The Church and Culture Creating: Making changes that last…

I have referred to this before, but it is worth calling attention to once again. In his very popular song, “Waiting On The World to Change,” John Mayer suggests that the present generation of young people feels frustrated with trying to change the world for the better. Deep down, Mayer suggests, young people know that the system is corrupt and that calling for change in the present is close to hopeless. Therefore, we should not be seen as lazy when we complain about “the issues,” while doing little else to affect change. Instead, we are simply waiting our turn to be the ones in charge, and, then, we will make the difference.

I would have to agree with Mayer’s conclusion that “world change” is not a fight that can be won right now, but I do not agree with his solution, waiting for the levelheaded and enlightened youth to one day have a turn. The world will always be a corrupt place. Yet, this is no reason to admit defeat, as if, because the world around us is corrupt, no good can be done in the world. Perhaps, we are simply fighting the wrong fight. Is world change the right course?

The question is, “How do we do good?” For secularist, the only solution is to fix the world, because it is all we have. Again, I fear for this group that the world Mayer sees today will be the way the world is as long as this world exists. Christians, on the other hand, believe in a more permanent good, an ultimate good. Many Christians believe the best way to bless the world is to, in some way, impart this good upon the world itself. We have tried creating a Christian Nation. We have tried voting our views in place. We have tried social engineering. Can this work? Can the church “change the world”?

Indeed, the great irony with the North American Christian community's obsession with becoming world changers, as outsiders like Alan Wolfe and insiders like Ron Sider have documented, is that so far and on the whole we are much more changed than changing. The rise of interest in cultural transformation has been accompanied by a rise in cultural transformation of a different sort the transformation of the church into the culture's image.

(Crouch, 89)

As Christians, we must remember our relationship to the Kingdom, the Church, and the world, three separate, but interlocking political realities (poleis), three realities in which the Christian, in some way and by varying degrees, belongs.

It is true that Christ’s Kingdom is realized anywhere (including hearts) in which He fully reigns. The Kingdom of God is, of course, spread whenever persons accept Christ’s lordship, but it is also centralized—and we must not forget this fact—as the realm from which God reigns. That reality is transcendent, and, therefore, it is not to be understood as being fully accessible or fully here in this present age. Not until New Jerusalem touches down on the New Earth will the realms of humanity and the realm of God be fully united again. Until then, all Christians who are living (in this present life) have citizenry in New Jerusalem, but must live abroad in this world (Philippians 3:20, 21).

The world represents the realm of humanity, and, because of sin, a nation of the lost. It is the current realm in which we all live. We are born in a fallen realm, and, even when we are saved, we are left in this realm until we pass.  The world is a fleeting reality, because it is currently ruled by evil, and, yet, evil has already been defeated in the cross, which promises a final victory over evil. Thus, this world will pass. This age has a set date for closing. In the meantime, humans must try to do with the world what they can, because it is simply where we find ourselves. Thus, we continue to create government, laws, culture, homes, and so on.  The Christian, while a participant in this project, does not have his or her hope rest on this project. It is understood as temporary.

Even so, there is a sort of middle place, the church. The church is a diaspora, a polis without a geopolitical center. There are Christians in many, many nations; thus, our reality transcends boarders. The church is made up of all citizens of New Jerusalem that, even though we live, must die before we enter the full presence of the Lord (at least until consummation) and won’t be fully at home in the country of our citizenship until we enter New Jerusalem. The church can be understood as the sum of all those realities in which resident aliens (to borrow a term a title from Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon) take up the culture of the Kingdom while living in the world. Like the ethnic boroughs made up of dense foreign immigrants that take up space in large metropolises, we too make something of the space and time in which we live, importing cultural ways of being from the homeland. Like boroughs, we live distinctly different than the world around us, but we are still in the world that surrounds us and must in many ways move with it. Even so, we practice home life to remember where we truly belong and to share something of home with each other and our neighbors.

It is this taste of home that God plans to use to bring an allure to His way and His life (Matthew 5:14-16). When people of the world can see tangible aspects of the Kingdom of God by the actions of the Church, they too might want to take part, to give up their credentials of the world for citizenship in the Kingdom. As disciples, we have a longing to be participates in the Kingdom. Christians have what seems to be an insatiable appetite to leave their mark on the world, like scrawling one’s initials in the family stead as the framing goes up, we look to leave our own impressions.

However, if we want to leave our mark in a place that will leave a lasting impression, not just on the physical world, but on the hearts and minds of others, is a stud the place to do it? No. It soon enough is covered up. Leaving our mark on the world itself might be likewise foolish. This world will soon be covered up, and many realities come and go here in the world. The lasting realities are the church and the Kingdom to which the church belongs, and it is the church (not the fullness of the Kingdom), which the world can see. Thus, that is where we are to leave our cultural marks, in a place both lasting and visible.

At first, it might seem strange to say, “Keep your mark in the church,” but again, it is the life of the church itself that draws people out of darkness and into the light. We should be about and for the culture of the church for the sake of those dying in this world. If we want to leave an impression on people, culture is the place to do it, since culture, as we have already noted, overlaps the church and the world (we are here together and, therefore, in some ways, must move together). Therefore, if we wish to invest in cultural change, we must choose wisely how to do this. Again, I suggest we choose to create culture within the boundaries of the church for the sake of the world.

Investing in secular causes for the sake of justice might at times be appropriate, but we must remember that any change in the way the world works is fleeting. We have seen this reality time and again. Nations rise and fall. America might be a worthy investment, but it is only worthy to a point, because, whether we like it or not, the United States of America is not a lasting state. I can make investments in the home I rent, but it would be foolish to pay for any large scale change in this home, because it is not mine; it is not permanent. Going out to vote is not terribly costly. Lending our voice to our nation by writing our senators is not an unworthy action. But, investing all our time and money for “change” on large scale secular campaigns is, perhaps, unwise and, again perhaps, from a misunderstanding of our calling in this world:

From a Christian point of view, the world needs the church, not to help the world run more smoothly or to make the world a better and safer place for Christians to live. Rather, the world needs the church because, without the church, the world does not know who it is. The only way for the world to know that it is being redeemed is for the church to point to the Redeemer by being a redeemed people. (Hauerwas and Willimon, 94)

What people really need is not legislation or bust, but a more permanent solution, a place of belonging that promises that no matter what happens in this realm, citizens have permanent security. This is something that the secular world cannot promise, only the church. Shifting our thinking from investing our moral concern into the world at all cost and towards investing in the church regardless of the world’s movements, is a radical shift in perspective, but it is a more lasting cause.

What am I trying to say to you? If you are for helping the hurting, the oppressed, the hopeless, and the dying, don’t be about changing the city, state, country, or world around you as much as you are for investing in the life of your local church (and, perhaps, the church universal). Be a part of creating a culture that shows the people of your town that there is more to life than present comfort. There is a glorious calling to a way of being that is beyond this world.

-Andy Crouch. Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Kindle Edition) p. 189

-Hauerwas, Stanely, William H. Willimon. Resident Aliens. (Nashville: Abingdon Press) p. 94