ON TRANSFORMING CULTURE
No other area of Christian life and study has seen such polarization as the issue of Church and Culture. Pendulum swings abound within this field, from groups who so closely identify with the culture that they lack any clear Christian distinctions. Likewise, some groups have so withdrawn from culture that they are no longer that “city on the hill” they are commanded to be. From the Religious Right to the anabaptists different groups have tried to walk the thin line of engagement with culture. From the minds of Richard Mouw to H. Richard Neibuhr each generation has attempted to find a balance of cultural engagement. Where is a middle ground to be found?
Olson argues that “conservative Christians are perceived as people who want to criminalize behavior inconsistent with the Bible or with Christian values and principles.”
This has also recently been seen in the book “UnChristian” which also states that the culture around Christianity perceives them to be anti-gay.
As Olson points out most conservative Christians “believe it is the Christian’s duty to change the world using power when persuasion fails.”
Likewise, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is for them a mandate to go into the political realm and triumphalistically take it over and dominate it for Christ and his kingdom.”
In the history of cultural engagement there have been two primary approaches to culture, some have adopted a “Christ against culture” model while other have adopted a “Christ transforming culture” model. One can look back across the landscape of evangelicalism and see where each paradigm was operating. Olson strives to communicate that to be truly evangelical one has to abandon the current paradigms for cultural interaction and reform Evangelicalism. Olson’s solution is that “Before trying to change society, evangelicals must reform themselves and their congregations and institutions away from individualism, consumerism, and therapeutic Christianity (“your best life now”).”
Too often, conservative evangelicals have adopted principles and practices from a culture it is trying to engage, for the altruistic goal of transforming culture.
One needs to be quickly reminded, that the the modes of operation and the practices of the kingdom of God are radically different than the patterns of the world. The church cannot continue to adopt the practices of a fallen world and attempt to pursue, follow, or accomplish the plans of God’s kingdom. The patterns are not parallel, they head in two completely different directions, to entirely different goals.
