Counter Culture
It seems that so many watch doggies are upset about the emerging church allowing culture to infiltrate the church. Some of their biggest complaints are the films, coffee bars, music and seating that we have allowed into our communities of faith. This has always been a strange concept for me. I mean, my response back would be how do we keep culture out of the church? For me it is like being upset that humans have allowed air to touch their skin. It’s impossible to separate a person from the culture in which they live. In the same way that Jesus was very much a part of the Jewish ethnic culture in dress, food, entertainment, I am very much a part of the Los Angele culture.
I don’t think that the church was ever meant to be separated from its culture, and unfortunately that is what has happened. Somewhere in the 1950s we decided that we were going to freeze the church in time, and allow the culture to go on without us. Somehow the idea that being our own bubble equated with being more Godly. Unfortunately what we did is now having disastrous effects on both believers and the culture around us. Today we have Christian bookstores, coffee shops, online stores, dating services, television stations and music. We have created a horrible “us vs. them†atmosphere. Our persecution is a product of our own ignorance. And even more unfortunate, we are the ones who have a very relevant message but live out terribly irrelevant lives.
And relevance really has nothing to do with wearing the right clothes, drinking the right coffee and knowing the right bands. Relevance come from having a living and breathing relationship with Christ in the real world. It has more to do with being able to love and yet giving sound spiritual direction from the scriptures to an African American transvestite prostitute who just waked into your church gathering (as has happened many times with my church). Relevance comes with doing everything possible to translate the message of Christ in a language that real people in real settings can understand. And that is precisely why we use film and dance and artist my community of faith, Mosaic. It’s not for the sake of entertainment and being relevant for relevance sake. It is just that Angelinos speak the language of art, so we speak the message of Christ back to them in art form.
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think there are elements in our cultures with which we need to be very counter cultural. I don’t think that these are things like coffee shops, music and fashionable clothes. I believe it has more to do with ideas, values, paradigms and attitudes that we are to engage and become change agents for. So if a song speaks counter to what the truth of the scriptures say, we counter. If a film speaks counter to what the truth of the scriptures say, we counter. But it is foolish to speak out against all film, music, art, and all things good in the world just because they are part of our culture. Unfortunately, we have become counter cultural with the wrong type of elements and have become the very thing that Jesus hates… religious. We are known by what we hate and we often hate the wrong things.
August 1st, 2007 at 11:36 am
You hit the nail on the head. I’ve found when a lot of these watchdogs attack someone and say they are pulluing a stunt to be relevent, what is happening in actuallity is that a pastor or congregation is just sort of bringing in their culture with them, and for Christians who have decided that there should be a seperate Christian culture that was handed down by our grandparents can only see different hairstyles, music and object lessons as somehow a Christian faking it to be “relevent” because a Christian has to be part of a Christian culture, not be a Christian involved in other cultures.
August 1st, 2007 at 11:41 am
Whenever this topic is brought up I think of Jerry Lee Lewis who was ejected from his Bible College for singing a worship song in a rockabilly style. From there he felt like he had to choose between using his talent and the church. He rejected the church to pursue his talent and his life was after that lived as though there was no grace.
The thing that many people miss is that the church isn’t stronger by cloistering itself, it is weaker because it alienates people who feel, in many ways, the divine draw to use the talents they have. When people have to choose between the talents, abilities and, often, the desires God has given them, and a church that makes unreasoned, human commands to not use them, the church will often lose. And that’s about as far from the gospel as you can get.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:11 pm
In regard to reaching into the culture…..
Just curious what either side of this argument would think of a ministry called Masters Commission from Phoenix?
Didn’t Jesus engage the culture? Was He not ridiculed for doing so?
August 1st, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Great point Kevin.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Not too familiar with the Masters Commission. I do know that Jesus was in culture, and engaged it fully. He told stories from the culture, hung out with the influencers as well as the poor and lived counter culturally when needed.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Daryle,
Are you looking for an opinion on the name or the organization, itself?
If the name, then I’m not sure I see anything wrong with it.
If the organization, I would have to study it awhile beyond a simple Google search to render an opinion.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Daryle,
Why are you aking about Master’s Commision? There actually used to be a small branch of it my church here, but it kind of died out. I think it’s a good program, basically. It’s hard to make a blanket statement because each one is basically locally run, and the actual contents of it vary from church to church.
For those that don’t know, Master’s Commision is an A/G program (it may be in some other denominations, but it started at Phoenix First Assembly of God) that is kind of an internship program for kids who feel a call into ministry. The take Bible college classes and basically help out with different ministries in the church. I don’t know exactly in what Daryle was asking about it here.
