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The Kingdom and Culture
Sep 1, 07:27 AM
Matthew 15:9
It is easy for the church to become so adapted to its surrounding culture that it no longer represents the life of God. Many American churches are more reflective of the prevailing society than a manifestation of Kingdom life. This is especially true in America because the church is frantically trying to maintain relevancy in the midst of the dramatic shifts in society away from traditional religion. Relevancy is not achieved by making yourself look more and more like the people you are seeking to reach. It is the result of the ability to take Kingdom principles and relate them in a way that people understand. It must be done in the love and power of God. The Kingdom of God must be embodied in the church and not just talked about by the church. Jesus was relevant because what He said and did resonated with the deep needs of people. Even then, He was ultimately rejected because he personified something drastically different than the culture into which He entered.
Consider the preaching in most American churches. It often consists of taking American cultural values, dressing them up in religious language, and proclaiming them as if it were genuine spiritual revelation. Some of these values are consistent with those of the Kingdom, but they are conveyed according to the intellectual framework of the culture and not in accordance with the wisdom of God. A sermon on hope becomes the preacher’s talk on “This is what I think about hope” rather than an examination of the nature of hope in scripture and how the living hope which proceeds from God differs from the notion of hope as commonly thought of in society. Sermons like that begin with the preacher writing down what she thinks about the subject, forming it into a sermon, and then searching for a Bible verse that contains the key word in it so that it can be read before the sermon, thus creating the illusion that the preaching arises from the Bible. The passage read prior to the sermon is the limit of Biblical influence over the proclamation. Most preaching simply conveys a set of culturally based guidelines for being a “good person. There is little said which connects people to the overarching initiatives and purposes of God and which establishes their identity in Him. Furthermore, it is rare for a preacher to draw from a deep reservoir of spiritual and Biblical insight; rarer still is the preacher who proclaims Biblical truth which he has tried in his own life and found to be absolutely trustworthy. Thus, the sermon is about something the preacher thinks, not something he knows to be true.
For example, around Christmas time we are inundated with sermons on faith, hope, and love. These are worthy concepts and certainly are a primary thrust of the Bible. Unfortunately, the ideas are aligned more to the emotional response of a new baby being born than the initiative of God that prompted the birth. The incarnation of Christ is the defining moment of human history, not a cute and cuddly event designed to make us “ooo and ahh.” Faith, hope, and love, and not disembodied values floating around without attachment to some reality, they are grounded in God who created the world with a purpose which is unfolding even in the midst of the apparent chaos of life as we know it. The Bible is the primary means through which that purpose is revealed and true Biblical preaching reflects an understanding of the wisdom of God as opposed to sentiments of society. God defines faith, hope, and love not American cultural norms.
Justice is another issue which has been hijacked by the culture and made to look like something God would want. Justice is a major issue for God but God’s justice differs significantly from the prevailing norms of the average human mind. It is interesting to note how different cultures view the issue of justice, especially if they differ according to race and economics. God’s justice does not change from culture to culture and few really ask God what justice looks like or bother to plumb the depths of what scripture says on the matter. Too often, we look to the Bible to confirm what we already want to believe. Inclusivity and tolerance which are hot topics in today’s America are similarly distorted by liberal and conservative alike, each claiming God as the proponent of their view. God is more inclusive than any of us but it founded in a completely different wisdom with a completely different love for people. God elevates human dignity more than anything any society could afford but He is not allowed to do so because people have already made up their minds.