Is Culture a Friend or an Enemy of the Gospel?

[Alonzo E Thornton, D.Min.]

Is Culture a Friend or an Enemy of the Gospel?

In response to the questions, what is the biggest discouragement in ministry, and how would I lend counsel in addressing this problem had me introspective for some time before narrowing down to this matter of culture. My initial response was that of Biblical illiteracy within the Church, next was the Democratization of the Faith within the boarders of America. Then I was thinking about the influx of unregenerate souls within the church who have full privilege that the spiritual souls who according to scripture essentially make up the true Body of Messiah. Yet, there was something that speaks to me in the now, as a mature Follower of Messiah, that was not possible for me earlier for me as a participant in social or cultural reform.

Taking into consideration my lifetime, I began thinking of what event in my living, was the greatest display of “a united assault upon the systemic evil in culture and the heart of humanity.” One in which I was too young to participate in yet desired to very much. This reflection aided in me identifying the greatest discouragement for me, the inability of the Church in America to sustain a consistent righteous reform within culture from one generation to generation. The American Civil Rights Movement was one of the greatest displays of unified efforts at identifying and challenging systemic evil within my lifetime.

Historian Peter C. Murray wrote one of many articles or books about the efforts of many mainline churches’ and their roles in the American Civil Rights Movement.[1] History has recorded that nonbelievers; believers Jewish, Muslins and Catholics united together in this most important movement that transcended the shoreline of our American continent, to become an international movement. Brother Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, while marching in Selma Civil Rights March with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote these words, “When I marched in Selma, my feet were praying.” [2]

The vastnesses of the results of the American Civil Rights Movement were and still are very powerful in many ways. Below is just a short list of some of these lasting results.

• Exposing and ending legalized segregation (its laws) and exploitation of human being [namely Blacks who were victimized by slavery].
• The Voting Rights
• The Ecumenical solitary of the Body of Christ
• The powerful participation of students and seminarians in the South and North.
• Of the Church/Students lead movements; many developed their own organizations and sustaining structures.
• The Federal Governmental involvement of every branch of the US Government which eventually led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Right Act of 1965.

Anyone seen my friend Jesus of Nazareth? How about Martin?

Thinking about this time personally, historically and within the context of post-modernity, at least for myself, Jesus of Nazareth and Martin Luther King Jr. were major motivators of this time. For this reason, my contention is that they share at least two major commonalities.

First, both died early violent deaths for causes that they both believed in. Next, both today are misunderstood if not forgotten in regard to their ministries and their sacrifice. Jesus states, “The Son of Man has to endure much suffering and be rejected by the elders, the head cohanim and the Torah teachers and he has to be put to death; but on the third day, he was to be raised to life.” Luke 9:22, [The Complete Jewish Bible] One of Martin L. King Jr. favorite sayings was, “If a man does not have a reason to die, he is not fit to live.”

Has both of these powerful men died in vain? Has America regressed back into the same systemic evil that killed Jesus of Nazareth? How about Martin? Where is the Church in this dialogue?

For all of the positive results of the American Civil Right legislation of the 1960’s, there is currently data to report a prostitution of this era by the Gay and Lesbian community as well as the US continuation in the continuation of human exploitation. In reference to the Gay Rights movement, they were successful in including the sexual orientation homosexuality as a minority issue [like Blacks during the Civil Rights Acts]. This clever political move, enable this community to argue for equality within the law, using discrimination as a ploy for human rights and civil-rights.

The other issue, is noted in an expose’ exposing the continuation of America’s continuation of human trafficking and sexual exportation of millions for profit. This article was written recently just after the state of Arizona passage of the Immigration laws.[3] Has these two humanistic cultural trends and evil offset the power and influence of the Church culturally?

Theology of Culture

Noted author and pastor Leith Anderson asserts that high on the list of emerging issues is the theology of culture. As diverse cultures meet and as current cultures change, church leaders will repeatedly face practical questions about the relationship of God and culture.[4] Is culture a friend or an enemy of the Gospel? Ministry as a service and a command culturally will be defined by how a church or a minister answers this question. If one concludes that culture is an enemy of the gospel, the church will withdraw from culture, adopting a “we/they” mentality, implementing a fortress type of ministry and passionately promoting separatism, elitism and exclusivist culture within the church. On the other hand, if a ministry or minister concludes that culture is a friend of the gospel, the church will engage and participate in culture thus conceptualizing ministry; and view culture as a means to evangelism and discipleship.[5] This ministry according to Anderson is not guilty of isolation or separatism, but accommodation. Without a theology of culture and without careful discernment they both risk being ruled and controlled by culture and its sinfulness.

The Incarnational Ministry

Culture is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behavior that depends upon man’s capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.[6] Anderson records that culture existed before the Fall of Adam and Eve. In a sense, culture even predates creation in that the Persons in the Godhead had “a pattern way in which they were doing things.” [What a tremendous thesis] This leads to the conclusion that culture is not inherently sinful. Like human nature before The Fall and the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth, culture can be sinless. Since The Fall, human culture has been marred and permeated with sin, just as human nature has as well. Sin does not preclude the fact that all individuals possess the image of God, nor does sin in culture eliminate the value of culture as crated by God. Anderson contends that the challenge is to distinguish the sin from the person as well as from the culture.

The incarnation means that the eternal Son of God became in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth. God came, communicating to humanity within culture. Not only did the Living Word become flesh, but also the Word dwelled among us within a very sinful human culture.

Reformation will only come when theologically and practically, churches are to minister as Christ ministered-incarnationally. We are to “enflesh” the Person of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God by perpetually communicating and living Godly lifestyles from one generation to the next. Believers separately attempting to imitate Christ do not readily accomplish this. The corporate Body of Christ participating with Christ does it by abiding in Christ and producing the fruits that are evident of dwelling within the incarnation of the Kingdom of God within the kingdom of evil. What this age is looking for is the culture of the Kingdom of God which according to Messiah is within.

Grace and Peace

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[1] Peter C. Murray, Methodist and the Crucible of Race, 1930-1975. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004. [http://jsr.fsu.edu/Volume8/Vox.htm]

[2]Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907-December 23, 1972) was a Warsaw-born American Rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20^th century.

[3] http://www.npr.org/templates/story.php?story

[4]Leith Anderson, Theological Issues of 21^st Century Ministry, Journal: Biblotheca Sacra, Vol: BSAC 151:602 (Apr 1994)

[5] Bsac 151:602 (Apr 94) p.133

[6]Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, 8^th ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam, 1987), 314.