On the blog Father Neo’s White Rabbit he posted an invitation to comment on the topic he entitled “Mainstream or Diaspora?” I posted that winning the culture is a part of evangelism. I open that idea here as a thread for discussion.
Why do I think that winning the culture is part of evangelism? This is a somewhat complex answer that I will very much over simplicity, hopefully not so overly simplified as to become wrong.
In many ways the best example is our children. I am not sure but I think California just dodged the bullet that would have forced school children being taught that homosexual behavior is acceptable. Leave aside the government aspect of this for the time being. Schools are teaching the acceptability of homosexual behavior all over the place. Christian children are subject to this erroneous teaching by people who are in authority over them.
Not wanting to get into a culture dissection, I will continue my logic using this one example. If we are not willing to fight to win the culture war, then we must be to some degree be separatist, and at least separate our children from the culture. In keeping our children separate from society, they will likely lack the skill to be part of society and over time this will lead to a closed community. A closed community can be a witness, but it will be not able to do the bring the Word aspect of evangelism.
We often do not think in terms of evangelism of our children. We often tend to think we are teaching them our faith. But in a very real way we do have to be evangelists to our children. When our culture puts in authority over our children people who teach that which is conflict with Christianity, it works against the evangelism of our children.
These are some of the reasons why I think we need to engage the culture at least to the point that it does not contradict Christian Moral Teaching. This is why winning over the culture is a part of evangelism.
Sunday, 10 September 2006 at 2:41 pm |
Interesting argument, but I don’t think I can follow you to the final conclusion. Not quite.
What you are right about is that we Christians shouldn’t just retreat into a holy huddle and ignore what is happening in the wider society. Quite clearly, if we believe that Christianity teaches God’s way and that God’s way is better than our way, then, I would think we would tell people that. I also think that, if we believe something is wrong, we have the right and the duty to take legal political action to fight against that measure. We cannot dig our heads in the sand and expect God to sort it out in the end. He will, mind you, but we should remember that we are trying to live God’s Kingdom now and that he is using us now for building that Kingdom up now.
But, I have a problem with tying this to the culture war currently raging in the States and up here in Canada. One part of the problem is that, as Christians, we really have to be careful about our allies in this culture war. One of the things that disturb me with the alliance between some evangelicals and the Right is that many of our allies are no more interested in defending God’s truth that liberals are. Their conservatism is secular and, as a result, takes up economic and political positions which I think are in conflict with the Gospel. As Christians, we do need to participate in the cultural debate about social values, but we need to remember our agenda is different and may lead us to criticise our erstwhile allies.
Second, I think we also have to recognize that, given this fallen world, there is a very good possibility that our solutions as Christians will fail for the simple reason that not everybody is Christian and are not committed to the same Gospel to which we are committed. That doesn’t obviate the need to witness, but it does mean that we may well fail. Yet, we also have to recognize that, in that failure, we have to remain faithful and that God can use this failure.
Both of these things should point out that we don’t need to ‘win’ the culture war, we need to witness amid the culture war. That changes the emphasis rather a lot.
Peace,
Phil
Wednesday, 20 September 2006 at 6:44 am |
Phil,
I am not sure we are in great disagreement. I do not want children being taught that homosexual behavior is good and want respect for life. In that sense I want to win the culture war.
If I have collateral interest on certain issues with those to take a similar position for secular reasons, I am willing to work with them. I understand that such a working relationship is not the same as being allies.
I do think that winning the culture war is not the whole of witness. It to be is a means by which to make the enviroment for witness better. I should have entitled the post, “Is Winning the Culture part of Evangelism?”. I think I made a case for this albeit not for the title I gave the post.
Scott+