Bob Dylan shocked the world when he publicly embraced Christianity and released Slow Train Coming”. A few years ago, he frustrated the Church when he walked away from organized religion, yet continued to write deeply spiritual songs, such as “Man in a Long Black Coat.” Christians don’t often know what to do with free-spirited artists or a progressive culture that doesn’t fit into the stiff religious garments of a traditional mindset. That’s why artists like U2 and Van Morrison often find a home off the church reservation with their untamable yet penetrating spirituality, and why movies like Footloose or Chocolate resonate in the broader conversation.
To what extent should Christians entangle themselves in a broader secular culture, and to what extent should they withdraw from the world and be separate? Isaiah tells God’s people to “come out from them and be separate,” and Jeremiah tells them, “build houses and settle down.” So, which one is it?
What is Culture?
Culture is simply the collective scripts we follow in our laws, parenting, Instagram reels, commercials, restaurant décor, clothes we wear, social etiquette, classrooms, music lyrics, coffee shops, or sporting events. Culture is the wardrobe that humans wear and the choices we make within a specific community. It’s the external expression of internal values. Culture is not necessarily right or wrong; it’s amoral. Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Sherlock Holmes’ methodological naturalism, or Jean Rousseau’s Social Contract capture a culture. Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and Breaking Bad capture a culture. The Last Supper and the Piss Christ both capture a different culture. These are icons that have been generated by humans and contain the ingredients of human passions.
You can hear the cry for meaning in songs like Billy Eilish’s What Was I Made For, or John Mayer’s, Something’s Missing. That unapologetic quest for truth, whether in philosophy or art, is a roadmap to the soul. That’s a God-made hole being expressed through music. But culture can also be filled with sink-holes, too. Shawn Mendez’s insanely catchy song “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back” is a casting off of inhibition. That trail of breadcrumbs leads to the witch’s house, where we are devoured by carnal desires.
The Scriptures warn us about the things we pay attention to and immerse ourselves in (Romans 8:5; Philippians 4:8; Romans 12:2; Psalm 36:1). Culture can be ennobling, self-indulgent, or a confusing mixture of both. Culture is a tapestry of all of our spiritual, carnal, aesthetic, political, and relational desires. We can be deified or degraded by it. To live in a diverse American experience and to raise children in this syncretistic atmosphere requires discernment. We feel the magnets of attraction pushing and pulling our attitudes, choices, sexuality, commerce, and health standards in various directions. We no longer live on 18th-century homesteads, three miles from the next farm, and are insulated in our family’s oral tradition. Culture is now in our pockets, on our screens, in our bedrooms, on the apps we download and the activities we sign up for. Unavoidable. We must learn how to interact with it and discern it.
Cultural Guides to Lead Us
In his book, Interpreting Your World, Justin Bailey provides the reader with five lenses for engaging with theology and culture. He invites the reader to explore how culture is a collective 1) immune system, 2) power play, 3) moral boundary, 4) sacred experience, and 5) poetic project. The believer can be thoughtful about how we relate to the world through these different vehicles. We can be discerning and selective without being isolated and exclusive. We can celebrate people, art, and artifacts without agreeing with everything they stand for. We can set limits and boundaries to absorb certain culture, or a certain amount of culture.
Sometimes we need trusted voices to lead us through the maze. The modern crime fiction novelist Andrew Klavan, in his book Truth and Beauty, leads his readers through the English Romantic Poets and how they pointed the way for him to understand the words of Jesus more deeply. Or in his classical work, “The Consolation of Philosophy,” the author Boethius integrates Greek philosophy with Christian thought. The Catholic writer Bishop Barron writes an exquisite journey through the aesthetic to the soul in his book. We need trusted tour guides, professors, pastors, and impresarios to selectively expose us to culture in a way that contributes meaningfully and not destructively.
The Incarnation of Jesus
If we are completely removed from the people and community around us, how will we have any navigational compass to share the gospel with them or to build the good Kingdom among them? Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written by a Christian inflamed by the injustice of the American slave trade. Mrs Stowe, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, was the little lady who started a great war. That’s how impactful her book was upon the broader American conversation.
The great mission that Jesus has given believers is to “incarnate” the “incarnation.” Here’s what I mean. Jesus embodied God in human clothing to communicate God’s character and salvation to human culture. Believers are to embody Jesus in other human cultures, communicating his character and salvation to others. We can’t fulfill our mission if we are entirely withdrawn. On the contrary, we can wear the garments of street lingo and graffiti to reach a hip-hop vibe. We can also wear the garments of Latino musica to reach people in Rio de Janeiro. Without losing our “separateness” of values and beliefs, we can contextualize the gospel in ethnic garments around the world.
Jesus himself was the ultimate cultural deviant. He resisted the staid religious codes that isolated people. He mixed it up with the drunks and the Greek pandering socialites. He brought his holiness to very defiled people and into impure locations. Even as the Apostle John was warning, “Do not love the world or anything in the world,” he continued his sentence by defining the world as “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:15-16). He wasn’t saying Christians can’t listen to Jazz music and read a good crime detective novel. He was talking about the appetites of our hearts.
Cultures can be redeemed. Other cultures can also teach us valuable lessons about ourselves and others. Many church fathers, from Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa to Erasmus and Petrarch, believed in drawing as much from philosophy and culture as is morally appropriate. They learned from the Greek philosophies and the Italian Renaissance and incorporated those streams into the expressions of their faith. They believed the Israelite’s could plunder the Egyptians of their silver and gold as they were leaving pagan lands. And in the same way, the Church could acquire the sacred texts and arts from other people around the globe. Listening to other cultures and appropriating the truths they’ve preserved into our own tradition takes humility and confidence. We have to value other people and not come with our spiritual arrogance and self-righteousness. We can come to the conversation with awe and wonder. And yes, we do also have to be discerning and discard what is not worth keeping.
There is No One Christian Culture
It is ironic that so many Christian denominations become defensive about their “way” of doing things. Over time, their methods grow rusty, though. Or they alienate others through Christian “cancel culture.” Or throw people out of the group. Their services become hidebound and scripted: “Sing like this; Worship like this; Don’t do that.” Meanwhile, over and over again, Jesus invites people to take a risk and follow him. Jesus invites Christians to become co-Creators with him; to try new things. To escape the moribund and have an adventure. Lift your worship and your spirit to discover God in new and dynamic ways. Intercede and invite God into the cultures he is trying to redeem. You can love God without compromising. You can choose to live unoffendable and judgment-free. You can help others capture their unfulfilled longing in Christ.
There is no “one” Christian culture or one way to worship or one way to be a Christian in the world. Christianity is the Spirit of Christ in us, building his Kingdom through our diverse personalities and choices. Jesus honors human creativity, reclaims it, and lifts it upwards to God. In that sense, Christianity is to be both humble and serving, but also daring and creative. It delights in diversity and new expressions, but is also rooted in timeless truths. Jesus is, to borrow the term from Joseph Campbell, the Hero With A Thousand Faces. Jesus is the incarnation of a hero story every culture has been yearning for. And the gospel is, to borrow the words from J.R. Tolkien, the ultimate Fairy Story. The gospel is true in the historical sense, but also true in the deepest and most meaningful ways that humans long for. Let’s unshackle the next generation to retell the beautiful and timeless story to new cultures and in new ways.
Tags: culture, creative, technology, isolation, celebration, diversity, free, tradition, artists, desires, society, sacred, syncretism, meditation, aesthetic
