Cultural Effects: The Right to Believe

Another characteristic of American culture, and how it affects our Christianity.

Individual Freedom of Conscience

American culture tends to think of religious experience as personal, private and largely emotional, while public, professional, and intellectual life are something separate from faith. This is part of the “separation of church and state” that, on the good side, allows for religious pluralism within the United States, so that forced conversions or persecution of members of other faiths is generally not part of the national history of the U.S. (the Mormons may object to this generalization). Christianity is allowed to develop a lifestyle and worldview among its members apart from the mandates of the government (though this lifestyle clearly has not occurred apart from the cultural influence of political theory and events).

This cultural characteristic is positive in a huge way: in the majority of human experience, religion has been taken as a legitimate cause for internal repression or outward aggression by rulers and their armies, occasionally out of misguided conviction, but more often, it seems, as a pretext for greed and power. The consistent call through the Old and New Testament to worship God from the heart, not merely with outward conformity, makes forced conversions unproductive, if not counterproductive, to shaping true followers of Christ.

The weakness that this tolerance can cause is accepting that their individual choice has no implications for public living, but only affects what a person does, as it were, “on his (or her) own time.” The basic Christian act of evangelism is attacked by some as improper, at least "in a professional setting." The frustrating and easily misdirected task of applying Christian principles to political action keeps believers swinging between alternating extremes of overemphasizing the political activism allowed in the American system and retreating from the governmental sector with the conclusion that faith belongs only in the private and social realm, and cannot be effectively applied in the political process.

A Christian view on freedom of conscience allows for dialogue, recognizes evangelism as distinctive to the Christian life, and acknowledges that God is the one who ultimately brings people to faith - state mandates or forced conversions will not bring about genuine belief by all who profess faith because it is necessary or advantageous. It allows the gospel to affect every area of our life - private, professional, public - without accepting the secular definition of tolerance that requires all to set aside a belief in truth and accept the dogma of relativism. As people in a fallen world, as citizens in a diverse nation, we allow those in false religion and unbelief to worship as they choose. As Christians, we work hard to persuade them of the truth with loving concern, recognizing that the right to believe whatever one chooses does not mean that whatever one chooses to believe is right.

The Influence of (American) Culture Upon a Christian's Worldview

There will be more posts on this topic coming, looking at various distinctive elements of American culture, and how they affect our way of doing church and living our faith - some good, some bad.

The extent to which our culture shapes our perception of what it means to be a Christian can be quite surprising, and even unnerving. Yet discovering how culture influences our view of reality is highly valuable, as it is a step toward discovering the blind spots in our worldview. By understanding the distinctive elements of an American approach to life, we are in a better situation to evaluate whether the assumptions we identify contradict distinctively Christian thinking, and bring our lives into closer conformity with God's pattern, allowing for the beauty of cultural variety while accepting the universal claims God makes on his image-bearers. One of the distinctive elements of American culture is...

Individualism

The extreme concept of individual identity and right to self-determination dominates American culture. This sense of independence and personal rights distinguishes our culture from others, bringing positive and negative results. The stamp of the image of God on humanity gives value to every person, and a culture that affirms the dignity inherent in being a human individual fits with a Christian worldview. However, when a healthy concept of individuality progresses to become individualism, problems can occur. The effects of individualism on American Christianity are legion, and a few significant effects are discussed here.

The idea of a right to choose one’s own religion coupled with the desire to determine one’s own destiny has led evangelicals to incorporate Jeffersonian ideals into church structure. Nancy Pearcey observes that, during the Second Great Awakening, “The priesthood of all believers was taken to mean religion of the people, by the people, for the people” (275). This meant the rejection of traditional and hierarchical church structures as authoritative. Just as the nation rejected traditional forms for the “rule of law,” where a document (at least in principle) set the parameters for law, so evangelicals seek to go directly to the text of Scripture, individually determine its meaning, express a personal view, and vote or otherwise influence practice accordingly.

The result is congregational rule and a very loose view of membership: it is an at-will agreement for mutual benefit - result. Spiritual life is viewed as viable apart from a community: “In many churches, the individual alone with his Bible is regarded as the core of the Christian life” (Pearcey, 293). A church is thus viewed as the sum of its members, who are all basically equal. This implies that leaders can be removed easily if the people are unhappy with them - they are not entrenched with nearly the same firmness of authority as in traditional church structures, but are allowed to lead by the consent of the majority of the members.

A celebrity mindset has taken the place of the hierarchical structures rejected by most of American Christianity, so that celebrity status does more to determine the widespread influence of a church leader. This allows individuals to decide whether they like a leader or not based on charisma, dramatic ability, public image, and oratory, then freely make a choice whether or not to follow that leader’s influence. The choice can be reversed, and this kind of "following" does not usually mean incurring any obligation or membership commitment as part of an institution. This fits with the analysis of cultural anthropologists Stewart and Bennett that “Personal relations among Americans are adapted to gaining emotional benefits from social interaction while preserving independence and avoiding obligations” (89). Church affiliations are evaluated according to how well the church environment suits the individual, and are all too often treated with very little commitment to be involved and committed to life within that Christian community.

1. Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. Wheaton:

Crossway Books, 2004.

2. Stewart and Bennett. American Cultural Patterns: A Cross-Cultural

Perspective. Rev. Ed. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1991.

Christ and Culture in Paradox (returning to the Christians and Politics series)

Thinking Christianly has so many ethical implications. From the content of our conversations, to our business and employment, to our relationship decisions and sexual behavior, to our personal financial decisions, on to our family lives and so many other things; accepting the gospel as truth and Christ as the ruler of our lives requires us to examine our behavior in light of good theology. And some would say that the body of Christ must also work to bring godly behavior in society around them. Surely if we are in relationship with non-believers around us, our regenerate behavior will influence them to some extent (and if they become believers, to a much greater extent). But does this extend to political advocacy for Christian morals? Well, let me think about it…(and a teacher I know says, “Show your metacognition,” so I will.)

I think this issue is a subset of the larger issue of how Christianity relates to culture. I worked my way through the classic book Christ and Culture (by Richard Niehbur) last year, and as he described and critiqued the ways that the church has related to culture throughout history, three of the approaches he described were “Christ against culture,” “Christ redeems culture,” and “Christ and culture in paradox.” The non-engagement idea I critiqued in my last post would fall under Christ against culture, arguing that the culture of politics is hopelessly corrupt, so Christians should condemn that corruption and avoid being part of its activities and institutions. The second view, Christ as redeemer of culture, seems to be an incredibly popular view right now Many groups are striving to be a part of the activities of culture and infuse them with gospel significance, guided by Christian principles, so that our culture is transformed to reflect what God values and souls are saved. People in this camp love to talk about the “cultural mandate” and say things about being on mission “to the culture.”

While this approach certainly bears a lot of good fruit in spreading the gospel by engaging the culture instead of retreating from it, there’s something that bugs me about it. While it is clearly stated that we are on mission to share the gospel, make disciples, teach those disciples God’s ways, and baptize, we are not told explicitly to bring the culture to salvation. So why make it a “mandate” or “mission”? We must know culture so that we can effectively communicate the gospel to the people in it. And in a sense we are always creating culture by our activities - and especially enculturating people into Christian community, where we are guided by Christian distinctives (with a bunch of non-distinctive thrown in because they are just part of everyday life). But I fear elevating cultural influence to the same level as gospel witness. Doesn’t this make it easier to go down the path of viewing culture-shapers in art, music, literature, government, entertainment, etc as special, more valuable trophies of conversion? Doesn’t this make it more natural to think that by promoting moral values that agree with Christianity we are doing something equal to guiding people to forgiveness through the cross, regeneration through the Holy Spirit, and eternal salvation?

So reading and reflection led me to think that “Christ and culture in paradox” fit more accurately with my understanding of Scripture. In this view, we are constantly living with the (healthy) tension of being citizens of the heavenly kingdom and dwelling on the sin-scarred earth. Believers have a faith in the “not yet” kingdom of Christ so powerful that it tangibly affects the “already” (living under the spiritual rule of Christ in a fallen world). Christians live in the world, and cannot live without affecting and being affected by culture. But making national cultures into Christian cultures would be a silly endeavor, because cultural transformation will not be made complete until the “not yet” of Christ’s coming reign, and our progress in Christianization could be undone at any moment. Our cultural impact is a sign of the right living to come. Kingdom ethics and divine justice will be established, and the world knows this because Christians exemplify and proclaim this good news, sometimes with the approval of their culture-at-large, and sometimes to a resentful and downright nasty response. In this view culture is acknowledged without being demonized or glorified, and cultural influence fits into the paradox of using finite life on a decaying planet to point toward never-ending life on a restored planet when heaven comes to earth.

With this mental superstructure in place, we can now construct the office of Christianity and politics. While many thinkers throughout history have conceptualized Christendom, I think that the label should be “Christianity and evangelism.” With the assumption that evangelism means proclaiming and living the implications of the good news of God’s salvation and coming reign through Jesus Christ, we ought to assess any political involvement that will be performed under the label “Christian” or “evangelical” in terms of how it will relate to our evangelism. If we are convinced that our action will give us more and better opportunities to share the full message of God’s revelation in a loving and truthful way, then we can vote, advocate, and campaign with no hesitations. This does not mean that there should be no opposition or protest to the policies - sometimes doing what is best for society does not make its members happy. We just need to make sure our actions are making the church a more effective witness in the world, not simply promoting empty moralism or cultural values that are not distinctively Christian (e.g., low taxes and small government, prohibition of alcohol, the right to bear arms)

We ought to ask ourselves: when we oppose gay marriage, or we oppose giving out condoms, are we helping our gospel witness by working for a societal structure where sin is called sin? Or are these actions perceived as hateful or lacking compassion, and simply making sinners more stubborn and hardened because we are trying to force them to live in a godly manner before they have been regenerated and transformed by the gospel?

More must be said…but on another day.