How do Christians live in, and respond to, the culture in which they find themselves? About a half century ago, H. Richard Niebuhr attempted to answer that question in his book Christ and Culture. He offered five possible responses to the question. First, he said that some Christians have claimed that we should see our response as, “Christ against Culture.” In this view the Christian’s allegiance is only to Christ, and a radical choice confronts every person: either to follow Christ or the world. The prince of the world is the devil, therefore Christians should separate themselves and withdraw from the present evil culture and condemn it.
The second response of some Christians, historically, has been to see it as the “Christ of Culture.” Their Christ is the Christ who is a product of the culture. These would be cultural Christians who say that the Gospel should be interpreted according to current intellectual and scientific categories. They embrace the culture and believe it is necessary for Christians to accommodate to it. Whereas the first group would separate itself from the culture, this group would blend into it.
The third point of view would be to see “Christ above Culture.” Niebuhr calls the people in this group synthesists because they want to bring together the values of Christ and the culture. They claim that there are other laws besides the laws of Jesus Christ; and it is necessary to follow them. Christians live in the material world, but seek to rise above the material world by following the ideals taught by Christ.
The fourth view is called “Christ and Culture in Paradox.” The paradox view says that both Christ and the culture claim our loyalty, and we live in that tension which is never resolved in this life. The culture may force us to do things against our conscience. Nevertheless, we have to live in the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world, and we must live with the conflicts it causes.
The fifth view is called, “Christ the Transformer of Culture.” This view is optimistic about the ability of Christians to affect the culture. It believes that the culture cannot only be influenced, it can be converted. And the reason for this is that it sees the result of the sin of Adam and Eve (which we call “The Fall”) as corrupting things that were originally good, and are therefore capable of reform and renewal. This was John Wesley’s view. It sees the church as called to be a holy community here on earth which serves as a testimony and model of what the world could be. The church is visibly set apart from the non-Christian culture, and yet it engages and serves it. The church does not change the world by its own effort, but it sees God at work as it remains faithful and continues to announce the good news. The church sees its responsibility to be Christ to the world. It does not believe that you can legislate Christianity into existence, but it sees God at work behind the scenes bringing about his kingdom — in spite of the resistance and even the hostility of the culture.
We see all of these models at work in the Bible. This morning we will look at three different models of dealing with the culture. These models are acted out by colorful people. Let’s first look at: the prophet Jonah. Jonah is an interesting guy. He is the most successful of the Old Testament prophets, and yet the most resentful. You remember the story. God tells him to go to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, Israel’s fierce enemy. They were savage warriors and extremely cruel to the countries they conquered. Israel suffered greatly under Assyria. What makes the story more interesting is that Assyria is modern day Iraq. God tells Jonah to go and preach to the country of his enemies, but he hates them and refuses. He does not want them to hear the good news of a God who is willing to forgive if they repent. He does not want them to repent — an interesting disposition for a prophet of God.
So Jonah runs from God and hops the closest boat he can find. He thinks that surely God will not find him when he leaves Israel and is on the sea. But God shows up, because God is determined to reach the people of Nineveh. The sailors on the ship throw Jonah overboard and he is swallowed by a great fish that brings him back to land and rather unceremoniously deposits him on the shore. Reluctantly, Jonah makes his way to Nineveh. He yells at the people, warning of coming judgment, and then parks himself outside the city and waits for God to destroy them. Israel had not repented, so why would he expect Assyria to repent. But they did repent. The Bible says, “The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth” (Jonah 3:5). We don’t see that kind of revival in Israel. The king took off his royal robes, put on sackcloth and sat in the dust. He made a proclamation and said, “But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence” (Jonah 3:8). When God saw what they did, he had compassion and did not bring destruction on them. But Jonah is mad at God for being compassionate and forgiving. He wants the enemies of his nation destroyed. Listen to him as he says, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:2-3).
The Bible says that Jonah was angry with God and wanted to die. But God had compassion on Jonah as well. He caused a vine to grow up and give him shade as he sat in the hot sun waiting for the demise of Nineveh. But the next morning God sent a worm to eat the vine and cause it to wither. Now Jonah is really mad at God. But the Lord said to him: “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left (i.e. infants and children), and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:10-11). And the book abruptly ends with that question. God wanted Jonah to share his compassion for the people of Assyria, but he would have been happy to see them all go to hell. He only speaks words of judgment.
We have Christian friends in our community who feel it is important to go to the Middle Path at Kenyon College and preach about sin, hell and judgment. They write letters condemning the unfaithful in the papers. By dress and manner they separate themselves from the world. Jonah.
Jonah’s model was “Christ against Culture.” He saw his responsibility as telling the culture how evil it was and pronouncing judgment. There was no compassion or desire to reach the lost culture, only a desire to condemn it, and hopefully to see God destroy it. Jonah saw his mission to the culture as hopeless, and the only answer was to withdraw from it — even though God was asking him to engage the culture, speak to it, and call it to himself.
I’m concerned that the church of North America is becoming Jonah-like. We sometimes come across as angry and accusatory. We are jingoistic and are resentful of our enemies rather than working to be reconciled to them. We are self-righteous and smug about our own goodness, even though we don’t have much to be smug about. We are hawkish and nurse grudges against anyone who threatens our security.
