Cultural Relevance?
I just spent a wonderful time in prayer. I know that anyone unfamiliar with the Presence of God would not understand what I have just experienced, but it is just the best thing we can know on earth, His Presence.
I just returned from a wonderful whirlwind vacation and saw some wonderful people and observed and thought and talked about a lot of things with people in ministry outside of my little community. I feel enriched. On top of that some of our friends gave me a teaching on cd that has just helped me to verbalize some feelings I have had about the present move toward cultural relevance in the Church.
In the sermon on the mount Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth in Matt. 5 and said that if we lose our saltiness we will good for nothing except to be trampled underfoot by men. In Luke 14:34, 35 Jesus says we will not be good for the dung hill or the soil but will need to be thrown out if we lost our saltiness. The dung hill sounds like being thrown out to me, but actually in the context of what Jesus was saying we are supposed to be useful for the dung hill. Salt in modern American society is thought to be useful for seasoning or preserving. However, salt in Jesus time was not just table salt. It was the salt that came from the dead sea. Some of it would be what we know as potash which was good for the soil to fertilize for growth. The other use was to throw on your excrement to kill the growth of things you did not want to grow. Soooooo... Jesus was talking about the usefulness of salt in helping good things to grow and bad things not to grow. If salt can't do that it is good for nothing but to be trampled.
In this same sermon Jesus talked about the kingdom attitudes that we should have to actually be this salt that helps the good grow and prevents the bad from growing, we call them the beattitudes. Just before He tells us we are salt He tells us we are blessed if we suffer persecution for His sake. We will not be culturally accepted but should continue to be salt to the society by exhibiting a rejoicing grateful attitude even in the persecution. We will actually present an alternative to the culture of the day.
There is a present move in the Church to accept certain behaviors and activities so that we will be relevant to our culture. It seems that this movement would say we need to convert to the world so they can accept us, or at least compromise with the world so they will be more accepting. In Acts 5:13 the Church was so pure and powerful that unbelievers were afraid to join themselves to the Church. The Church was not a compromise with the world but an alternative to the world culture. John says to not love the world or things of the world or the love of the Father is not in us. The present move in the Church seems to accept compromise as a means to avoid persecution or gain acceptance. If the world accepts the church in its compromising how are we converting the unbeliever? It seems we are the ones being converted. We continue to lower standards until we look just like the world. Haven't we done plenty of that already? We freely accept remarriage in every and all situations anymore when Jesus said he who marries someone divorced commits adultery. But the Church now looks no different than the world in regards to marriage. We are under great pressure and some have given in to just accepting homosexual behavior as another way to live. To even accept expressions of it in the Church, such as homosexual hand holding as they enter into a place of worship. Where is the fear that was upon the unbelievers in Acts 5?
"Church meetings" in the book of Acts were times of worship, fellowship of believers, and remembering the Lord's sacrifice. It was worship. Homosexual hand holding is not an act of worship and should not be tolerated in worship anymore than any other sinful behavior. We would not allow a thief to continue to pilfer the majority of the offering each week so as to not be judgmental of his behavior. Nor should we tolerate fornication in the lobby and not be "judgmental" or someone intoxicated who wanders in with a whiskey bottle and sits and drinks in the front row as his act of worship. Tolerance of these behaviors as acts of worship is actually the slow deteriorating process that makes us lose our saltiness. They are not acts of worship. You cannot worship a Holy God with an offering of sinful behaviors. If the Church is not a place of worship, but just a social gathering to try to influence the world maybe all these things are all right. But when does God receive corporate praise, worship and adoration?
We should love all these people enough to help them see that their behaviors are destroying their lives now and for eternity. May the Lord restore us to a point that we behave in such a way that others would see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. The present movement toward cultural relevance is simply a move toward taking the saltiness right out of the salt of the earth. People will certainly join our groups, but will they be converts to Jesus? If the goal of the Church is to avoid the world's persecution, cultural relevance is a good track to take. We will receive a nice pat on the back from the analysts of religious activity, but where will the salt be? There must be an alternative to turn to. Conversion implies change. What will help the good stuff to grow and stop the bad stuff from affecting everything around it unless we accept the fact that following Jesus and living according to kingdom principles will inherently mean rejection from a culture that does not love God. How will people come to Jesus, you may ask. The same way they always have and the only way they can. The Spirit of God must draw them. Otherwise we have a group of people who have denied themselves in absolutely no way and therefore have taken up no cross and cannot possibly be following the Jesus of the Bible, but they love the fact that we are just like them. Conversion has taken place!! We have become like the world! Then we are no good except to be trampled under foot by media, I mean men. Maybe we have arrived. May God have mercy on us so that some of us may have a Church that is relevant to God.
It seems there are so many resources to read in these days that can help us be relevant that we study them diligently, but can easily lose perspective from not being immersed in His truth. Those that detect counterfeit bills do not give themselves to understanding all the counterfeits, but they study the genuine so that when a fake comes along they see how it varies from the true bills. May I challenge some of you to immerse yourselves more in the Word of God so you can detect when that which looks good is not really the truth. Just a nice imitation. Blessings to those who read may you understand His Truth!