Chris-tocentric.com

When Christianity exploded unto the stage of history, it was regarded by most of the Roman Empire as “foolishness.” Now, many call it “outdated.” Such assessments raise the question of how we should present the message of Christ in our particular time and place, the enterprise which we call “contextualization.”
Over the next few weeks I am scheduled to minister in Northern Italy, and will be asking myself this question. How can we make the good news of Jesus clear to these lovely people who enjoy life sipping espresso, licking gelato, and knowing very little about the grace of the gospel? As I do so, I take heart in the fact that the message we proclaim has inherent power and wisdom which transcends this world. Following is a quote from the English non-conformist preacher John Angell James (1785-1859) in which he reminds pastors of this precious truth.

“It should never be forgotten that the time when the apostles discharged their ministry was only just after the Augustan era of the ancient world. Poetry had recently bestowed on the lettered world the works of Virgil and Horace. The light of philosophy, though waning, still shed its luster over Greece. The arts still exhibited their most splendid creations, though they had ceased to advance. It was at such a time, and amidst such scenes, the gospel began its course. The voices of the apostles were listened to by sages who had basked in the sunshine of Athenian wisdom, and were reverberated in startling echo from temples and statues that had been shaken by the thunders of Cicero and Demosthenes; yet they conceded nothing to the demands of philosophy, but held forth the cross as the only object they felt they had a right to exhibit. They never once entertained the degrading notion that they must accommodate themselves to the philosophy or the taste of the age in which they lived, and the places where they ministered.

Whether the apostle addressed himself to the philosophers on Mars Hill, or to the barbarians on the island of Melita; whether he reasoned with the Jews in their synagogues, or with the Greeks in the school of Tyrannus, he had but one theme, and that was Christ, and him crucified. And what right, or what reason have we for deviating from this high and imperative example? Be it so, that we live in a literary, philosophic, and scientific age, what then? Is it an age that has outlived the need of the gospel for its salvation; or for the salvation of which any thing else can suffice but the gospel? The supposition that something else than pure Christianity, as the theme of our pulpit ministrations, is requisite for such a period as this, or that it must be presented in philosophic guise, appears to me a most perilous sentiment, as being a disparagement to the gospel itself, a daring assumption of wisdom superior to God’s, and containing the germ of infidelity.1”

I welcome your prayers and look forward to giving you a report on Italy when I return in July. God bless you!

Footnotes :

1 The Founders Journal 43, Winter 2001, 24, Quoting from John Angell James, An Earnest Ministry: The Want of the Times (1847; reprinted in Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1993), 69-73.

In advance of tonight’s Culture Campaign address, I find myself thinking about the Church’s role in culture. The following message from Dr. Philip G. Ryken sheds helpful light on the topic.1 Dr. Ryken serves as senior minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Several years ago, The New York Times Magazine ran a story about a Christian family from Allentown, Pennsylvania. 2 The lead for the article read as follows: “Abandoning the fight for a Christian America, fundamentalists are retreating into their own homes.” The story went on to describe how one family of nine lives the Christian life within the walls of their white farmhouse.

Since the 1970s, many evangelical Christians have tried to regain cultural territory by pursuing political power. In many ways, that strategy has failed, with the result that evangelicals are now starting to give up on political solutions to cultural problems. Paul Weyrich, a leading political activist in the 1980s, now suggests “a strategy of separation,” in which Christians “bypass the institutions that are controlled by the enemy.” 3 “We need to drop out of this culture,” says Weyrich, “and find places, even if it is where we physically are right now, where we can live godly, righteous and sober lives.” The family from Allentown has followed Weyrich’s advice: They are separating from, dropping out of, and bypassing American culture.

It is a good thing for Christians to recognize the limits of politics. We are called to be good citizens, but we must never look to the government for salvation. We are called to build the kingdom of God, not establish a Christian America. The question is, To what extent are we called to separate ourselves from American society? Does Christ call us to be “onward Christian soldiers,” or “inward Christian soldiers?”

