Engaging Our Culture: A Baptist Case For Involvement
Romans 12:1-2, John 17:14-18 January 9, 2005
Intro:
I believe that part of my job as a preacher is to speak words of hope, of encouragement, of help for the difficulties that each of us face as we journey through life. To remind us over and over of the depth of God’s love, and to call us to respond to that love by loving God in return. That was my major focus through the fall as we talked about how God forms characteristics like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in us, as we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and as we seek to walk through life in the Spirit.
But it is also my job to try to equip us to live as Christians in our world – to be aware of what is going on in our world and help us to understand and respond to those things in a way that obeys Scripture and enables us to work for the values of the Kingdom of God. The voice of our culture is loud and persuasive, and I believe that part of my job is to articulate a Christian response so that each of us are equipped to live as Christians in our world.
I get that conviction from Romans 12:1-2. In the first 11 chapters of Romans, Paul outlines all the things he believes – it is kind of like Paul is writing his major theological treatise. Then in chapter 12 he switches from what we believe to how we should live as a result of all the things we believe. Reading from the New Living Translation: “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice--the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.”
So for the next little while I am planning to explore some issues in our world and culture from a Christian perspective, with the goal of allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us into new people by changing the way we think – by “renewing our minds” as the more familiar translation puts it. I will strive as always to make these very relevant to our lives, to help us connect to the heart, and above all (as always) to lead us to God and discover deeper life as we live for God.
I want to make two requests before using the remainder of this sermon to establish a case for us being called by God to engage our culture. The first is this: would you let me know of issues/topics that you think we need to talk about together? There are a few obvious ones – the nature of marriage, how we live as people of truth in a culture that rejects the very existence of objective truth, whether all “religions” really lead to the same place, money and wealth and global responsibilities in the face of poverty and disaster, what our role is in caring for our environment. I really want to spend time on the issues that you feel a need to know more about so that you can be “transformed by the renewing of your mind”. So would you let me know what those issues/topics are? I created a poll on our website that you can use to let me know which topics would be helpful.
The second request is this: if any of you are interested and gifted in doing research on some of these topics, I would find that very valuable as I prepare. Some of you are already far more knowledgeable about these issues than I, some of you would really enjoy digging in and reading and synthesizing the perspectives and arguments and have the time, and I’ve always dreamed of having a team of “sermon research associates”. If that interests you, let me know!
So, with that rather lengthy introduction, let us pray.
Christians In Culture:
When you and I become Christians, we don’t get transported immediately into a new dimension where none of the stuff of this world impacts us any longer. As much as we might sometimes wish that were the case, we have to wait for heaven for that experience. Until then, we are stuck here.
And, in a very wonderful way, that is a part of God’s perfect plan for all people. God changes us, fills us with power and gifts, and then sends us as ambassadors of His Kingdom into our present world. Unfortunately, we do not get diplomatic immunity to the pain and difficulties, but it is still a pretty incredible privilege. We get to represent God to our world! We get to show then the same love, the same grace, the same forgiveness, the same patience, etc, that God has shown us. A high calling, a costly calling, yet (in Paul’s words), “When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?”
God’s plan is that you and I remain in our world, and that we participate in our culture. We are given the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide us and empower us, and then we are sent. Blessed to be a blessing. Freely we have received, freely we give.
A Little History:
Throughout the past 2000 years, God’s church has struggled to obey this call. We are different, “aliens and strangers” according to 1 Peter 2:11, but still a part of the broader culture around us. Each community of faith, and each generation, must figure out how to be both in the world but not of the world. That concept comes from John 17, with which I will close in a few minutes.
Of course some groups try to separate themselves as much as possible from culture, in trying to be holy. Some have literally moved to the middle of the desert and sat on top of tall polls in order to get away from sin. Others formed and/or joined monastic communities, where even speech was prohibited. Even today, Amish people and Hutterites and other groups of Christians choose to separate themselves as much as possible from the wider culture.
Obviously, while I respect much about those groups, especially their passion for holiness, I do not believe that separation from culture is the teaching of the Bible or the desire of God. If I believed that I would have to move to somewhere close to Lethbridge and try to find a colony that would take me…
Movements to separation have always been on the fringe of Christianity, however. Most of Christianity has chosen to engage and try to influence the broader culture for good. That is true of those of us who call ourselves “Baptists”.
And by the way, just for fun, I want to take a straw poll. Acknowledging that all of us would first and foremost call ourselves “Christians”, and that many of us would be content to stop there, let me ask how many of you would call yourself a “Baptist”? How many of you would call yourself something else, but say “I’m a ________, but I’m going to a Baptist church right now”? How many of you either don’t really know what to call yourself, or really don’t care what people call you and are just annoyed with all these labels?