I would say the danger with any Christian education is for it to become very isolated from the world. I’ve found, though, that a lot of that depends on individuals rather than institutions. Christians can remain withdrawn an any context.
August 1st, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Masters Commission is a tool used to develop youth to engage the culture through music, drama, art, the things alluded to earlier. It is a very good program. My wife was exposed to it several years ago when she and several others from our church went to Phoenix A/G. The one thing that stuck with her was the effective outreach into various cultures and lifestyles.
August 1st, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Nathan stated: I definitely think there are elements in our cultures with which we need to be very counter cultural.
In all sincerity, would it be possible to list more specific examples of what some of those might be?
August 1st, 2007 at 1:41 pm
In one sense to be a Christian is to be totally counter-cultural. By living as a citizen of the Kingdom, we are saying that we are serving another master than those in the world. On the other hand, there are elements of the common culture such as language, speech, music that are almost impossible to separate ourselves from. I don’t really think that should be the focus of our separation.
What should separate Christians is our extravagant love and service to others. Sadly, though this isn’t the way it seems to work. We seem more content to separate ourseles through political causes and external moral policing of the world as a whole. We feel a need to take moral stands against sin in general, but we often neglect our call to actually serve and love those “sinners”. It is almost exactly opposite of what Jesus called us to do.
August 1st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Keith,
I think that Christians can be very counter-cultural in regard to a number of societal norms, with probably the biggest one in the USA being materialism/consumerism - to live a much more simple life than one’s income could potentially provide.
Another area would be in the modern glorification of the physical body.
Another would be in familial migration to the inner city, rather than the flight from the inner city (you know, actually being light amongst the darkness, rather than a candle safely ensconced in a chandalier, far out of reach of human hands).
Culture moves far beyond art and music…
August 1st, 2007 at 2:00 pm
You want to be counter cultural try this: find your local sex crimes registration list which comes complete with names and addresses, knock on their door and invite them to church, or over for dinner.
August 1st, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I wonder if the change has been due to a huge paradigm shift (at least in the western world) from a largely religious society where the Church was hugely influential to the culture (although not in the right way), to the culture becoming very secularized. People now struggle (as we see from the discussions here) to work out how the church should respond to this shift. At one end of the spectrum we have those that want to hide away in their Christian ghettos pretending that the world around them doesn’t exist, and at the other end of the spectrum you have Christians trying to blend in with the culture to the extent that you can’t tell what difference their faith has made!
Personally I believe the church is in a better place now than it ever was when society was more “religious”. The gospel transforms people from the inside out, not the outside in - I believe it should affect society in the same way. I don’t want a church that is influential just in a political sense, or because society dictates that church is where you go on a sunday. If church is to be influential on our culture it should be through the transformation of lives by the gospel one by one. We’re in a much better place to see that happen today, than we ever have been before.
August 1st, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I do not believe we gather primarily to attract the unbeliever. We gather to pray (?), and worship, and learn together. Conforming the gathering place to entertain and accomodate things we can get elsewhere sometimes emasculates the reason for gathering. Why not go karts, shopping malls, swimming pools, and anything else?
Because those things can be enjoyed elsewhere and they are certainly not the reason we gather. By the way, even in Ingrid’s type church as well as most others prayer is a perfunctory excercize which rarely goes over ten minutes. Why?
It is laborious, it is real warfare, and it is a reflection of the personal prayer life of the average believer. We seem to be more interested in providing for the unbeliever than seeking the face of God. Check out the Chinese home church and the place of prayer, and then compare it with the paltry offering we give God collectively on Sunday mornings. We actually say with our behavior “We can do it without you, Lord, but thanks anyway”. The Chinese have yet to have coffee rooms and the like, perhaps their growth is a reflection of their singlemindedness. They do eat together, though, and receive communion almost every Sunday. We might want to try that before we have bowling alleys!
Our problem is not relevance, it’s power.
August 1st, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I agree with you very much there, Henry (or Rick). I always saw our gathering at church as a time for the believers rather than as an evangelistic tool for non-believers. Of course, non-believers are welcomed to attend but the focus of our meeting on Sunday services should be of edifying, teaching, correcting the believers. It’s up to God to determine if non-believers come and be saved.
August 1st, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Nathan,
Did you see that the post you referred to is mostly Bible verses, and that it is connected to the post below it: “In the post below, we have a man who claims to be a Christian. He takes the garbage from popular American culture and tries to weave deep spiritual insight into it for Christian little girls . . . ”
If you see the High School Musical as something with which a Christian should be involved, if you think that the words of the song given as an example were edifying, and that the girl’s dancing was the kind you’d like your (future) daughter to do, you are way too immersed in the world.