This is a question Christians have always faced: How can we be in the world without being of the world? This is something Jesus prayed about when He went to His Father to intercede for the Church. Jesus said to the Father, “[My disciples] are not of the world, even as I am not of it” (John 17:16). Yet Jesus also said this: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one . . . As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:15, 18). In other words, our Lord has prayed that we would reach the world without becoming worldly.

It is not easy to know where to draw the line between being in the world and being of the world. Some separation is required. There are places it is not wise for Christians to go. There are things it is not good for us to see or to hear. As a result, we often find ourselves out of step with American culture. The piece in The New York Times Magazine notes, with some amazement, that Christianity is now a counter-cultural movement. In the 1960’s, the counter-culture questioned authority. Now everyone questions authority . . . except Christians, and that makes us counter-cultural.

It is one thing to stand against sin, but it is another thing to drop out of American culture altogether, which God has not called us to do. There are ways in which the family from Allentown is not so much counter-cultural as it is anti-cultural. I am reminded of medieval times, when the Church retreated to her cloisters and her monasteries. The remnants of Christianity were preserved, but Europe was abandoned to its sins.

It is not my job as a pastor to decide where Christians should shop, or which TV programs they should watch. These are matters of freedom, which each Christian has the responsibility before God to determine. It is my job, however, to remind you that while Christ calls us to separate ourselves from sin, He does not call us to separate ourselves from sinners. Quite the opposite. And I worry that Christians are retreating from American culture at a time when people so desperately need the gospel. Christ does not call us inward, but onward and outward, to reach our friends and our families with bold, persuasive, thoughtful, and compassionate Christianity.

Do not remove yourself from places where you have opportunities to stand for Christ against the sins of the culture. If you are a Christian, you are called to coach Little League, but not to yell at the ump; to work for the corporation, but not to disparage the management; to exhibit work in the art show, but not to give in to despair; and so on. When we engage in these kinds of activities, we always run some risk of becoming worldly. Nevertheless, we do them because we are called to be in the world to the glory of God.

Footnotes :

1 “Inward Christian Soldiers” was first heard as a Sunday evening talk, May 7, 2000, in Dr. Ryken’s “Window on the World” series at Tenth Presbyterian (www.tenth.org). In 2002, it appeared in a collection of Dr. Ryken’s messages, entitled My Father’s World: Meditations on Christianity and Culture. P&R Publishing has kindly given Kairos Journal permission to publish this edited version.

2 Margaret Talbot, “A Mighty Fortress,” The New York Times Magazine, February 27, 2000.

3 Paul Weyrich, “The Moral Minority,” Christianity Today, September 6, 1999, 44-45. CT published a shortened version of the letter.

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 – 1957), the articulate writer, public speaker, and apologist, argued passionately for the relevance of orthodox Christian doctrine to the living of a truly Christian life. On April 23, 1942, she spoke in Eastbourne, England, about society after World War II had ended. To rebuild the country, a proper attitude towards work was necessary. As Sayers puts it, work and religion must not “become separate departments.”

It is the business of the Church to recognize that the secular vocation, as such, is sacred. Christian people, and particularly perhaps the Christian clergy, must get it firmly into their heads that when a man or woman is called to a particular job of secular work, that is as true a vocation as though he or she were called to specifically religious work. The Church must concern herself not only with such questions as the just price1 and proper working conditions: she must concern herself with seeing that the work itself is such as a human being can perform without degradation—that no one is required by economic or any other considerations to devote himself to work that is contemptible, soul-destroying, or harmful. It is not right for her to acquiesce in the notion that a man’s life is divided into the time he spends on his work and the time he spends in serving God. He must be able to serve God in his work, and the work itself must be accepted and respected as the medium of divine creation.

In nothing has the Church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion.

But is it astonishing? How can any one remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes on him is that he should make good tables.

Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly—but what use is all that if in . . . his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made heaven and earth. No piety in the work will compensate for work that is not true to itself; for any work that is untrue to its own technique is a living lie.2

Footnotes :

1 An appropriate wage for work.

2 Dorothy L. Sayers, “Why Work?” in Creed or Chaos? (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949), 56-57.