Some thoughts on Church and Culture – Thesis 1

I’ve been thinking a lot about the interaction between gospel and culture recently, particularly in relation to church planting. The vibe I’m hearing around the place is that we need to discover the culture of the community in which we want to plant a church and then shape our church culture to be able to fit with the surrounding culture. It goes under the heading of ‘incarnational mission’ (something I’ve railed against in the past... but that’s another story). So, to take a prominent example, Mars Hill Seattle looks around their city and sees a whole lot of Gen Y inner-city types; so they set about developing a church culture that is Gen Y inner-city-ish and from that platform set about evangelising the city. Which all seems great – and of course, there’s lot of greatness and godliness involved in it and lots of people have come to life in Christ. But here’s my concern...

Thesis 1: “If a church is targeted at a particular culture the gospel must become moulded to, marginalised by or manipulated by that culture”

Now you may respond as others responded when I first suggested this to them – “but Mars Hill is VERY orthodox! They’ve succeeded in keeping the gospel clear while also being relevant to the surrounding culture”. Buy my question is, is that really true? My BIG concern with Mars Hill is that the doctrine of the divinity and uniqueness of Christ comes across with the same force and passion and expectation of adherence as the doctrine that men shouldn’t be stay-at-home Dads. I imagine that when asked, Mark Driscoll would affirm that the doctrines of Christ are more central and important than the doctrine of stay-at-home dads (I hope he would!). But the problem is, that to the punter listening there’s no differentiation (that I’ve heard) between what is a catholic doctrine of the faith and a particular application of a particular interpretation of the Bible! Hence, a manipulated gospel at worst, a moulded or marginalised gospel at best.

I’m reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s line: ‘God hates visionary dreaming.’ Which wasn’t a spray against planning and vision casting! Instead, he levelled a challenge to church leaders to dream of a church with Christ alone as its head rather than a church with themselves at the head. His point was that the church must be the community shaped by the gospel, and only the gospel.

I have a friend who is dreaming of a church that would have the same grungy-surfy-semi-alternative culture as the suburb he lives in. His dream is to see lots of people won for Christ. I just don’t think his plans are going to achieve that. If we craft a church that has a grungy-surfy-semi-alternative culture then we’re going to have to say to existing members of the church, ‘you can’t belong here’, or at least, you can’t be prominent in leading here because you’re an old-fashioned-anglo-conservative. Not only do we end up with a church that excludes those who are already Christ’s, we’ll also exclude those who could be Christ’s but who don’t fit the target culture – what happens to the grandmother who is neither grungy, surfy, or alternative in even the slightest way? We have a church where she can’t be welcomed. The church is no longer shaped by the gospel, it’s shaped by the culture, with the gospel fitted in afterwards.

Given that the gospel is the gospel for all nations, when we set out to create a church that will make current members no longer fit and potential members not be welcome we’ve moulded, marginalised or manipulated the gospel. To be saved you need Jesus and grungy-surfy-semi-alternative-ness.

But, my good friend says, all you’re ending up with is your own un-scrutinised promotion of a particular culture to the exclusion of current and potential members – you’ve just replaced the dominant culture of the area that will attract more people with the out-dated, weird, churchy culture that you’ve inherited and grown used to, and that attracts NO ONE!

Well, that’s quite a challenge – which I shall gladly rise to in my next post.