Evangelism efforts and Culture

[fccool]

I've written this article a while ago. Forgive my ignorance of grammar (as much of my brain is still Russian-wired). But, I'd like to hear your thought on the subject.

I still vividly remember my Christian Media Ethics classes and the question posed in the class discussions. I never thought that I would be asking the same questions again, and this is exactly what I find myself doing lately when it comes to church’s role in society and our relationship as Adventist Christians towards the world surrounding us.

In one of these class discussions a model was proposed that suggested the relationship between the world culture and the Christian culture of today. According to the model, the culture went about in circles, which Christians trailing behind the full circle. As an example of that we observed how church viewed media and technology.

At first it was viewed as evil and was avoided, while the world moved forward accepting the changes. As more individuals conformed to the cultural changes, the church would eventually change its views on the subject and embrace the technology as means of spreading the gospel. The model did not place Christians at the forefront of the cultural changes. It did not place the Christians as the counter culture either. It placed them constantly trailing the culture a full lap behind, while trying hard to catch up by mimicking the “safer” parts of it.

The veracity of this model could be demonstrated through a church history of the “sacred music”, or the music that is acceptable to God. During the middle Ages, Gregorian chant was such music. The organ was called “Devil’s Bagpipe”. Later on, the piano took place of an organ as “Bar Instrument” to be used for intertainment. And now many find themselves singing the Christian hymns to the tune of the old piano bar song, while calling the drums and guitars to be demonic and worldly.

So, as rule of thumb, we don’t find church to be the trendsetter. For the most part, the church ends up to be following a set of traditions that considered to be acceptable to God, and a certain generations stick to the tradition, until the new generation comes and adds to these based on the environment changes that they have adopted to. The result is a “bottled up” church culture that the world sees as “outdated” and “boring”, thus resulting in newer generations abandoning the church seeking for the replacement of their perceived needs.

The big question is what does God expect His church to be? Should they embrace the culture, or reject it. Early church is a safe model for any church to follow when it comes to the subject of “church vs. culture”. What we find is the early church neither completely rejected it, neither did it conform to it, and it definitely did not attempt to merely mimic it. It TRANSFORMED it.

Let’s look at the example of such transformation in Acts 2. What we hear Peter scream to the crowd of Jews was a far cry from a sermon. It was a several points followed by “Frequently Asked Questions” session. If it was a sermon, I would not imagine it lasting more than 5 minutes. Yet, these people were listening attentively because not too long ago the apostles were speaking in languages that they could not possibly known. It was clear that these people saw and believed that they were hearing people who clearly were sent by God, having the gifts of God. As a result they were open to what the apostles had to say, and lives were changed followed by the radical transformation of the culture.

Those who gladly received the word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers... All who believed were together, and had all things in common; and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:41-42,44-47).

Some consider this event to be the birth of the early church, as we know it. Looking back at the event it almost seems like an improbable transformation for our day and age. After all, we are living in the post-modern “culture of me”.

Lack of genuine human communication is very common in our culture, as more and more people are disconnected, and what’s worse – they accept it as normal. Current generation lives in virtual worlds and spend incredible amounts of time communicating by virtual means (i.e. internet and cellphones). They order our food to go. They spend a great deal of their lives leaving messages, or talking to pre-recorded voices. They try to escape the grim reality with help of Hollywood, abusive substances, or computer gaming industry. They can go entire day, from their studio apartment, to the car, to their cubicles, then back to the car and then to the studio apartment, and all without a single meaningful conversation… and the worse part about it – they are so used to it all that it just seems normal to them.

What can the church do in a culture where friendly strangers are considered suspicious, where truth is “relative”, and where religion is synonymous with “boredom”? What would the apostles do if they would face this culture?

As you may have noticed that the word “culture” has been repeated quite a few times by now. Since the issue of culture is at the forefront, I think it’s about time to define what we mean by “culture”. There are several definitions, so I crammed all of them into a simpler one. Culture consists of behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group. To put it even more simply, culture is a way of life.

