Christianity & CulturePart 3: Christ Against Culture

Introduction

In our first two lectures, we considered the question What is Culture?and examined the biblical teaching on The Cultural Mandate. We noted the importance of being like The Men of Issachar who understood the times (I Chron. 12:32) and cautioned that while culture may express unbelief and rebellion against Yahweh, God’s common grace ensures that we will also find much good in culture. The concept of culture is so complex that it is important that we review various expressions of its meaning so we are more certain of what it actually is before we begin to examine what the Bible says about how we are to live in it. Let’s revisit John Frame’s definition.

John Frame on Culture

“So culture is not only what we grow (cultivate, agriculture), but also what we make, both with our hands and with our minds. It includes our houses, our barns, our tools, our cities and towns, our arts and crafts. It also includes the systems of ideas that we build up: science, philosophy, economics, politics, theology, history, and the means of teaching them, education: schools, universities, seminaries. Indeed, it includes all our corporate bodies and institutions: families, churches, governments, business enterprises. And culture also includes our customs, games, sports, entertainment, music, literature, and cuisine.”

Christ and Culture

In 1951, H. Richard Niebuhr published the most famous and influential book in the twentieth-century on the subject of Christ and Culture (Harpers & Brothers Publishers, New York). The New York Times Book Review wrote:

A superb piece of analytical writing in tackling what is just about the toughest problem faced by Christians. The problem: In what way, or degree, is Christ relevant to the situation in which the Christian must live….Mr. Niebuhr distinguishes five typical answers to the Christian’s problem of setting the relation between the Christ he calls Lord and the culture which holds him as the sea holds its fish.

Richard Niebuhr and John Frame

Theologian John Frame agrees with Niebuhr’s “five ways in which Christians have understood the relationship of Christ to culture.” In fact, Frame contends that “these are not my models. Everybody who discusses Christianity and culture discusses these.”1. Christ Against Culture2. The Christ of Culture3. Christ Above Culture4. Christ and Culture in Paradox5. Christ the Transformer of Culture

Christ Against Culture

Our Starting Point: The Cosmos

• The word in the New Testament which we translate “world” is cosmos.

• It is used 186 times in the New Testament.• The Apostle John employed the word 79 times in his Gospel, 23 times

in I John, once in II John, and 3 times in Revelation, a total of 106occurrences. Paul used it in his letters 47 times.

• “Sometimes the world is simply the whole creation of God, the inhabited earth, without reference to sin or salvation.” Often, however, Scripture “uses the term world…to designate everything opposed to God” (Frame).

Cosmos: The Whole Creation of God

• “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world” (Mt. 13:35).

• “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall” (Mt. 24:21).

• “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’” (Mt. 25:34).

• “…wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, that also which this woman has done shall be spoken of in memory of her” (Mk. 14:9).

Cosmos: The Whole Creation of God

• “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands” (Acts 17:24).

• “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all” (I Tim. 1:15).

• “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4).

• “For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God…” (I Pt. 1:20-21).

Cosmos: Everything Opposed to God

• A person can “gain the whole world”, and forfeit his soul (Mt. 16:26).• John the Baptist said of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes

away the sin of the world!” (Jn. 1:29).• “The world cannot hate you; but it hates Me, because I testify of it,

that its deeds are evil” (Jn. 7:7).• “The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does

not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you” (Jn. 14:17).

• “The world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (Jn. 17:14).

Cosmos: Everything Opposed to God

• “And He was saying to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world; I am not of this world’” (Jn. 8:23).

• “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out” (Jn. 12:31).

• “I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (Jn. 14:30).

• “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you” (Jn. 15:18).

• “I have given them Thy word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (Jn. 17:14).

Cosmos: Everything Opposed to God

• “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up to the Jews; but as it is My kingdom is not of this realm” (Jn. 18:36).

• “For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God…” (I Cor. 1:21).

• “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (I Jn. 2:15-16).

Rebellion Against God

• “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him” (Jn. 1:10-11).

• “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner , and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand’” (Is. 1:2-3).

• “The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us’” (Psalm 2:2-3).

Culture and the World

• The question we must ask is, “Are they the same thing?”• They are not synonymous. • “Culture is a mixture of good and bad. It includes the effects of sin as

well as the effects of God’s grace. But world, used in that negative ethical sense, is entirely bad. The world is the kingdom of the Evil One, and Christians should not be conformed to it even a little bit. We should not have any love for it….The world is a great snare and delusion” (Frame).

• Culture is a broader term than world. World is the bad part of culture” (Frame).

Cultural vs. Worldly

“The Greek language is a product of Greek culture….The Greek language is cultural, but it is not worldly” (Frame)

H. Richard Niebuhr

“The first answer to the question of Christ and culture we shall consider is the one that uncompromisingly affirms the sole authority of Christ over the Christian and resolutely rejects culture’s claims to loyalty.”

1894-1962

The Authority of Christ

• “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth’” (Mt. 28:18).

• “Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee, even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life” (Jn. 17:1-2).

• “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God” (Rom. 13:1).

• “In Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority” (Col. 2:10).

