When Christianity Confronts Culture

When Christianity Confronts Culture

Every person is born into a particular culture. Unless he moves to another, he will grow up in that culture. Just as water surrounds a fish, so our culture surrounds us. There are many layers of culture that make up the whole. Sometimes they are identical, but often they are quite different.

First there is the culture of one's family. It may be pious or profane. Or it may be basically good but not devout.

There may be a layer of religion in your culture. If you are raised in a Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal or Presbyterian family and they are active in their faith it will definitely play a large role in your cultural environment. An even greater difference will be seen if you are raised in a Christian a Buddhist or an Islamic culture.

There is an ethnic layer in ones culture. Some live in communities where ethnic groups congregate. Their community life may reflect the ethics and culture of their Italian, Irish, Jewish, African-American, etc. ethnicity.

There is an economic layer of culture. Some grow up in wealthy, some in poor and some in middle-class neighborhoods. Those in wealthy communities usually have much greater cultural advantages such as libraries, quality entertainment, better schools, travel, etc. The poor often grow up without access to these things. Each of these three groups have certain traits, privileges or lack thereof.

There will be a moral layer in ones culture. It may be a community where honesty, soberness, industry, peace and respect for others and their property prevail. Another neighborhood might be crime-ridden where violence and criminal activity are the order of the day.

There may be a layer that dictates ones approach to life. Some communities project values of honesty, soberness, hard work, self-reliance and service to God and man. Others may be drenched in alcohol, drug abuse, laziness and dependence.

There is a national layer. America culture is unlike that of China, Africa or Russia. National cultures promote certain values and world views that greatly influence their citizens. Within a particular nation there will be found cultural differences in those that are conservative, those who are liberal and those with no interest in such matters.

It is clear to see that a child raised in a given environment will be greatly impacted for good or evil by his culture. In a broader sense culture consists of all that which influences and shapes our lives. Our culture includes the virtues and values with which we were raised. All the mores and traditions and conventions of our society are part of our culture. It involves our educational community and religious influences. It is disseminated through the art, music, theater, literature, entertainment and sports in our nation. In our day, many of these currents of culture have been co-opted by a corrupt element of our society and are used to corrupt those influenced by them. These things mold and shape us into a certain kind of person, perhaps good, perhaps bad.

Every Christian lives in his own unique culture. It may encourage his endeavor to live fore Christ, or it may discourage him and even make war against him if he follows Christ (John 15:19). Though we live in this cultural maelstrom, we are not of it (John 17:14). We must not be "conformed to the world." Rather we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds according to God's standard (Rom. 12:1-2).

We are not mindless and helpless before the pressures of our culture. Made in God's image, we have volition, the freedom and ability to choose the good or the evil (Gen. 1:26). We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil. 4:13). He strengths us with power "through his Spirit in the inner man" (Eph. 3:16).

Just as the man born in the ghetto must resist and rise above that culture if he wants to succeed in life, so Christians and the church must resist and rise above the unwholesome aspects of our culture. True Christianity is and has always been counter-cultural. When culture encounters Christ, it is culture that must yield!

Compromise with a corrupt, godless culture can only end in defeat for a Christian or a church. Our culture will one day be consumed in fire with our sin-cursed universe (II Pet. 3:10). But those who have defied culture and lived according to the standards of the kingdom of heaven will live forever (I John 2:17). Today, more than any other time in the history of our nation, the waves of a corrupt culture are threatening to overwhelm and swamp the Lord's Church. Those disciples who would lower her standards and change the faith, doctrine worship and nature of the church to comply with the demands of culture are unfaithful stewards of God's kingdom (I Cor. 4:2).

Back -- or go -- Home