The Servant, Culture.

It seems to me that our time is steeped in a certain kind of self-awareness of culture. At least that is how I feel as I listen to the podcasts, peruse the articles and read the books. That’s beside the fact that there is this “culture war” thing happening at the moment as well. But it is not necessarily a new phenomenon. In one sense there are endless “culture wars” as different people-groups vie for control and amongst those groups are subgroups seeking out their own dominance, and amongst the subgroups there are splinter groups doing the same.

But the frontiers of the cultural battles are no longer across literal tribal lines or national borders. We are increasingly a globalised humanity with instant access to each other through mass media communication technologies. So it is that the everyday punter needs to have their wits about them because they will engage with a variety of cultures in a variety of settings in a short period of time.

The Christian wants no stumbling block to come between the gospel and those who need it (so far as is possible). Now, there is a good deal of material about the particularities of this challenge. I have recently read one such book called, “Changing Lanes, Crossing Cultures: Equipping Christians And Churches For Ministry In A Culturally Diverse Society.” This book has all sorts of little particulars that it addresses, which the reader will appreciate very much.

But early on it had a great point regarding the preservation of church culture. I think that this quote goes behind the particulars and looks at the purpose of culture more broadly speaking. The authors write,

“It is certainly true that church culture is often a major hindrance to the advancement of the gospel. Many Christians lack the cultural intelligence and competence needed to negotiate cultural differences. Further, by its very nature, culture exists to serve the needs of those who belong to that culture. The more dependent we are on preserving our own religious culture the more preoccupied we will be with meeting our own needs. The needs of outsiders are then inevitably neglected.”

I found this quote particularly helpful. It is all too easy to get caught up in the “culture wars” that are currently being attended to but never ask what the purpose behind any given culture is in the first place. What is the underpinning purpose behind any culture? The authors of this quote helpfully point out that culture exists to serve those who belong to it. But as we battle it out for top place we may all too readily slip into the error that is warned against in this quote. To preserve a culture (of which the authors are particularly thinking about church cultures) to the nth degree is to flip on the head the purpose of culture itself. No longer is one helped by one’s culture, but one is ceaselessly attending to propping it up.

To fully take on board the weight of this quote is asking a lot of us. It would take a great deal of self-reflection and self-awareness to do justice to this kind of thinking. That is because our culture is the air that we breathe. We never stop to ask what it’s made up of, we simply understand that it keeps us going.

Nevertheless, I think that this quote is very helpful at prodding us to consider the purpose of culture in the first place, particularly our church cultures. Are we helping the propagation of the Gospel through our church culture? Or are we propagating our church culture despite the difficulties it poses to those outside the church?

To answer and address these questions will take great help from the Holy Spirit, a careful guard against easy-going groupthink, and the input of many saints from all sorts of backgrounds.

Culturally relevant engagement is a daunting task. But that’s okay, because it’s worth it.

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Work cited:

Schachtel, Andrew, Choon-Hwa Lim, and Michael K Wilson. Changing Lanes, Crossing Cultures: Equipping Christians and Churches for Ministry in a Culturally Diverse Society, 2016. p.73