THE TERMS THAT IDENTIFY US MAY NO LONGER BE EFFECTIVE

             Terms like 'Christianity' and 'christian' and certainly 'evangelical' may no longer effectively serve the faith.  They are tarnished when applied too generously in contemptible situations. They are censoriously associated with partisan political affiliations. They are borne by uninformed marginal factions. The difficulty is not a simple comical variance like the potayto/potahto, tomayto/tomahto pronunciations. It pertains to understanding and is profoundly more critical and potentially injurious to faith.  Because they derive from the Christ and the evangel, the terms are associated with one for whom holiness and perfection are intrinsic rather than performed. Divine standards, values and principles are in unambiguous juxtaposition to common human behaviour. People who claim to be Christian or evangelical yet whose lives upon even casual scrutiny, appear to be insincerely linked to Jesus, compromise the identity of believers in the world.  When followers of Jesus credibly embrace by living and conversation their Master's attitudes, they perpetually and predictably clash with societal moralities. Our Canadian culture deplores, sometimes reprimands and even legislates against the expression of faith inspired conduct. The evangel/gospel will speak to non-followers only as our personal faith is genuinely Christian and courageous.

CHURCHES in the CANADIAN CULTURE

Hebrews 13:1-25 contains the concluding exhortations in a book in which the author is concerned enough to restate fundamental doctrinal truths out of concern that believers may fall away. (Read)

From this 13th chapter of warnings and recommendations, I am extracting the 8th verse because it pertains to a Conference theme, 'Changing Culture, Changeless Christ.’  As a Conference participant, it strikes me that verse 8 is the support for the 2nd part of the title, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. What then can be understood about the first part, the Changing Culture?

Canada's culture is defined by behaviours and beliefs of innumerable social, ethnic and age groups. We understand culture as consisting of foods, clothing, special holidays, distinctive music, modes or forums for interaction. Foundationally Canadian culture has been influenced by Aboriginal and European cultures and traditions and has now become a mosaic comprised of an integration of numerous global cultures introduced by immigrants whom we encourage to retain their cultures.  This multi-cultural attitude is unique in that it promotes both exclusivity and compatibility. There is also a sense in which we have been culturally colonized by America whose influence is impossible to ignore because it's the other country in our two-nation continent and its media and Internet contact influences and impacts.

Christians recognize the benefits derived from some of our cultural changes, yet we frequently speak out of concern for the change factors that may adversely influence and affect children, youth, young adults and young parents and inevitably our churches. Attitudes, ethical and sexual mores are communicated in society through music, theatre, film, television productions, literature and conversation. Christians are apprehensive that faith foundations and principles for holy living and character and values will be eroded by a virtual God-free culture. The church desires not only to protect followers of Christ from slippage but also aspires to present Christ's good news to others. Congregants need to interact with the question of whether their church should be changing what it does and how it does it? 

Within an ever-changing societal culture, how should churches speak to people about a human condition that has not changed, and about the Saviour whom it is impossible to change, and about his gospel that must not be changed? Reasonably, if the subject and content are unchangeable, conceivably the communication method(s) we use can be altered, changed, improved to suit an audience.

Consider these contrasts:

1.     One person conducting serious hymns sung from a hymnal and a choir wearing robes, contrasted with choruses led by a worship band of singers, keyboard, guitars and drums and lyrics on a screen.

2.     Solemnity, silence and a Bible in hand contrasted with informality, a coffee cup and an iPhone.

3.     Ties and jackets and dresses contrasted with causal cotton pants for men and women.

4.     Tradition, regularity, consistency, predictability contrasted with innovation, novelty, originality, and surprise.

5.     Small local churches with one pastor and where everyone knows your name contrasted with colossal mega church enterprises or villages with multi staffs.

6.     Pastors preaching through Bible books mornings and evenings contrasted with preaching themes and topics and majoring on application rather than exegesis.

7.     Long churches with pews for everyone facing the pulpit contrasted with round or wide halls and theatre seating directed at a stage.

8.     Old and holy smells contrasted with love and airy.

9.     Words read publicly, responsively, words sung and heard contrasted with images, cartoons, lyrics with landscapes, the pastor's faces up close. 

10. Restrictive rules for living, for church membership, rules pronounced and preached contrasted with ubiquitous freedom and autonomy.

11. Church loyalty to brand and to congregation contrasted with relocating to a different congregation and denomination.

The church in Canada has already changed a great deal within two or three generations?