Let me be a history teacher for a very brief moment, and we will see how Christians have always engaged culture. The early Christians, in Acts, maintained their cultural Jewishness – they worshipped at the synagogue, they kept the feasts, etc. In fact, the first crisis the church faced revolved around culture – did new, non-Jewish Christians have to leave their culture and become Jewish, or could/should they remain in their own culture? The answer, of course, was that they remained in their own culture as Gentile Christians, and witnessed to their own culture.
As the church grew, there were periods of great persecution of Christians from many sources, yet Christians continued to remain in their culture. In 313, Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the religion of the empire, and so Christianity became the dominant culture throughout his empire. That continued, with there being only one group of Christians known as Catholics, for about 700 years. In 1054 that one group split into two – the Catholic Church (Western) and the Orthodox Church (Eastern). Both engaged and for the most part dominated their culture. 500 years later, we get to Martin Luther and the protestant reformation, and by this time the church and the culture are so intertwined that Luther is convinced that what Paul warned about in Romans 12 – “don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world”, had in fact happened and so there was a need for a great shake up. The groups that emerged out of that reformation continued to have a huge influence over their culture.
One of those groups, eventually, were Baptists. Throughout our history, we have participated in and had a substantial influence on our culture. A Baptist, William Carey, started what we now know as the modern age of mission. Baptists worked hard beside William Wilberforce in the UK in the fight to abolish slavery. Robert Raikes, a Baptist, started the Sunday School movement, which rescued children from being mere laborers during the industrial revolution and began the movement towards widespread literacy. In the United States, Baptists were instrumental in the fight for equality for black people. Closer to home, Tommy Douglas – CBC’s “greatest Canadian” as the father of modern medicare, was a Baptist pastor in Weyburn, Saskatchewan – a place more famous for being where Dotty Trevoy was born… Alberta Premier William Aberhart was a Baptist pastor. And in millions of other, individual situations, men and women of Baptist convictions have been active in politics, civil service, and have fought for the poor. We have a strong history of engaging our culture for the Kingdom of God!
That wasn’t too painful, was it?? Just a little more, and I’ll come to the point…
There are two themes that emerge if you take the time to look at what contributions Baptists have made to the wider Kingdom of God. The first is the primary place of importance of the Bible. You can see that even in the architecture of churches – in a Baptist Church, the pulpit is almost always in the very center, making the statement that the Word of God is the central place of importance. Many other churches have a pulpit on one side and a lectern on the other, making the statement that the Bible and the Church’s interpretation of the Bible are equally important.
The second is the importance of each individual person. We believe that each person is filled with the Holy Spirit, gifted by the Holy Spirit, accountable to God for themselves, and thus has an important role to play in the Kingdom of God. There is no substantial difference between me as pastor and each of you – the difference is in role and responsibility, but not in substance.
It is this second theme that, in my opinion, has largely defined our impact on culture – a respect for each person and their right to choose freely. Baptists have always resisted authoritarian use of power, especially the power of society to impose belief or faith on others. We fought and died for the freedom for each person to choose how they will respond to the truths of God – that is the root of Believer’s Baptism. As you can imagine, that had a large impact on an emerging culture of freedom especially in the early years of settling North America. As a result, many people who were powerless in the wider culture – the poor, those who were slaves, those who left Europe to escape persecution – were very attracted to a way of being church that respected and valued each person as unique, gifted, children of God.
Our Influence Today:
Now, for all of you who have been drifting off to sleep, or wondering when I was going to get to the point, here it is: I believe our history has uniquely equipped us, as Baptists, to engage our culture and influence our world for the Kingdom of God. We have the foundational respect for the truth and the power of the Word of God to transform and change individuals. We, especially here at Laurier, have understood that it is only the Holy Spirit that can and does “activate” that power and bring it to life for an individual. We hold to the Bible as an unchanging anchor of truth that speaks to every aspect of life and every issue in our society, and that does so with all authority. We believe very strongly that each believer is filled with the Spirit of God, and can be led and empowered by the Spirit of God to accomplish absolutely anything that God desires. And then we put that together with a deep respect for other people. With a commitment to fight for their freedom of conscience – even if they differ from us completely in what they believe, we will fight for their freedom to choose.
That deep respect does two things: it builds relationships, and it grows love. As those relationships grow, so does dialogue. In that dialogue, we listen, and that earns us the right to speak. My conviction is that as we speak the truth, the Holy Spirit will empower that truth to change lives and to change communities. Maybe even our world.
John 17
All that history and background and opportunity brings me back to John 17. Jesus is about to be crucified, and He is praying for His disciples. One of the things He prays is this (vs. 14-18): “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”
There you have it: we have been given the word of God. We are different from our world, but we are not taken out of it, we are joined by God in it. What sets us apart, or “sanctifies” us, is truth, which is the word of God. And then we are sent, deliberately, into the world, and charged and empowered to make a difference.
I look forward to spending the coming weeks talking about specific ways to do that as we together allow the word of God to transform us by renewing our minds, so that God’s Kingdom can come and God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
