Other Times and Cultures

A popular quote of C.S. Lewis is "It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.” The reason is that our time and culture has certain blind spots that people at other times in the past did not. If we read an older book, we may see certain truths that are harder to find in books of our modern time.

I don't hear many people talk about how this may also apply to interacting with other cultures. But I feel it's true. Interacting with other cultures is fun in that it helps us learn new things and see beauty in different styles and techniques that are unique to a different culture. But we may also see something in other cultures that is sort of a blind spot in our own.

For example, some cultures are much more quiet and respectful in letting people have space compared to American culture. American culture often is about trying to stand out in the crowd and be louder or more interesting than the next person. So we can learn from this type of culture that we can love others by showing the respect of being quiet at times or allowing that person more space. God wants us to love others well, and we should aim to do this.

Lost Sight of the Gospel

We have lost sight of the gospel and we are poorer for it.

Many great defenders of the gospel no longer proclaim the gospel they only speak as political agents against culture.

This comment was deleted within minutes as a comment by on a site which was once that of a great defender of the gospel. Now it is consumed almost entirely with political activism. While that is completely their right to moderate comments as they feel the travesty is the gospel has been completely lost sight of.

God help us. Amen.

"The church needs to get back to focusing on the gospel instead of trying to convince secular society of presuppositions which secular society does not hold. The gospel is the power by which the world is overcome. Until secular society meets Jesus secular society will not accept Christian propositions.

http://theologyponderings.blogspot.com/2015/08/christianity-in-post-christian-culture.html"

Christianity in Post Christian Culture

Often in the political sphere and other spheres Christians try to expound views that are godly. They attempt to argue for change.

Often the issue is that the culture has already rejected most of the presuppositions that we argue from. We cannot win debates in culture because all our presuppositions are rejected.

The church needs to accept that it is not the dominate force today in the western world. The church will be more healthy once it realizes that it is on the margins of society today.

Often the church wastes a great deal of time in meaningless dialogue because the church feels it has sway. The church needs to stop expounding change to the culture on the basis of argument and focus on spreading the gospel.

The church's presuppositions are being radically rejected because Jesus is being rejected. If we want to change society we must first have society meet Jesus in a meaningful way.

Only by re-introducing true biblical faith into the culture can Christian's hope to have culture listen to messages of change in relation to society. The gospel is foundational to all Christian ethics.

Protestantism Against the Spirit of Protestantism

The spirit of Protestantism is to always go back to scripture. It is not a call to think outside the context of the church, but to always test what the church says against scripture.

Unfortunately today we find many protestant churches who are developing extensive written and verbal tradition which they hold to be unquestionable. It is not that people should immediately doubt written or verbal tradition, but all tradition is subservient to the word of God.

No tradition can be unquestionable in itself. It only stands or falls in its relation to the revelation of God.

I personally feel that traditions in churches are not a detriment and are often a help to the church as long as the church realizes the traditions cannot be held in any absolute way. The issue is that often the traditions of the church begin to become indistinguishable from the teaching of God to the leaders of churches.

I have been in a number of churches where the eldership seems to believe certain pieces of generally good advice are commandments in scripture. I often search for the biblical basis of this good advice and cannot find any absolute grounding in scripture.

We should always distinguish between what is generally good advice and what is scripture. And what is tradition that our church appreciates and tradition which is mandated by scripture (i.e. baptism and the Lord's supper).

I believe non-biblically mandated traditions and general wisdom have a place in churches, but they can never be viewed absolutely or espoused as if they are scripture. We must always distinguish between the clear teaching of scripture and our culturally conditioned applications of wisdom and worship.

Understanding What We Believe

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Co-Contributor

To truly be able to lead and live well, it's important to truly understand what you believe. A lot of people say that they are a Christian and assume that means they know what they believe, but may not live or think much differently than the culture around them that is not Christian these days. We live in a postmodern culture, where this is acceptable to the culture: it's viewed as good to not strongly believe anything because postmodernism is more okay and fine with everyone's beliefs.

If someone were to ask you why you're a Christian, do you know what you'd say? If they asked you what is different abut your religion compared to other religions, would you be able to answer? Does your religion cause you to live differently than people of different religions or those who don't have a religion?

A major difference in the Christian religion compared to others is that it's not our works that get us to Heaven. It's Christ's perfection and faith that does.

Some people think that feeling/emotion is most important in religion and that thinking hinders religion. For instance, feeling that God is for them in that moment, or they made God happy is what they aim for. They feel like that's all they need. But not working to truly understand their beliefs of God and what God wants--that may cause them to feel things to be true that are not true: A person may feel happy and in some sense that makes them feel like God is happy with what they're doing--but really they could be happy in that moment because the sun is shining that day or they had a great meal the day before.

The way for them to truly know that God is happy or accepting of a choice is to truly understand the Bible as much as they can. To think about it. Some people may live in the thought that they can never please God because they feel crappy and nothing seems to go as right as they envisioned it, but really understanding God's true acceptance of us would help them feel like God is still okay with them. Our feelings don't always match the reality of the situation. We are fallen and there are so many factors to what makes us feel certain ways (the weather, how much we eat or sleep, what's going on in the world and in our lives).

Mankind, Culture, and Progress

Often in our world we are convinced by the uniqueness of the current age. Technology has created a world which is so different it has created a fundamental disconnect from the past.

