Culture as Testimony Zion Fellowship 7.12.25 Bible Reading: Heb 2:1-9 (NIV) https://www.facebook.com/zionfellowshipperth?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=M8h40MJGzqO41Wk1&share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2F1FWLvFZdZK%2F%3Fmibextid%3DwwXIfr#
Introduction
According to our Bible reading everything is being made subject to those being re-created in the image of God in Christ. What might this look like in a society like in Australia today? I have been reading a book on culture (https://www.amazon.com.au/Echoes-Eden-Jerram-Barrs/dp/1433535971) which queries why certain authors, like C.S. Lewis, J R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) and J K Rowling (Harry Potter), have been openly applauded and vilified by other professing Christians (cf. 1 John 5:19). Cf. Our world first social media ban for children. Since culture involves language, behaviour and artefacts it includes virtually everything human (https://tseliot.com/preoccupations/culture). Whilst some believers are panicked by trends in culture, Christ is enthroned as Lord now over alle.g. Acts 10:36; Heb 2:8-9 cf. Rom 13; 1 Tim 2:1-2. We should expect to see signs of his “common grace” everywhere (https://rpmministries.org/2024/11/abraham-kuyper-on-common-grace/). For example, our small Anglican parish in Bassendean runs a local Halloween event where members of the Church put on T shirts about the light of Christ and offer free sausages and buns in the local park. This year over 300 kids and their parents turn up dressed, even if the outfits were quite grotesque. It provided opportunities for talking to those who have no knowledge of Christ, drew out from the town council a thank you email, and some people have turned up on Sunday who beforehand never knew of us. I sense it is part of a [“demythologisation”] plan whereby the Holy Spirit is deprogramming the popular Aussie perception that Christians cannot enjoy life!
Why Culture?
Culture is an expression of the image of God to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:26-28). In its origin and destiny culture radiates God’s glory. We have all seen creative picture books with Adam and eve happily cohabiting with various now ravenous beasts, or from Revelation 22 imaginative scenes of the river of Life and trees for the healing of the nations. This end-time/eschatological glory is the fulfilment of the undeniable fact about Jesus, “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.” (Col 1:16 cf. John 1:3; Heb 1:3). Since culture was created for Christ, it is heretical to see culture as essentially in opposition to Gospel. The answer to the old question, “”Why should the devil have all the good music?” (George Whitfield, Larry Norman, Cliff Richards), is that knowing he lacks true creativity he must imitate Revelation 5:8-10; 14:2; 15:2-3what he remembers of heaven. Whilst it is unbiblical to think all cultures are equal before God (cf. Gen 15:16; Rom 1:18-32), and to seek a “perfect” church culture is idolatry (cf. https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/dissolving-the-wish-dream/) [on par with wanting to go back to the days when people believed Australia was a “Christian nation” (https://historyofchristiantheology.com/glossary/fides-historica/)] we must always always always re-centre on Jesus!
Bounded vs Centred sets
There are two basic ways of looking at life and culture (https://www.leancompliance.ca/post/bounded-set-versus-centred-set-compliance), “bounded sets vs “centred sets”. The Pharisees defined those who did not keep the law [like they did] as “tax collectors and sinners” e.g. Matt 9:10-11. Similarly, conservative minded Christians are often “bounded set” people E.g., a church leader shared with me how over the decades new people would not be embraced by the majority upper middle-class members of their congregation and simply drift away. Defensive and legalistic approach to culture, e.g., “you are accepted as long as you don’t/do believe in women in ministry”, or as long as “you speak in tongues”, do not image Christ. Many Evangelical Christians would apply to couples living together or to practising homosexuals, “Welcoming but not affirming.” This is principle reasonable to make but very hard to apply! (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/welcoming-but-not-affirming-an-evangelical-response-to-homosexuality/) Since our eternal security is “in Christ” himself, and not in our theology or discipleship, Jesus’ and his Incarnate life must be witnessed as at the centre of everything God planned for Church and culture. Since Jesus created the beauty of the natural world (Ps 19), the creativity of the artists of the tabernacle (Ex 31:1-9), and the rich sensuality of the Song of Solomon, Christians need not avoid these dynamic areas of life but embrace them in the Spirit of his holiness (Rom 1:4; Heb 9:14).
The key question for Christian cultural engagement is whether any language, ritual or behaviour directs people towards rather than away from the Person of Jesus. The promise recorded in Ecclesiastes, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yetno one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (3:11), has been fulfilled in the birth of “the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” (Rev 21:6, 22:13) and so the embodiment of all things beautiful. Who is Jesus (https://www.theway.org.uk/back/444OCollins.pdf)! The cultural crisis in contemporary Western Christianity stems from our minimisation of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. [Knowing Christ approximates knowing the beginning, middle and end of who we are and what our mission and destiny is.]
Jesus in All Things
One of my brighter theology students once said to me, “You seem to be able to see God in everything”. This may be an exaggeration concerning me, but it was certainly true of Jesus whose parables e.g. parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20) drew lessons from everyday life [and were excellent examples of his appropriation of Hebrew culture e.g. 2 Samuel 12:1-4; Isa 5:1-7] The simplest of things can become vehicles of the most profound revelation. Whilst studying in Brisbane, with 4 small children and a very limited student income the Lord, spoke to me through having birds fly around me and through his command to, “ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matt 6:26-27) Then he went on to provide through supernatural and ordinary means (e.g. a dream, and having a tax return sent back for a minor error which led to a reapplication and significant return). PTL. Some friends became gospel entrepreneurs through this passage “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Matt 10:29-30). They set up (the accredited) Sparrows Bible College in Perth with its free tuition scheme cf. https://www.sparrows.wa.edu.au. Jesus knew there were no “ordinary” occasions of life because all things were governed by his Father e.g. “As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.” Luke 21:1-4; cf. Rom 8:28; Eph 1:13). [Examples could be multiplied cf. John 21:25.]
