Hi everybody! Thanks for being here. This week we’ll be thinking together about how to be a faithful Christian within a diverse cultural context.
And before we start, a reminder about scheduling me for your event. My colleague Holly Davis is now working on my 2027 schedule. If you would like to invite me to lead a retreat, offer a talk, participate in a webinar, or preach at your event, just give her a shout.
Bob misses his CDs. Back in the day, you know, back when people actually had CD’s, he had a huge collection of rock and jazz albums. Since he was a gifted guitarist, Bob preferred groups that featured intricate guitar work and blazing solos.
Bob and his wife Jen had sought out a church that would help them build a strong marriage and raise their three young children. Their new pastor routinely warned the flock about the evil, even the demonic influence of popular culture. The same message was echoed by their fellow worshippers. So, Bob and Jen threw away the entire CD collection, gradually replacing it with contemporary Christian music. The children’s VCR tapes followed those CDs to the garbage dump.
These days Bob streams most of his old favorites on Apple Music. As he puts it, “Christian music sucks.” His grandchildren watch the Disney Channel along with Netflix and Hulu. I’m not sure that anyone in that extended family goes to church on a regular basis or at all. If being Christian meant separating themselves entirely from the surrounding culture, the Christian thing is clearly not for them.
As it turns out, I’m a fan of Mumford and Sons, Billie Eilish, and Howlin’ Wolf. My reading includes the Gray Man series and British detective novels by Peter Grainger. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you what movies I watch and which series I’m streaming on Prime right now. Let’s just leave it at this, I enjoy a lot of popular culture.
Nevertheless, I take Paul’s words to the Romans seriously. He writes, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God.” (Romans 12:2; NRSVUE) Some translations read, “Do not be conformed to this world.” But Paul wasn’t pitting our souls against the cosmos or the physical universe. The word he used refers to the times, to the culture. To the values prized and the purposes pursued by the surrounding culture, to we might call a Zeitgeist or spirit of the times.
There is a distinction between the community gathered around and formed by Jesus and the wider culture. Bob and Jen’s pastor urged his congregation to withdraw because he saw culture as essentially evil, anti-Christian. They could maintain their holiness only by purifying themselves of cultural influences.
Christian Nationalists take a dim view of our age. However, unlike Bob and Jen’s pastor, Christian Nationalist like Doug Wilson urges the church to purify the surrounding culture. He is the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and founder of a small denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelicals (known as the CREC). His connection to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has moved him from the fringes to a position of significant political influence.
The explicitly stated agenda of CREC is that biblical law should be the actual law of the United States. To be clear, they are advocating more than the use of scripture as a personal moral code. For instance, Wilson advocates the repeal of women’s right to vote (the 19th Amendment). He has said that slavery was not uniformly evil. And homosexuality should be criminalized.
The irony of Christian Nationalism is that the church stops being the church. Christian nationalists seek to impose their preferred social order on everyone else. In other words, they are unwittingly allowing themselves to be animated by the spirit of this age. As I’ve written elsewhere, the spirit of this age is the will to power. The will to power strives for dominance and demands submission.
By contrast, the church is a community shaped and animated by the power of love. Christ’s love is freely given to us. We freely and actively receive it. And that love transforms who we are as individuals and as a community. In the Jesus community, all are equally the beloved in their differences. The good of each cannot be separated from the good of all. And none of us belongs by coercion. We belong through the free acceptance of Jesus’ invitation.
The Jesus community is differentiated from the wider community. As Augustine tells us, we recognize that we live in the City of Man—the contemporary cultural context—and yet we are citizens of the City of God. Our highest allegiance is always to the Kingdom of Heaven, not to any civil state.
We take our place humbly and courageously in the public square, whatever that square’s contours and dynamics may be. As the sociologist James Davison Hunter puts it, the church’s posture should always be faithful presence. The Jesus community does not simply withdraw. Neither do we seek to dominate.
Instead, we follow Jeremiah’s advice to the exiles in Babylon: we “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7) Sometimes, we’ll find ourselves cooperating for a shared good with people whose belief differ from our own. At other times, we resist injustice even at great cost. But the power we will exercise is always the same. The power of love.
Before moving to this week’s spiritual practice, a quick thanks to everybody who subscribes. The Woodlands is always free. If you would like to help our ministry to at-risk youth (as well as others in under-resourced communities), consider a paid subscription. Louisiana has been rated as the state with the highest population of at-risk youth in the US.
And now for the spiritual practice:
Walk back through your day and reflect on how you responded to people and circumstances
Where did you feel the pull to withdraw: to stay silent, to avoid a conflict, to leave the room?
Where did you feel the pull to control: to fix the problem, to win an argument, to run things your way?
And where were you faithfully present: simply listening, speaking an uncomfortable truth, pitching in?
Don’t judge what you find. Just notice it and hand it to Christ. Close this examen with the following prayer:
Gracious God, you send us to be an instrument of your love in this time and in this place. Give us the wisdom to hear where our presence is needed each day, the humility to serve without controlling the outcome, and the perseverance to endure when we grow weary; in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
That’s it for this week, friends. Until next time, be well and God bless.
Jake
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