Some thoughts on Church and Culture – Thesis 2

I think we've been presented with a false dichotomy – either target your church at a particular culture in order to connect with people from that culture, and manipulate the gospel as a result (see previous post)... OR don't change church to match the surrounding culture and end up with an alienating 'churchy' culture that reaches no one other than those who have been enculturated over a lifetime.

There's another option.  Thesis 2: "A church shaped by the gospel creates its own culture where each member will engage any culture in the name of Christ"

Tim Keller (in The Reasons for God) points out how Christianity has found a home in cultures across the world and throughout history.  There have been dominant cultures within the church, but the dominant culture has changed over time – from Jerusalem to Constantinople, then Rome, Europe, England, the United States of America, and soon to the Global South.  At the same time the church has grown and thrived in diverse cultures and sub-cultures across the world.

The reason for this is that the trans-cultural truth of Christ can find a home equally within any culture—indeed, the church is made up of people from 'every tribe, language, people and nation' (Rev 7).  But the way we come together is important to grasp – not as one new culture, nor as simply the collection of different cultures, but the transformation of each culture in Christ which comes from giving a new heart to each of those cultures.  

Each culture is transformed in Christ – when we come to Christ we retain everything of our existing culture other than those things that are opposed to the Gospel of Christ.  So as an Australian I'll still cheer the Wallabies over the All Blacks, but I'll put aside the binge drinking and disrespect for the law.  As a coffee-snob I can still enjoy my macchiato but I'll need to tame the snobbery.

As our individual cultures are transformed in Christ, they still retain the differences that are taken up into Christ and therefore taken up into the church.  Which means that each local church will have its own culture – a culture like every other church culture because it is centred on the gospel of Christ; but a culture unlike any other church because it is enriched by the culture of the specific members of that church.  The church may have a majority culture, but that won't be a hegemonic culture because more significant than the majority will be the experience shared by all of confession of Christ as Lord; and neither will the majority culture be derived from those outside the church, but from those inside the church who are most fundamentally members of Christ.

As a result we have a church culture where any culture is welcome to come and be transformed and taken up into Christ.  And we will have a church culture where the individual members of the church will be ready and equipped to engage with any other culture in the name of Christ.

So now, as a coffee snob transformed in Christ, my church culture has equipped me to be able to engage generously and openly with both the elderly couple who live next door, the motor enthusiast who lives opposite, the computer nerd I meet at work and the tree-hugger I met while walking the dog.  And I do that NOT by pretending to be elderly one day, a rev-head the next, then pop into nerd-dom and finish the day wearing a hemp t-shirt.  That sort of 'incarnationalism' is artificial pretense and not what Paul means in becoming 'all things to all people'.

Paul's point in 1 Corinthians 9 is that while he has certain rights and freedoms as an apostle and as someone set free in Christ, he will readily choose to give up those rights in order to serve others more clearly with the gospel.  Where his rights may get in the way of the gospel of Christ being clearly heard he will forgo his freedom so that others might be saved.  Thus for Paul, being 'all things to all people' is not about what he puts on in order to be like someone else (his aim is not to 'go undercover' or pretend to be what he is not).  Instead he is concerned with what he will put off in order to not cause any unnecessary offence so that the gospel of Christ might be clearly heard.

So, to engage with my elderly neighbour I won't turn up my nose if they offer me international roast; with my motor enthusiast friend I won't turn up at his place in a suit, for my tree-hugger friend I won't serve him a coke in a Styrofoam cup.   Though I have a right to do all of those things, I'll put aside my rights, knowing that I'm a servant of all, so that I might share Christ.

And when every member of the church has this at their heart, then we as a community together in Christ will be able to connect with anyone who lives near enough to us to join with us as we join the mission of God as His people called in Christ by the Spirit through the Gospel.