Church, Christ, Culture

Yes, part of this title comes from Niebuhr’s work. There is much discussion today on the relationship between the three. If we are to be people of sustainable credibility, we must be as critical about our own “Christian” subculture as we are about the wider, nonChristian subculture. I read somewhere that perhaps Christians today are seeking to be more relevant because there is this almost unconscious awareness that we are not as spiritually heavy as we should be, therefore…

Examine the history of Christianity and when can it be said that at the core of our depths, Christians were ever spiritual heavyweights? Go all the way back to the original twelve and we discover they were bumbling fools, most of them. They argued more about their own popularity or place than they did about the noisy children wanting to see Jesus. Has there ever been a moment in our history where all was good? Where we reached our gracious potential? Not that I am aware.

Yet…we keep wanting to believe yesterday (or the day before, year before, decade before, century before, millennium before) was better and we must return. I always wonder, “To what?” Yes, there were those who were martyred—yet, letters had to be written for those who may have chosen to abandon faith rather than suffer torture. The existence of the Pauline epistles demonstrates in spades the continuous struggle of the followers of the Way to continue on. Golden eras don’t exist.

Any appeal to such an “era” represents, possibly, our tacit admittance that all is not well right now, and b), we have no idea what to do. Throughout Christian history, there are traces of the existence of both—seemingly aligned to Jesus’ story of the wheat and the tares. Perhaps we long for the good old days because a) the present days stink or b) we truly carry forth no hope for tomorrow.

Every generation must wrestle with the question of Church, Christ, Culture. It is the ongoing dialogue (see William Isaacs) generating renewable wineskins and/or earthen jars that can serve as a spiritual discipline if we are willing. Sometimes in our endeavors to speak clearly and concisely, we run through the nuances like a driver at a stop sign. Using the analogy of LOTR and the distinction between Boramir and Faramir, the first had incredible power and strength of will but failed to slow down long enough to take into account the subtle nuances of the Ring itself. Faramir slowed down long enough to understand those nuances and how they would eventually not only destroy his soul but the kingdom he longed to save.

There seems to be this line of thought which says, “Christians engage culture because they are strangers from God and therefore seek alliances with the world.” What is interesting is how Western these arguments appear to be. The question I wrestle with more than merely protecting what is ours (is it really ours?) is this: What does the Incarnation look like today, after two millenniums of dominantly church influences in the Western World? If the church is to be “counter-cultural,” what will that look like in a deeply multi-cultural, globalized world?

Indeed, we engage culture because that is what the One we worship did. He engaged both the wider culture of his day (see Wise men from the east and the Greeks who visited him at the end of his days) and his own Jewish subculture. Church, Christ, Culture—these three abide but the greatest of these…