Church and Culture

Question: Describe why you believe conservative evangelicalism may have a negative attitude toward culture. What should the church’s attitude toward culture be?

My attempt to answer this question will come mostly from anecdotal thoughts and grand over generalizations about conservative evangelicals and an assumed negative attitude they may have towards American culture. First off, I came to faith a little over four years ago and didn’t grow up with a protestant church attending experience (likened to my cradle Baptists friends in Texas who wonder why I attend the monthly communion service in the chapel at the SBC mega-church I used to attend). Case in point: there experience in the church is much different than mine. Many of them remember the torrent sermons waxing on about the wicked sinfulness in consuming alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Or my Church of Christ friends who shuddered the first time they heard an electric guitar during worship. I grew up a Catholic boy in Hawaii, so I don’t come out of the mold which many of my new protestant friends have emerged out of. In addition, I’m not sure how specifically and educated I can speak on negative attitudes towards culture that exist in certain congregational churches or individual Christians. With the preceding disclaimer I’ll try and add something to the conversation.

My first observation is that I am finding it harder to locate the ‘conservative’ evangelicals as they may have once been identified and definitely more visible. I probably think of conservatives as fundamentalists. This seems to me to fit what I think we would picture the ‘conservatives’ to be more associated with. The Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals website offers a succinct defining of what I would equate to conservatives:

Since the 1940s, the term fundamentalist has come to denote a particularlyaggressive style related to the conviction that the separation from culturaldecadence and apostate (read liberal) churches are telling marks of faithfulnessto Christ. Most self-described fundamentalist churches today are conservative,separatist Baptist (though often calling themselves "Bible Baptist" or simply"Bible" churches) congregations such as the churches of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC), or the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (IFCA). Institutions associated with this movement would include Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Tennessee Temple (Chattanooga, TN); representative publications would be The Sword of the Lord and The Biblical Evangelist.

It seems to me that the conservative arm of the church is not as visible as it may have been in recent times. I think the waning and fading of the traditional conservative/fundamentalist movement is in large part due to a generational shift that is occurring within the church. The media focus of many prominent evangelicals associated with the rise of the Religious Right in the late 1970s and early 1980’s of Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, Robison and their heightened visibility on culture, issues, and politics is not what it once was: times are changing. So the loss of the public conservative face in the media (whether portrayed rightly or unjustly by the media) is all but gone. A couple of exceptions for when the media puts a face on conservative evangelicals would be when any Christian leader falls for salacious reasons or for anything having to do with any perceived negativity towards homosexuality. Put a face on the conservative movement today. Who is it? And, what influence do they really have? What remains in the aftermath of the fundamentalist movement is an isolationist culture that permeates all denominations and to some degree every generation within the evangelical church today. What was once a block of constituents aligned with a ‘religious movement’ known as the fundamentalist religious right now lingers as a psychological hangover in the mindshare of individual believers who are driven to re-action (or in some cases paralysis!) out of an immense fear of the culture.

We fear our Christian kids will end up hooligans. We fear the influence of video games on our children. We fear the repercussions of gay marriage (versus championing the beauty and order of God’s plan: one man and one woman). We wish Hollywood would disappear leaving the occasional Mel Gibson movie and Vegetales installment. We hate Abercrombie and Fitch and yet my church’s youth are all wearing it. We home school sometimes for fear of our children being around non-Christians, we even go to church on the internet enjoying the comfort of our homes (this also alleviates finding a good parking spot at church). We are fearful of public water fountains- hence the rise of bottled water- and we pray as if we might be crushed by the world at any moment. My observation is that much time, money, and resources are put into assuaging or rehabilitating individual Christians from the brutality and evil of the culture (world).

My second observation is that the church’s fearful retreat from our culture has caused two interesting developments. First, the church has been completely relegated to the land of obscurity and irrelevance by the rest of the culture: we have no voice at the table of cultural discussion. We have the answers to life’s greatest questions, the voice of truth amidst lies, and vision in a time of blindness. Yet, no one takes the church seriously (sometimes not even the church). Second, in our retreat, we miss out on so much of what the culture has to offer. Can we not see the residue of a good creator in the creativity of fallen men and women? Can we not see Him in movies, poetry, literature, music, theatre and other arts? Or do we only find God in the creative expressions of the redeemed? Do we see and hear the void of the true God in the work of the unsaved and perhaps be moved to compassion for the lost? Or do we condemn and judge the cry of those who’s only answer is Christ? Listen to Nine-Inch Nails or Alanis Morissette: what do you hear? What do you learn about a teenager who’s only escapism and understanding of the world comes from Mark Reznick? We, the church, loose much when we are afraid to engage the culture, and there is much at stake. Please don’t get me wrong, one does not have to watch a pornographic movie to understand what pornography and its effects are or how people fill their desire for spiritual fulfillment by defiling themselves.

The church continues to become inward focused. The mission of the church gets less important. We become about protecting our precious lifestyles and dreams instead of walking humbly amidst the culture in which we are to be mediators of blessing, agents of transforming a world into a Christ worshipping culture as God intends to do. We have much to offer as a counter-culture. We can permeate every aspect of culture: the arts, the sciences, the environment, commerce, governance, relationships, values- the list goes on and on. As counter-culture we should be a community which offers another way to live- who offers life! We cannot impact that which we are not a part of. Greater is He in us than he who is of the world! What are we to fear as Christians? Nothing but the creator God, our Father!

My conclusion of this discussion has taken an unforeseen direction. As I am writing this I have just received a voice mail. I stopped and listened to it. It was a friend leaving word that one of the dad’s on my son’s 7th grade basketball team committed suicide two days ago. He had opened up to me about his battle with alcoholism and drug use. He had lost his marriage over his addictions but had been sober through AA for the past 16 months. He was holding down a new job and rebuilding the relationship with his 3 children. He was isolated, lacking friends. We just made lunch plans last Wednesday. I invited him to attend our church, to get into a small group of guys trying to help each other on life’s path. He had my cell number and I told him to call me on those evenings when the craving to hit the bars reared up. I don’t make a point of hanging out with ex-alcoholic drug addicts. I wish I had one more day to do just that.