CHRISTIAN SCHIZOPHRENIA ABOUT ENGAGING CULTURE

I hope to demonstrate a correlation between the last two posts on Monday and Tuesday, that is, the church’s schizophrenic engagement with the culture and the increased number of millenials leaving the existing church.
First, I underscore the paradox mentioned in yesterday entry. Christians grapple with tension because scripture urges them to be careful about the world’s influence upon them while instructing them to be intentional about influencing the world.
For instance, here is the way the caution sounds. ” Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27 NIV). As well there is “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2, NIV). And here is the way an exhortation to action sounds. “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden,” (Matthew 5:14 NIV). He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation,” (Matthew 16:15).

Second, I return to the constant in this paradox conundrum – Jesus. Always, the Christian’s guide is an authentic answer to the compelling question, what would Jesus do? Better known by an acronym WWJD. Scripture does provide evidence. The accounts of his life written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John depict Jesus being able to keep in healthy tension, his calling to be holy among real people with whom he rubbed shoulders, and staying away from corrupting influences upon himself. Extracting a brief phrase from each of two verses, John 1:10 and John 8:23, one could say Jesus was in the world but he was not of the world. That is the well-adjusted approach we should pursue.