It's a waste of time to debate whether those shifts and changes to church practice have been progressive or damaging? Furthermore, those changes are not the discussion in which to engage. Rather, since Jesus the LORD is unchanging, how then do Christians fit into this changing Canadian cultural mosaic? Is it possible for Christians to practice their commitment faithfully while accommodating changes that are relevant to their time and culture?

Of greater alarm should be the other changes that parts of the church are advocating, such as panning the trustworthiness of scripture, or the validity of hell, or the exclusivity of Christianity, or the importance of corporate worship, or the necessity of conversion, or the mandate for evangelism.

Here is a fundamental premise statement. The Christian living amidst a community whose mores, ethics and standards change, is herself or himself indwelt by the changeless Spirit of the unchanging Christ who is changing female and male believers into the likeness of Christ using standards that Christ taught ages ago, and that will continue to be the Christian's guidance system within a God-free culture. 

Churches must consider doing things differently? Perhaps because the way people process information has changed. Perhaps because of people's education, or occupations, or conveniences, or interests, or lifestyles or walls of protection or the economy.  Perhaps because society's self-perception is one of progress, advancement, values superiority, and its perception of Christian standards deems them obsolete, archaic and invalid. Perhaps the church can then recognize that it is not imperative to practice faith in the same personal or corporate way as its been done. Churches must embrace the change. How?

WORSHIP IN THE TRUEST SENSE

Worship, within the culture of the present church, comes down to, how well did certain performers do during a specific period of time on Sunday. Worship in the minds of many churchgoers is understood as that which certain people with certain skills do, even when what they do is designed to involve churchgoers. Worship is then evaluated in terms of how well the worship time was planned, how singable and intelligible were the songs that were chosen, how well the musicians played and sang and appeared, and how well the preacher communicated.

Worship is different from that and so much more than that when scripture is the resource for a definition. When scripture describes angels in heaven worshipping and when ancient patriarchs and peoples worshipped, and when early New Testament saints worshipped, that worship clearly related to the person who is the object of the worship rather than to the quality of human performance. Worship in this scriptural sense, has to do with the worth of the object of worship, to be worshipped. God is worthy of worship. Inherent to who God is, is this obligatory response from every created being. There is a natural relationship between God and all that he has created, between the Creator and creation, creatures, mortals, individuals. This normal relationship should naturally compel the created to worship the Creator. The requisite response to worship God has been suppressed and repressed in some of creation, blocked and inhibited, confused and misdirected, intellectualized and redefined or ignored altogether. When something so right as worship, goes so wrong, the only explanation is sin as scripture defines and describes and condemns it. When sin is eradicated from the human through human faith in the reality of Christ's atonement, which issues in divine pardon and renovation of human loyalty, then the Creator once again receives the worship suitable to him, the worship God deserves, the worship the creature yearns to give. Such worship is not prescribed by specific days and times. It is relevant always and constantly appropriate. All that we think, say, do, see, and imagine, shall be to the glory and praise of God. Such concentration insures purity of thought and action.

THE POSTMODERN MIND AND THE CHRISTIAN

A large percentage of people today have a naturalistic worldview and a relativistic morality. For them truth is perceptual and subjective rather than objective and absolute. Experience and observation determine whether something is true or false, and that renders a variable reality, which differs from person to person and culture to culture.

ENGAGING THE WORLD LIKE JESUS DID

Pharisees by James Tissot

Today, Christians tend to relate to the world either as separatist Christians or as cultural Christians. Neither way works well and these approaches have been seen before.
Pharisees insistently enforced rigid obedience to God’s Law and developed additional traditions in order to protect Judaism against the impact of Greek culture. Pharisees held on to their Jewish identity at the expense of relevancy, (Matthew 15:8-14).
Sadducees contrarily clutched relevancy at the expense of their identity, seeking to assimilate with culture, even if it meant surrendering some doctrine. Resurrection was objectionable to the Greeks so the book of Acts reveals that Sadducees threw it out, Acts 17:3; Acts 23:7-8; Matthew 22:23. Into this religious climate Jesus came.

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.

CHRISTIANS AND CULTURE

CHRISTIANS AND THE CULTURE AROUND THEM

How well are Christians engaging with the culture outside the protected church environs? It has been common for churchgoers to view culture as “secular,” evil, and something to be avoided. The former group of Christians whom we may term as ‘legalists’ has categorized believers who have not made the secular/sacred distinction as ‘liberal’ or ‘libertine.’ This dichotomy is not uncommon to Christian conversation and Christians have stereotypically opted for one or the other of these approaches to engaging culture.