Based on this definition, culture is not something that we can simply avoid, or shield out children from. If we are to deal with people, and people live according to certain rules and precepts of society, then we are to actively engage the culture… no matter how grim it may be. It’s unavoidable. Our way of life is cultural, whether you like it or not.

The challenge of the evangelism today is not as much getting the message out there, but conveying the message in a way that gives it a fair chance to be heard and understood. We live in an increasingly busy world that is full of distractions and misconceptions. If our evangelism efforts to be effective, then essentially we have to not only concentrate on our message, but also modes of presenting it.

This is the reason why Jesus spoke and taught using parables. People understood the message of the gospel in context of their culture as Jesus was presenting it using by means of an interesting and relevant story. Thus the mode was less of a confrontation and criticism, but of education and mindset change.

Out of the context of one’s culture it is very difficult to understand foreign concepts. Today, I find some Christians beating their heads against the wall trying to figure out why “people just don’t understand” and don’t respond. If we accept Christianity as our way of life, we have to be able to share it in context of the current culture, yet without conforming or adulterating the message. People don’t understand, because the concept is foreign to their culturally learned beliefs and contexts, which reside in the realm of fallen and thus spiritually dead world. Can a spiritually dead man understand the “meat” of the deeper spiritual things without first being fed the “milk” of Christ, or … even concept of existence of God?

Thus, instead of using the culture as a vehicle for the message, it cripples it. Instead of using the culture as Jesus did to preach to the masses of unbelievers, the church in its evangelistic efforts often ends up preaching to the choir, and often because the message is tailored and thus fit for the choir. Unfortunately this is the case for the most things that carry the label “Christian”, be it a Christian movie, Christian TV station, Christian radio, or a Christian book. I’m not trying to discard the need of such nourishment for existing believers. Yet many of these things that begin with mass evangelism in mind, find their way in a place where the evangelism is needed the least – existing body of believers.

What is the remedy for such phenomenon of the Christian bubble? We need to understand and study culture. If we do, we may find that culture is not always “evil” or “good”, and that it may be a different way of doing the same things. God is a God of variety as He demonstrates through His creation, yet somehow we find ourselves canonizing our cultural preferences while criticizing those of others. We have to realize that cultural preferences are just that – cultural preferences. I’m not talking about cannibalism or sexuality. I’m talking about the gray issues. Knives could be used to prepare a meal, or to hurt and kill people. Thus media could be used to educate and to inform, or to mislead to enslave.

And that’s the whole idea behind cultural transformation. We don’t have to chug the whole thing in the garbage, but we can sublimate it by showing that it can be used for benefit of all, as most of the things have that ability.

Secondly, we have to stop separating the world into “spiritual” and “non-spiritual”. You know – “spiritual” things being the church activities, Christian books and music, while non-spiritual being everything else. We need to recognize that everything that we do is “spiritual” because it either draws us closer to, or further away from our Creator. What would you consider to be “non-spiritual” in a world created by the spiritual God, and that is being led astray by fallen spiritual beings? There’s absolutely nothing “non-spiritual” about it. God did not leave the gory details out of the Bible. Some Biblical events are described in a violent and at times even pornographic way. We have to face the reality, and be honest about it, yet with understanding that this is not the way things should be. Then we would be able to understand, and relate to people in an honest and caring way.

And thirdly, and most importantly, we need to stop focusing on the perceived “problems”, but the underlying causes behind these perceived “problems”. You see, the problem with this world is not all the violence, all the wars, all the pornography, all the lying and stealing and etc. The problem is misplaced love. People are being deceived into loving the wrong things. They are deceived to love money from the moment they can know what it is. They are deceived to love the Hollywood and Sports celebrities (or people that we celebrate) as examples of mainstream behavior. They are deceived to love alcohol and pornography as a way to relief the stress they are dealing with. They are deceived to love the things as these are without considering what these could be.

It is then we would see a need to show a better alternative to love, and we could explain it in language that others could relate to and understand.