Christian Influence in a Crumbling Culture
In case you
had not noticed, our culture is changing rapidly right before our eyes! Acceptance of all manner of amoral behavior
is rampant. Society is not like it once
was, seemingly a short time ago. I heard
a rather malevolent fellow on television, not long ago, proudly proclaiming
that people need to wake up and realize this is not the world of “Howdy Doody”
and “Leave it to Beaver” any longer.
What the man said was true, at face value; however it is important to
note that he, along with countless others, have worked painstakingly hard to make it not that kind of world any
longer.
Culture
itself is something we create. Cultures can be based on any number of things
from the deeply important to the totally unimportant. They stem from commonly shared values and fan
out across the masses. In Puritanical
New England for instance, in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, the culture
was decidedly Christian. Writers and
historians of the time recount how that it was not unusual for 100% of a given community
to attend church regularly. The
Christian values of the community affected everything from local politics, to
charity/benevolence, to work ethic, to child rearing and beyond. There was no such thing as pushing for the
Christianization of the culture, because virtually everyone was a Christian and he/she simply lived
life according to biblical principles.
When issues did arise within the community, the elders and landowners
made decisions based, not per se on the Bible, but on what they believed to be
right. However, their understanding of
what was right was heavily influenced by the Bible and by what they had learned
from sermons. They did not
compartmentalize. They were the total
sum of all their faith, knowledge, and experience.
Fast-forward
to late 20th and early 21st century America. Society would be unrecognizable by our New
England ancestors of about 2 - 4 centuries ago.
After they got over their initial shock, we might ask what they would
say about the present? We can only
speculate, of course; however I believe they would start asking a lot of
questions in an attempt to determine how things changed so drastically from the
world they knew.
I believe
they would quickly identify, as a major problem, the lack of biblical
instruction in the home. Also, that
professing Christians often do not act like Christians at all. It would likely be hard for them to
understand how commonly people could profess one thing and yet live out another. Also, I have no doubts they would truly
struggle to understand the apathy of our day.
They might look at the overinflated roles of churches and wonder when
and why the church discipline they so faithfully practiced ceased. My suspicion is the only way they could wrap
their minds around the observable world would be to understand it in
eschatological terms. In other words, to
simply say it is obvious the world has reached the end of time and the Lord’s
return is at hand.
When we look
at the present culture all around us we shake our heads in disbelief. Is there
any good news for us to attach ourselves?
Could it be that our hope has been placed in the wrong process? Has God’s directives to the church ever been
to go out and gain control of the world politically? I think we have all observed many trying to
do so, believing that was somehow the answer.
What then is
really our hope? Is there any hope at all? Perhaps
there is more hope than we might think. In
his February 2014 newsletter John MacArthur writes “I actually believe the
current situation is good news. For
years I’ve been concerned by the church’s pursuit of cultural change through
political and social activities. Large swaths
of Christians have placed enormous time, energy, money, and hope in the wrong
places. Cultural Christianity has
blurred the clear lines between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this
world, and has softened the hard demands of the gospel, making professing
Christ easy and without cost. As a
result, churches have been filled with highly religious, superficially moral,
self-righteous people who don’t understand the gospel and are self-deceived
about their true spiritual state.”
MacArthur
goes on to point out that while the façade of cultural Christianity is
crumbling it is shedding new light on true
Christianity. The body of Christ is
most potent when it speaks and lives the gospel in tandem. The advancement of the gospel comes not by
storming Washington D.C but by born again believers bearing testimony to their
changed lives one person at a time, just as Scripture teaches. When we think about the attempts to overtake
the culture, spanning the last few decades, one has to ask why so much effort
been put into such a temporal thing? It
brings to mind the adage/question ‘why rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic?’ Why put so much effort into a sinking
ship? Countries, governments, kingdoms,
political processes and parties, etc. are only a vapor, quickly vanishing. Only the souls of mankind are eternal. In the poetic words of the song we are aptly
reminded “Kings and Kingdoms will all pass away, but there is something about
that name.” (“There’s Something About that Name;” Bill & Gloria Gaither;
1970)
Whatever happened to our old adversaries the world, the flesh, and the devil? Somewhere along the line many have made
friends and alliances with earthly institutions and made enemies of those who
need the gospel of Christ. God’s simple
plan has always been for believers to faithfully and intentionally live their
faith, thereby shining the light of Christ into a dark culture that is
crumbling. MacArthur writes “The gospel
advances by personal testimony to Christ, one soul at a time. When the church acts like the church; when
shepherds preach Scripture and confront error with clarity and boldness; when
believers are sanctified, built up, and equipped in truth; people are
saved. And that’s when the culture truly
changes – nothing transforms the culture like genuine conversion.”
In Christ,
Dr. Allen Raynor, Pastor