Hopefully you overlooked the connection between the two articles.
August 1st, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Rick,
I will speak for my community. Everything we do is geared towards the non-believer. I think a big part of that is we believe that once you become part of the family of God, you are on mission with the Father. It seems to me that the father’s heart beat is for the nations and people coming to know him. You see, we worship by serving him (we are very careful about not making 20 minutes of music on Sunday the “worship time”). We are eager to hear His voice in the scriptures together so that we can share His message.
I think we have placed WAY too much responsibility and energy on an hour and a half on Sunday. Believers should be worshiping, learning, growing and serving together throughout the week. For us, Sunday is all of us coming together to express and celebrate to the world what He has/is doing within us.
You seemed to have completely missed the point about relevance to culture. You do not have coffee bars and the likes for the sake of relevance. You use them as a tool to create an atmosphere where people can engage one another. I don’t know why fundamentalists think all we do is drink coffee and hang out with people. My emerging community fasts, has communion on a regular basis… heck, tonight I am going to an event called Elements where we will pray for the world, commission overseas workers with prayer, have the lords supper and share in our struggles…. we aren’t just movies and dancers.
August 1st, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Do you think it’s possible to “separate ourselves” (using Phil’s term) from culture as far as our language (how and what we speak), music (some we might find to endorse activities such as drug use, etc)– in other words, we don’t engage in those types of behavior–AND yet still be able to engage the culture around us?
Chris–if I’m following your statement (I’m just a dumb ol’ country boy), are you lamenting people moving FROM the cities to more rural settings? And if so, what would be an acceptable reason for doing just that, as long as we don’t live like hermits/avoid engaging people all together?
August 1st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Keith,
It is not so much a lamentation, but an observation that our culture is further separating ‘haves’ from ‘have nots’, and the “white flight” to suburbia has left a large group of people stranded in the inner cities. I was suggesting that it would be ‘counter-cultural’ to be part of existing ministries which buy homes in inner-city areas and have Christian families move into them, where they participate with God in transforming those areas.
That just seems far more counter-cultural than burning my U2 albums…
August 1st, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Counter culture would be moving out of the Christian ghetto.
An interesting book is Richard Foster’s “Freedom of Simplicity.” In a way, this touches on that anti-consumerism theme mentioned above. Consumerism: part of our new Christian ghetto. We just put a little fish symbol on it or something.
Counter culture, by the way, always makes me think of diners and old donut shops. Seriously. With those raised glass cake holders on the counter.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:24 pm
I have heard of some people who have purposefully moved to inner-city areas to minister. It can be a huge sacrifice and “risk,” especially if you have kids. Riskier in some ways than going to some remote jungle village . . .
August 1st, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Chris:
Interesting thoughts. I guess I fall into “white flight” category…I live in the city and feel trapped/squeezed/clostraphobic. I want to move out (I grew up in the country) just so I can breath…and actually see the stars.
Thanks for the response.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:55 pm
One of things that bothers me about the current church movement is that we’ve almost seem to make it “unspiritual” to want to live in the country. Since when is it wrong to want to live in the country? I grew up country and I miss it. I just don’t see how that’s wrong. There are things about city living that appeal to me and there are things that don’t. There are things that don’t appeal to me about country living, but there are many more things that appeal to me about it. Why is that not missional? Why is that against the edicts of Christ?
August 1st, 2007 at 11:22 pm
I live in the country.
In fact, the population is so far into a dwindling cycle that it’s getting to the point of being a “mission field” in that churches are closing and remaining ones can’t find pastors.
Interesting turn of events.
City is where the people are, and there are theories on “God loves the cities.” But there are a lot of lonely, lost people in rural areas. Rural areas bring their own set of problems: overly self sufficient (I don’t need God), alcoholism (very high), etc. Rural areas need Christ, too.
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:14 am
On the city/country thing, I think people should just live where they feel God has called them. It’s very easy to take a call that’s specific to me and try to make normative for others. I’ve seen people do that a lot. Fortunately, that’s not how God works.
Just a note, too. Jesus grew up in the sticks and most of his disciples would have been considered country bumpkins. It’s true he did a lot of ministry in Jerusalem, where the majority of the people were, but He also would have felt comfortable with the country folk.