The Only Sovereign

• “The Old Testament depicts Yahweh as the only King, the absolute sovereign” (Carl F.H. Henry).

• “The Lord will reign forever and ever” (Ex. 15:18).• “For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the

earth” (Ps. 47:2; cf. vs. 7).• “Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For this is your due;

for among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is none like you” (Jer. 10:7).

• “For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Dan. 4:34).

Whose Kingdom?

“The kingdom is God’s and his alone; only he has the sovereignty, authority, wisdom and freedom to rule as absolute Creator of all. Where God is present in person and in power, in righteousness and truth and love, there is the kingdom: it is wherever God holds sway.”

Carl F.H. Henry1913-2003

Since there is an antithesis between Christ and the world, there is also an antithesis between

the believer and the world.

Christ Against Culture: Modern Battlefields

• Marriage and family• Human sexuality• Abortion• Feminism• Pacifism• Economics• Utopianism• Scripture

• Academic Institutions• Science• Humanities• Psychology• History• The Arts• Politics• Postmodernism

Responses to the World’s Spirit

• Accommodation: v., “to adapt oneself to another thing or person” (OED). “It is comfortable to accommodate to that which is in vogue about us, to the forms of the world spirit in our age” (Francis Schaeffer).

• “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1-2).

Francis A. Schaeffer

“To accommodate to the world spirit about us in our age is the most gross form of worldliness in the proper definition of the word….Obedience to God’s Word is the watershed. The failure of the evangelical world to take a clear and distinctively biblical stand on the crucial issues of the day can only be seen as a failure to live under the full authority of God’s Word in the full spectrum of life.”

1912-1984

William Hendriksen on Romans 12:1-2

“Constant yielding to the temptation of becoming fashioned after the pattern of ‘this evil age’ (I Cor. 2:6; Gal. 1:4) ends in bitter disappointment; for ‘The fashion of this world is passing away’ (I Cor. 7:31). The experience of those who permit their lives to be frittered away in this manner resembles that of travelers in the desert. They are completely exhausted. Their lips are parched with thirst. Suddenly they see in the distance a sparkling spring surrounded by shady trees. With hope revived they hasten to this place…only to discover that they had been deceived by a mirage. ‘The world and its desires are passing away, but the person who does the will of God lives forever’” (I John 2:17).

Responses to the World’s Spirit

• Accepting Pluralism: the belief that humans may be saved through any number of different religious traditions and saviors. “There is not merely one way but a plurality of ways of salvation or liberation…taking place in different ways within the contexts of all the great religious traditions” (John Hick).

• “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me’” (John 14:6).

John Hick1922-2012

Is This Your Question?

• Is there salvation in other religions?• Is there a second chance after death?• What about those who have never heard?• Is sincerity enough?• Ronald H. Nash (1936-2006), PhD, Syracuse,

was professor of philosophy at Western Kentucky University for 27 years, and professor of philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He authored more than 25 books.

Responses to the World’s Spirit

Accepting Secular Narratives Uncritically, Ignoring:

• Christ’s impact on world history• Christianity’s impact on the value of human life• Christianity’s contribution to helping the poor• Christianity’s contribution to education• Christianity’s impact on the founding of America• Christianity’s contribution to civil liberties• Christianity’s impact on science• Christianity’s impact on economics• Christianity’s impact on sex and the family• …and more.

Responses to the World’s Spirit

Confrontation: John Witherspoon (1723-1794), President of Princeton University and the only pastor to sign the Declaration of Independence, “openly named and attacked Thomas Paine, the ‘Enlightenment man.’” He “directly challenged Paine’s Enlightenment views concerning the perfectibility of man, contrasting this with the biblical view of the fall and the lostness of man and therefore the lack of perfection in all realms of government” (Schaeffer).

John Witherspoon MonumentWashington, D.C.

Responses to the World’s Spirit

• Envy: n., “the feeling of mortification and ill-will occasioned by the contemplation of superior advantages possessed by another” (OED).

• “But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment….All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence” (Ps. 73:2-6,13).

The Christian’s Relation to the World

“The member of the Body of Christ has been delivered from the world and called out of it. He must give the world a visible proof of his calling, not only by sharing in the Church’s worship and discipline, but also through the new fellowship of brotherly living. If the world despises one of the brethren, the Christian will love and serve him. If the world does him violence, the Christian will succor and comfort him. If the world dishonors and insults him, the Christian will sacrifice his own honor to cover his

Dietrich Bonhoeffer1906-1945

The Christian’s Relation to the World

brother’s shame. Where the world seeks gain, the Christian will renounce it. Where the world exploits, he will dispossess himself, and where the world oppresses, he will stoop down and raise up the oppressed. If the world refuses justice, the Christian will pursue mercy, and if the world takes refuge in lies, he will open his mouth for the dumb, and bear testimony to the truth. For the sake of the brother, be he Jew or Greek, bond or free, strong or weak, noble or base, he will renounce all fellowship with the world. For the Christian serves the fellowship of the Body of Christ, and he cannot hide it from the world. He is called out of the world to follow Christ.”

In the World; Not of the World

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lampstand; and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:14-16).