In light of cultural shifts like the derecognizing of
InterVarsity Campus Ministries by Cal State, I
These changes are not reasons to grow angry or defensive,
but become new and potentially powerful opportunities for Christians to follow
Christ with more clarity than before and for the Church to rise up and be the
difference it is supposed to be. I think
it is entirely possible that the American church has relied on its cultural
position of strength for too long and has thus been caught a bit off its guard
as the cultural shift away from Christian values picks up steam. So, to begin
with, we need to rethink our relationships with cultural power structures.
This is a massive issue and one that I think deserves a
lot of attention, so here are two very quick thoughts.
Christians and Cultural Power
In the past 35 years, conservative Christians have been
very active in politics, creating what might be the most influential political
movement in that time. The hope was that
movements like the Moral Majority would produce the kind of change in the halls
of power that would preserve Christian values and act as a kind of influence on
the rest of it. Its actual effects are
debatable. However, at the same time we
have sorely neglected other places of power that turn out to be far more
influential than the evangelical world once believed.
The halls of education, from Pre-K to Doctoral Programs,
are the cultural canaries of our time.
Do you want to know what lawyers, journalists, and movie producers will
be thinking 10-20 years from now? Take a
look at their college curriculum and professors today.
The art world has become a bit of a joke to everyone but
those buried within it, in large part because of the loss of transcendent values
and the belief in anything beyond this world and immediate experience. This part of our culture is more influential
than many would expect, and needs a re-injection of the beliefs and values that
made Western Art beautiful centuries ago.
Kingdoms
Whether or not the Christian knows it, within their
belief system is the understanding that the Kingdom of God is the most powerful
kingdom on earth right now. That
deserves a little explanation. Most Christians,
by virtue of their cultural sensitivities, are under the impression that the things
this world calls power are real or actual power. There is no doubt that guns
and economic policies wield a certain kind of power in the world, but every time
they wield themselves against the Church, the Church wins. The Church, when appropriately
dislodged from state powers, does not enforce itself through guns and
money. Yet, when the guns and money of
this world are turned against the Church, the state loses every time. How can
this happen?
The Church has access to God’s kind of power and when it
wields it well, nothing overcomes it. Christians need to learn to have their
vision of power changed in order to comprehend and live in the kind of power
given to them by God. Jesus’ disciples
once asked him if it was time to restore the kingdom to Israel. This was a question about earthly power, and
full of their expectation that Jesus’ power was of that kind. His answer is essentially, “God will decide
when that kind of power will be unleashed. You will receive power, but not that
kind of power.” He actually said, “But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be
my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). They received
plenty of power, but none of them filled the halls of government.
Christians and churches will need to readjust their
vision of culture and their role within in it while all the props we were
accustomed to are pulled out from underneath us. This is not time for panic,
but for renewed focus on discipleship and the Kingdom of God among us.
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