The one thing that I do see is that it is often very hard to minister to people from more rural backgrounds. There is an attitude of self-sufficiency that can arise. Where I live is kind of a weird mix of people, being that it’s a university town in the middle of nowhere (State College, PA, home of Penn State). We have students from all over plus the native townies, and then the people that live in the rural outskirts. Of all those people, I’ve always found that it is hardest to form relationships with the people from the rural areas. They can be awesome people once you get to know them, but it takes a while.
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:20 am
PA Native here myself Phil. Bloomsburg! Go BLUE!
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:26 am
Joe,
I’m actually doing some work at Bloomsburg University now. We just finished a Starbucks at the library, and we’re doing a few other small projects up there. I’m an electrical engineer by day, campus minister by nights and weekends right now.
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:07 am
“Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think there are elements in our cultures with which we need to be very counter cultural. I don’t think that these are things like coffee shops, music and fashionable clothes. I believe it has more to do with ideas, values, paradigms and attitudes that we are to engage and become change agents for.”
Actually - I disagree with this. I think that clothes and coffee are both things that we need to be counter-cultural about - but only because of the ideas that lie behind them. If the coffee (or any product) is exploitative or damages God’s earth then we shoudl reject it on principle regardless of how trendy it is. It clothes are made in far-east (or even local) sweatshops we should also reject them. I think it is absolutely right for a follower of Jesus to reject the image-focussed materialism of modern western society that insists on a certain lifestyle at the expense of the poor around the world. God will judge us on that, and he will judge those ‘conservative christians’ who reject these sort of concerns just as harshly.
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:13 am
Wow, I didn’t really expect that my comments about ‘white flight’ would spark all that much conversation.
I don’t see this as a city/country thing (and yes, Julie, I agree that the country comes with its own set of problems, and that y’all out there in the stix need Jesus, too
I was just highlighting a way to be counter-cultural. After reading the discussion here, I would, perhaps, revise my observation to say that current culture is ’suburbifying’, and that a move in either direction (to the country or to the inner-city) might prove counter-cultural, though for different reasons.
I started out in a “small” farming community (~17K people in the county - though my parents were both from smaller towns of <1,000 people), lived for 10 years in a college town (West Lafayette, IN - pop 35K in summer, pop 90K during school), and now I live in a suburb on the growing edge of a big city. So I suppose I would part of the ‘flight’ group from the country…
Sorry to digress there - I think that the overall point is that culture extends far beyond the artistic ventures (art, music, etc.) and into the patterns and trends within our world, and that being ‘counter-cultural’ is much more challenging and less legalistic when you view the larger picture…)
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:18 am
Ian,
I agree with you, as well - and it is very easy to separate ourselves from the sources of the things we consume. My wife just finished working at Starbucks to start her own business with a friend. While she was at Starbucks, she explained to me why ‘Fair Trade Coffee’ and shade-grown coffee were more compatible with Christian principles, which was eye-opening for me (despite me not drinking or liking coffee).
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:54 am
I truly hope that someday I can move back home and start a church. If you go to Eckerd, (actually in Espy, Scott Township) stop in and see Bill. That’s my dad.
You need to eat at Kellers Diner. (Rt. 11 Northside)
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:08 am
God puts value on people, period, whether they come in large groups or small groups. One can almost always find “one,” even if living out in the stix. There’s as much value to being a consistent and dependable friend to one needy person as there is being busy serving many, if that is what God wants one to do. In fact just having the one can be more difficult because it can be more intimate and the invasions on one’s “privacy” can be greater.
I live on several acres and am so thankful that God has provided this place for us, for now. I have had to live in an apartment and have had to live as the “focus of attention” wherever I’ve been (because of being a different nationality, and sometimes color, as those around me.) This will be happening again; for this time in my life I’m thankful for a rest from that. I love having the freedom to be outside watching the birds or working in the garden with no one watching but critters.
A man I know who I’ll call Jim lives in the country and loves working in his garden. Once he and another person were talking about a busy and well-known Christian leader who said something like “the day I’ll have time to work in my garden is the day I will have given up serving the Lord.” Jim talked about how he “talks with God while working in his garden, feels a sense of oneness and marvel at the way God has created things.” My view on it: what Jim is doing is what most Christians should be doing more.
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:23 am
OK. I am honestly trying to understand some things here. Am I reading more into this? Is it more important to make sure we don’t wear sweat-shop clothes, eat only free-range eggs (I just threw that one in) or not use products produced by “exploitive” mfg’s, than it would be to avoid things such as coarse language or watching movies that might have questionable scenes/material? Or are all of these things we should separate ourselves from?