I had an interesting experience this last September 11 as Christians from churches all over Mount Vernon gathered on the town square to remember the victims of 9/11 and pray for our nation. I was asked to be one of those who prayed that evening. I prayed for the victims and their families. I thanked God for the courage of those who worked and even died trying to rescue the people in those buildings. But then I prayed, “And Lord, as you have asked us to do, I pray for our enemies. I pray that you would speak to them and draw them to yourself. I pray that you would bless them, as you taught us to pray. Bless them so they might know of your love for them that they might turn to you.” I prayed for Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. I didn’t hear any “amen’s.” It seemed eerily quiet to me. I wondered to myself if we would have been happier to sit by as God destroyed them. The church of Jonah.
But then there is that part of the church that is the opposite of Jonah. The second model we will look at is exemplified by: The story of Esther in the Old Testament. You remember that she is the beautiful young Jewish girl that the Persian king, Xerxes, chooses to be a part of his harem, and eventually chooses her to be his new queen. Her life becomes pretty good. She has royal privileges. She eats the best of food and wears the best of clothes. Her life is one of luxury. She has a great deal of control over her life. She has almost forgotten that she is a Jew, and is probably even keeping it quiet. She has been assimilated into the culture. But evil forces are at work in the nation. A vengeful man named Haman wants all the Jews in the country destroyed, because he has been snubbed by Esther’s uncle Mordecai who will not bow to anyone but God. Esther is the only hope for the people of God. Their fate depends on her, but she hesitates and wavers. She wants to hide her true identity. She does not want to confront the culture, she seeks to accommodate to it. She wants to be like everyone else. She is embarrassed to be known as a follower of the God of Israel. In fact, it is interesting that God is never mentioned in the book of Esther.
Esther is the opposite of Jonah. Her approach was “Christ of Culture.” There is compromise and accommodation, and never a challenge to the culture. Eventually, Esther comes through, but it is only after she sees that her own life is threatened.
We can see the church of today modeling this approach of accommodation to the culture. The fundamentalist part of the church joins Jonah in his finger-pointing condemnation of the world, but the liberal part of the church joins Esther in her refusal to confront the world. Neither one is communicating the love of God, or calling the world to a new life in him. One has separated from the world, and the other has been absorbed by the world. One only talks about God’s wrath, and the other only talks about God’s love. One doesn’t want those kind of people in church, and the other doesn’t think anyone really needs church.
The third person we will look at is: Daniel. Daniel, like Jonah and Esther is trapped in a pagan culture, and he responds differently than either of them. Like Esther, Daniel finds himself promoted to a position of royalty. He is the chief advisor to Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. Having been made a part of the royal court, Daniel was expected to behave like everyone else in the culture of royalty. He was expected to blend in and not make waves. Even the way he ate was to be like everyone else. But Daniel refused to be like everyone else. The people of Babylon were mostly indifferent to the convictions of Daniel, that is, until he practiced his convictions. Then they grew menacingly hostile. The Bible says, “But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way” (Daniel 1:8). Daniel was a part of the culture, but he never forgot that he belonged to God before he belonged to anyone else. It was more important to him that he was God’s man than it was that he was the king’s advisor. Compromise was not a word in his vocabulary, but neither was condemnation. He was not interested in pronouncing judgment on the king of Babylon; he was interested in influencing the king and moving him toward God. Again, this is a relevant story because Babylon conquered Assyria and took over its territory, which means it too was located where Iraq is today. What is amazing is that God worked through Daniel and brought the king to repentance so that he became a true follower of God. The King said, “I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Daniel 4:34).
When the Persians conquered Babylon, Daniel also found favor with King Darius and faithfully served him. But political rivals of Daniel plotted to destroy him. They knew that Daniel’s ethics were above reproach and that there was only one way to bring him to ruin: they would have to fault him for putting God before the king. So they passed a law saying it would be illegal to pray to any god besides the king for thirty days, and that if anyone was found praying to any other god they would be thrown into the lion’s den. Daniel learned of the decree, and here is how the Bible records his response: “Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (Daniel 6:10). With windows wide open, and knees fully bent, he openly prayed to God. He would not hide his prayers and say them silently or in secret, he did it for all to see. He would not compromise even if it meant death. And the great thing is that King Darius was also brought to God, for he said, “I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions” (Daniel 6:26-27).
What would have happened if Daniel had taken Jonah’s approach? What if he walked through the streets pronouncing judgment and wrath? How much influence would he have had? Would these great kings ever have been converted? What if Daniel had taken Esther’s approach and blended into the royal establishment? Would we have ever heard of Daniel if he failed to take a stand and be an influence in the culture in which he lived? It’s even thought by some that the Wise Men who appear at Jesus’ birth were the descendants of the royal advisors who were contemporaries of Daniel. They believe his testimony and teaching had lasted all those years, so that there were people in the east expecting the birth of the Messiah at the time of Jesus’ birth. It took courage to be as uncompromising as Daniel. It took great compassion for him to endure the sinfulness of the kings and culture where he lived. But because he had both courage and compassion God used him in powerful ways.
Daniel’s style is the example of “Christ who transforms Culture.” It takes a lot of faith to believe that God can transform any culture. It will not come through legislation and the influence of power. It will come through the faithfulness and prayers of God’s people.
Certainly no one in recent history has been more of an example of “Christ transforming Culture” than Martin Luther King, Jr. In his book Strength to Love, he wrote: “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
The task of the church is not to condemn the culture, nor is it’s task to blend into the culture. The task of the church is to pray, love and live in such as way as to become Christ to the culture, and when we do, we will see it transformed.
Rodney J. Buchanan
January 21, 2007
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
* I owe the basic concept of contrasting the three biblical characters to Mark Buchanan and his sermon on "Sex and the city of God" at PreachingToday.com