All is For Testimony
Given that everything exists for Jesus and his glory, as Paul says, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31), there is nothing which is excluded from the angelic exhortation, “the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.” (Rev 19:10). We must never withdraw from culture on the basis that it will infect us, when Jesus saw a demonically afflicted woman, he laid hands on her and she was healed (Luke 13:10-17) because he knew that he was “greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 2:4).
When “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), he was able to command us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mark 12:30) because he did this as a person with a real human heart, soul, mind and strength. Jesus has taken on himself every conceivable human experience and triumphed cf. Rom 8:31-39; Heb 2:14-15.
Unlike Jesus, the people of God can be lured into compromising with the world’s values in very subtle ways. Following the example of Jesus (Matt 8:3, 15; 9:25) the Early Church laid hands on and prayed over people (1 Tim 5:22; James 5:14-15). Today some pastorally sensitive people are intimidated from doing this because of cultural concerns to do with abuse. In her pursuit of “relevance” much of the contemporary Church has become irrelevant to the deep issues of what it means to be made in the image of God in Christ (Col 1:15).
Withdrawing from culture practically hands over of vast regions of life to the powers of the devil. We should at the very least be praying for anointed Christian artists, and politicians, of every form. The dominant form of Church is still attractional rather than Christ-centred and “seeker-friendly” images are still corrupting the minds of most pastors. (https://www.modernreformation.org/resources/essays/what-has-athens-to-do-with-jerusalem-) Local spiritual leaders would be wise to consult holy Christ-centred prayerful people from the wider world as to the boundaries between Church and culture (e.g. https://www.theologyofwork.org/). To live faithful to our counter-cultural call as church (1 Pet 2:5), against the dynamic liturgies of things like shopping malls, with their subtle but all-pervasive subconscious rituals conforming us to a consumerism today that is as idolatrous as the dangers of the food sacrificed over in the meat markets of Paul’s Corinth (https://theotherjournal.com/2012/02/when-is-a-mall-just-a-mall-the-complexity-of-reading-cultural-practices/).
“the testimony of Jesus” [in which we are included through our sufferings for Christ,] which is the message to the Church throughout Revelation (Rev 1:9; 12:11; 19:10) is much more than talking about our conversion experience, it is the divine purpose reason behind the creation, preservation and consummation (perfection) of the cosmos. The much-loved Romans 8:28-30 means exactly this, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (cf. Rom 11:33-36; Eph 1:11 etc.)
As Jesus authority was perfected through his suffering for glory (Heb 2:10), and as witness is central to our identity as children of God, we must anticipate suffering too (Rom 8:14-17; 2 Tim 3:12). A prayerless prosperous Church., like that in Laodicea (Rev 3:14-22), will always be small minded about the testimony of Jesus because she is under a spiritual stronghold inhabited by dark idol powers (cf. Rom 1:23). In this case the work of the spirit of the man of lawlessness/antichrist “already at work” (2 Thess 2:7 cf. 1 John 2:18; 4:3) with false signs and wonders (Rev 13:14) in the Church (2 Thess 2:4; Rev 13:11-18)
Conclusion
Signposts to the Gospel will be revealed through/to all prayerful believers in a world made by/for Jesus. This is not only true of the mythical forms employed by classical Christian authors like C.S. Lewis and his friends (https://navigatingbyfaith.com/2018/07/03/cs-lewis-on-the-true-myth/) but of sometimes controversial works of art and animation (https://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2013/12/piss-christ-in-prison-unlikely-advent.html; https://beneaththetangles.com/2014/02/26/real-christianity-in-anime/ ). Whatever our culture might throw at the Church, the Gospel is already more offensive to the fallen human conscience than anything else that can be said or done by perishable humanity. Paul’s emphasis should be our own: “ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor 1:23-24) At the heart of our testimony is the one story of Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and glorification, which undergirds the foundation, preservation and consummation of “all things” (Acts 3:16-21). When the Church forgets this story she begins to lose her identity (https://liturgy.life/2018/10/does-your-liturgy-tell-a-good-story/; https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/a-tale-of-two-liturgies/). The revealed Christ-drama alone unites in perfectly the heavenly and the earthly stories. This is the greatest drama ever tellable. Jesus is the bridge between divine and human culture, between the eternal life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and human culture (https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/11/09/divine-mercy-as-immanent-transcendence-according-to-nicaean-metaphysics/) [ High, Folk, Ethno-linguistic, Popular, Mass culture etc.] As those made in the image of God (Gen 1:26-28 etc.) we are by nature culture makers. The question is: “What sort of culture are we making through what we see, say, do and craft?” Does it share in the life of Jesus for eternity (2 Pet 1:4)?
Christians today must sense God’s call as a royal priesthood to be bridges to secular culture using art, media, science and technology as embodied worshippers, actors and pray-ers (1 Pet 2:9) setting up signposts of the holy Gospel leading into the life of the everlasting God. Our unlimited witness to the coming kingdom of God flows from the realisation that in Christ the call to preach the Gospel is nothing less than to call the whole created order (Col 1:23; Rev 5:13; 16:6-7) back to its original ordering in Christ. Hallelujah PTL Amen.