Just as a comment here–prompted by the “God’s earth” remark: I work for a company that builds refinery equipment and frankly I’m pretty frustrated that the USA hasn’t built a new refinery in over 20 years. We have some of the largest oil reserves right under our noses and the environmental groups have us hog-tied. We could be building plants that convert coal to a VERY clean diesel (Wyoming has something like 17 percent of the WORLD’S coal reserves sitting under it) if people would get off their “not in my backyard” mentality–Brazil is already using this technology and does not import diesel fuels. How do we know that God didn’t put those things here for us and we’re missing the boat? Technology has advanced to the point that we could become self-sufficient and still not kill off the spotted owls. OK. Now, I feel better.
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:35 am
Just for clarification, my lament was not directed at you per se Chris as much as what I find in general. A lot of people I come in contact with on a daily basis seem to think it is somehow more spiritual to be in the city than the country. I just think we ought to Bloom where God plants us!
What a great cliche!
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:46 am
Keith,
I don’t think it’s either or… but both. Any product that exploits people or has damaging effects on the resources we are supposed to be stewards of… be counter cultural.
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:58 am
Joe,
As Amy pointed out, everywhere you go is a mission field. My comments (echoing those of recent discussions from Mars Hill (GR) and elsewhere) were just identifying one of many potential ways to be ‘counter-cultural’ - not an exhaustive list by any means.
Keith,
I work for a chemical/pharma company as an engineer, and I feel your pain on US environmental policy (which is not always in line with good stewardship of the environment. I look to the banning of proscribed burning in the 90’s as an example of environmntalism gone wild, for example.)
Being green and being Christian are not incompatible - it is about good stewardship and sustainability. I think that when we remove ourselves from the debate, or align ourselves too closely with a particular political party, we lose the ability to have a voice in what it means to carry out God’s commands in Genesis to our responsibility of care for His Creation.
You asked:
I think that avoidance of coarse language and cultural/hedonistic excess are primarily related to personal purity and holiness - which is important.
I think that the issue of exploitation of other humans (such as with sweatshops) is a failure to love your neighbor and is a ‘right to life’ issue. Since we don’t see “those people”, because we are removed from them, we don’t feel the actual weight of what we’re doing and the effect it is having on other beings also made in the image of God.
I believe that unsustainable use/poor stewardship of the earth is something that we, as Christians, should deeply care about, because it, too, it a ‘right to life’ issue - from the health of people in our own generation to the health and welfare of people in our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s (many times removed) generations.
Our dependence on oil has to change at some point, because it is not an everlasting resource.
The push for bio-fuels is incredibly troubling, as well, though for different reasons (taking millions of bushels of corn to convert to alcohol to power automobiles when that same food could take a huge chunk out of world hunger - let alone the effect that modern corn farming has on the soil).
Personally, nuclear power seems, in many ways, to be a near- and mid-to-long term solution, but the same groups that provide much of the ‘green’ agenda in the world are the same ones who shy away from nuclear power because of the weapons potential for its products/byproducts.
These are not ’secular’ or ‘non-cultural’ issues - they are issues of life that we, as Christians, should care about but often don’t.
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:39 am
Chris, I’m with you.
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:43 am
Nathan and Chris:
Thanks for the clarifications.
Although I wouldn’t consider myself to be “green,” I agree we should be good stewards of the things/earth God has provided. I drilled DON’T LITTER into my kids so much, they think it is an offense worthy of the death penalty. We just returned from the Grand Canyon–one of God’s better efforts–and we were SHOCKED at the number of people that thought nothing of disposing of their garbage wherever they were standing!
Chris, if you are interested, check out the Fischer-Tropsch process. Hitler fueled a large percentage of his air force with this stuff (I’ve been told).
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Keith,
Interesting stuff - I always end up spending a lot of time looking for down-sides, as well (the whole ‘unintended consequences’ thing, like with bio-fuels - renewable, certainly, but devastating on the third world (and our own grocery shelves, too)). I keep wondering how far off a viable fusion reactor will be, with many estimates of a century, at least…
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
I’m sure a “flux capacitor” is just around the corner. Anyone know where I can find an old DeLorean?
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Actually, Keith, it might not require an old Delorean, if this is to be believed.
August 5th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
[...] Notice it is not “just as Jesus said†yet once again, but “just as John MacArthur has saidâ€. Unfortunately these men are the ones that have tacked a culture onto Christianity that was never supposed to be there. The German culture of the 1700s and the American culture of the 1950s have been so ingrained with their Christianity that they cannot separate the two. As explained in my post here, it is impossible to separate the movement of Jesus Christ from the culture in which it exists. [...]