Really we just need to study history to see our folly. At many points the world said "ah yes this has fundamentally changed the world forever" and yet nothing really changed.

We often over estimate the uniqueness of our day. The problems of today are not much different than those one hundred years ago or one thousand years ago. The fundamental problem is always the heart of mankind which is similar in every age.

Certain issues are more prevalent in certain ages than others, but the heart manifests its wickedness in every age. Often there is progress on certain issues in certain cultures but often on other issues there is regress.

This is why the bible insists that there is nothing new under the sun. Many things changes but the fundamental problem of man's alienation from God because of his sin is always the same.

Some people often tend to go the opposite direction of seeing progress and instead focus on regress, thinking that the past was better than the present. It is really a similar failure in which the past is not understood.

It is not to say that a culture might be better or worse in a given age, but fundamentally every culture has severe issues to work through if the culture wishes to believe the fact or not. Some issues are worse than others, but the fundamental issue of the human heart remains if it is acknowledged or not acknowledged.

Post: Historical Progress or Lack There of

A consistent view of culture

It seems that each Christian needs to seek out a consistent view of culture. One specific element that comes to mind is fiction and TV.

There is it seems often a sense in which many Christians prohibit and exclude cultural elements and include at random.

For example C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are included and all other books with any form of magic are excluded.

I am likely not being exactly fair but this is often the case. You see certain things get a pass and possibly deservedly so but there needs to be an underlying reason.

We should be more thoughtful in our inclusion and exclusion. I guess all of this seems to be sort of academic but it is one thing which has always frustrated me with conservative Christianity is that often things are held thoughtlessly with no reason.

It is as if such leader thinks this so it must be. To me it makes the witness of the church weaker if we have all of these random rules which we cannot explain and the rules seem arbitrary.

I suppose maybe the need for trust is present because we cannot sample all things and probably should not, but you see there is this great randomness that exists in the church.

You will even in the church see often a confusion between generally good ideas expounded by church leaders and the teaching of scripture. We often cannot tell the difference between advice which is generally good and what is absolute in scripture.

I guess for the good of the church its members need to think more and to developed some ideas and thing for themselves.

Gresham Machen once said "the truth shines in the light." And he wrote with great excitement one semester that the youth in the seminary were thinking for themselves.

More often lack of thought is the enemy of the church than thought. Really mindlessness is the real danger to the church.

You see the bible tells us there are many false leaders and many people wishing to lead us astray and advises us to be shrewd and innocent.

You see thinking is not the enemy of the church that people think. Really it is thoughtlessness which causes the masses to follow false teachers. If they really picked up the scriptures and did thinking with the help of the Holy Spirit they would see the truth of what is said.

reformed church always reforming

I thought I’d write some brief commentary on a phrase that, I believe, Christian’s are using quite erroneously.

“The reformed church is always reforming.”

I would like to note, first, that to be reformed is to hold to a specific set of ideals.  Thus, the reformed church cannot keep endlessly reforming, because it would cease to be the reformed church.  The interesting thing is that in many respects reformed churches have ceased to be reformed.  You will find “reformed” pastors quite afraid of speaking the word predestination.  In fact you find that they positively hold to some sort of good works religion – they give justification by faith alone lip service.  The have “reformed” themselves out of the reformation.  Thus, the whole concept lies on an error, the reformed church cannot endlessly reform, if it does so it ceases to be the reformed church.

Secondly, I would like to suggest that reform can only be reform when it is positive.  On finds reformed churches embracing “engaging” R rated movies to “engage culture.”  At first the concept seems rather normal – to reach out to the world and understand it to engage it.  However, it soon becomes apparent that the majority endorsing this view simply live for the trill of these movies.  They bask in the glory of the movie and never have Christ on their lips.  When we “reform” the church we need to be sure that it is becoming more heavenly and less worldly.  Reforming the church to “engage” culture is often a grand theological excuse to devour 5+ pg-13 or R rated movies over a long weekend.  True reform is only reform if it brings us back to the gospel not leaving us constantly prostrate before a television.

Finally, humanity is not progressing.  This phrase seems to somehow have been endorsed to indicate human progress.  Today, it seems is always the most correct form of religion.  In fact, to be truthful every day era for religion.  Each era is riddled with its own time periods misconceptions.  To truly reform the church today is to seek to rid the church of tis age's misconceptions while not falling into other age's misconceptions.

John Piper Quote on How "One of the Great Diseases of Our Day Is Triviality."

A bit from a John Piper sermon:

One of the great diseases of our day is triviality. The things with which most people spend most of their time are utterly trivial. And what makes this a disease is that we who were created in the image of God were meant to live for magnificent causes. None of us is really content with the trivial pursuits of the world. Our souls will not be satisfied with trifles. Why is there a whole section of the newspaper devoted to sport, and almost nothing devoted to the greatest story in the universe—the growth and spread of the church of Jesus Christ? It is madness, sheer madness, that insignificant games should occupy such a central role in our culture. It is simply one of many signs that we are enslaved to trivialities. We live in the Swiss village shop staring at the wooden figurines, and rarely lifting our eyes to the forests and the everlasting snows. We live in a perpetual and hopeless struggle to satisfy our longings on trifles. So our souls shrivel. Our lives are trivial. And our capacity for great worship dies.