murder, theft or any of the sexual ethics given in scripture.  It needs to be said as well that such issues assume the sexual revolutions definition of what it means to be human, not that given in scripture of which reflects the created order.  It is a perfect test case for showing how every legal system has moral assumptions, even religious ones (secular in this case).

The bible is one body of work, the moral law is a consistent command and reflection of God’s character throughout.  The 10 commandments and the moral laws that came from it were foundation for God’s people in the Old Testament, they are still valid today for the Israel in the New covenant.

God’s law is incredibly centered on Shalom, the fullness and peace of God’s created order. Sin is a break in shalom, as is natural disaster.  This is why any deviation, even a “victimless crime” from God’s design for the world is a break in Shalom.  In the book of Jeremiah he warns the king for failing to keep the shalom “peace peace, there is no peace”, the word is Shalom.

Jeremiah 8:11 

The passage gets pretty rough describing the penalty for the wisemen of Israel misleading the people.

As Christians we work towards the healing of the nations, a re-conquering shalom of God.  Our definition of Freedom and liberty for all as Christian’s comes from this understanding.  The law guides us into seeing what is a break in this shalom, and in ways to mitigate it in a fallen world.

Government exists to punish crime and restrain evil, and are naturally then subject and responsible to God.

This understanding is tied by Christ himself to the great commission.

Matthew 28:18-20

We know Christ will succeed, for Christ has all authority on Heaven and on Earth.  Knowing that he stands behind his commission with authority over all things we can make disciples and teach them to follow Christ's commands.  For centuries Christian monarchs possessed "sovereigns orbs" with the cross upon them signifying their authority and fealty to Christ as king.  Their responsibility to him to rule justly included making laws and policies that honored him. 

Revelation 1:4-5
Matthew 25:31-33
Revelation 3:20-22

Charlemagne and Elizabeth holding their "sovereign's orb's" or "globus Cruciger"

This is also the biggest issue Rome had with the Christians.  We forget that the early Christians were very active in civil disobedience.  To Rome calling anybody but Caesar lord was treasonous.  Those in Ephesus faced this most harshly as Ephesus was the seat of Emperor worship in Asia.  They were commended for resisting "where Satan's throne is."  The power behind bad governments and systems that oppose the Gospel is always clear, the devil himself.  Christians claimed a different lord and it was for this they were persecuted.  The early Christians were faithful in their politics to death and we should be too.

Our culture has it's own secular shibboleths which we must stand against.  They will hate us for it, but we are called to stay faithful.  I appreciate the difficulty and know that we must look to all scripture and the history of God's people.

So how do the five models tie into this?  You may think I’m going for Christ over culture, but this ends in confusing the Church with the State, and potentially the Gospel for social causes and programs.  It makes the government the savior.  Ironically so does Christ under culture, which makes the Gospel all about human progress and cultural perfection over the salvation of the culture. It forgets its own cause making a fruit of the Gospel the Gospel itself.

Christ away from leaves no ability to be the salt of the earth and forgets Christ is already king in the now and not yet that is the church age.  We can easily leave God out of politics, but more importantly he becomes blocked off.  The kingdom will come in fullness, but it is very real even now.

Likewise Christ against culture is escapist altogether and leads to saving nobody but simply separating.

Christ in culture understands perfectly being in and not of the world.  Being the salt of the earth and the light of the world requires both.  Civilizations transform one person at a time, from the inside out.  A Christian culture will simply make Christian laws by it's own nature.  The early Church built Christendom by being faithful and saving sinners who then lived faithfully speaking prophetically to the culture around them to repent.  We ought to do the same.

The breakdown in civil discussion today is due to the underlying thread of our culture being taken away.  No longer is there a Christian consensus in the West.  Different as we were we were arguing from the same book.  The regional and demographic issues stem from those consenting to Christianity and those not, whether they really believe it or not. 

Regardless all told today with our sectioning of off all things whether liberal or conservative. Faith from “Science,” Religion from politics, individuals from society as society natural comes undone. The Church (as the believers) is to be an active agent, and we have largely outsourced this and told God at the door of our homes and churches “come no further, you must stay inside.”  As a Christian we are commanded to honor God in all things, and therefore it is imperative we act in the public whether politics or otherwise as Christ would have us and take a stand for the things of God.

Next I will plan to show you the history of God’s people acting as a prophetic voice to the culture.  The church failed to act as a prophetic voice to our culture, and in many cases caved and embraced secularism.  Many took the Christ of/under culture approach, and ceased to become salty.