Christians and their culture
Now and then I meet
people who know how to reduce something really fun and enjoyable down to the
barest, coldest definition, thus robbing it of all its warmth and pleasure. For
example, they see the whirl and excitement of ice-skating as ‘people sliding
around on frozen water’, and they reduce a magical, mysterious trip to the moon
down to ‘humans in a metal cylinder propelled to another lump of rock’. The
grandest event is reduced to the equations of physics or maths. While there is
no doubt that what these people say is true, and reasonably accurate, there is
always a lot more to the ‘thing’ than
they say. Reduction is not always the best way to see things, even though it
may be a true way of describing them.
The reductionist
approach is like a
miserly summary of a great book, or a mere recipe to describe a wonderful meal.
A reductionist can sort out the bones from the meat, but by doing so he also
destroys the flavour, the ambience and the wonder of the meal. A reductionist
would probably identify accurately Miss Muffet’s spider and record her reaction
in terms of the sciences. A reductionist can be like a plug hole – constantly
draining things away in order to leave the last few drops, or essence – and
thus missing the pleasure of the bath.
Not that I am against reductionism as it stands. It is very
important. But to reduce everything to the barest definition is to miss other
things which are also important.
What has this to do with Culture? A great deal. The thing
is, every culture in the world can be reduced right down to its barest bones,
and the result may be as dull as ditchwater, because while the definition is
true, there is more to culture than a mere definition.
Culture is usually defined as:
A social and intellectual formation.
The totality of socially transmitted behaviour patterns.
These may consist of Arts
Beliefs
Institutions
Characteristic
products of human thought
So, if we were to talk about a certain culture, we would
take note of the paintings and carvings, the language, the costumes and dramas,
the manners, the buildings, the style of their ceremonies, their attitudes to
men, women, children, animals and the planet, the type of government, the
religious beliefs and the literature. Taken all together we would say we had a
distinctive culture, which though similar to all other cultures in some ways,
would also be different to all other cultures.
The reductionist approach (please bear with me for a while)
would deal with these things in various ways. As far as the Arts were concerned (the reductionist would say), all Arts
depend on representations of other things. All art is derived from something
else, and there is nothing made by Man which can be said to be totally
original. Even non-representational art is derived from the colours, textures
and so on of the materials from which it is made.
All the materials which people use to make pictures, or to
carve sculptures, or to cast statues are made of metals and minerals already
available. God of course has provided everything for Man to use, so God is the
source of all Art materials, and Man is but the shaper and moulder of these
materials. In which case the reductionist would say that all Man can do is
present what God has already made in slightly different ways. In which case
Arts in culture are neither new or eternal.
Visual arts rely on the frequency of light waves, the seven
colours of the rainbow in their pure or mixed forms, and the ability of the
retina to transfer the impact of photons to the brain via an electrical
impulse. Music is also made of vibrations, transferred through air, coming from
things rubbed, blown or struck. Dance relies on the 3dimensional swivelling of
joints. Literature needs coded symbols translated into sound, received by
receptors. All the Arts can be reduced to mere statements of function.
The belief systems of different cultures are also
similar and different, but they all share the same derivative nature. There is
not a single idea invented by Man today which has never been considered before,
and its not just a case of “There is nothing new under the sun”. Nothing is new
since Adam and Eve. And before that, God knew. All gods and goddesses are
extensions and modifications of the One God. All Nature gods are reflections of
Man’s imagination, which is itself a product of Creation. Biologically, the very
imagination of Man can operate only on predetermined pathways constructed from
neurons. Everything Man believes is therefore part of, or rearrangement of a
previously created storehouse of truth, so no beliefs are original or eternal.
Adam and Eve thought of it first, or their children did, but whoever, in those
first years of human life, so since then nothing new has been added.
And even worse, all belief systems operate within the brains
of humans. These brains are nourished by food which God gives to the humans.
The bodies of the humans are supplied with air, and water from God. The
life-spans of the humans are determined by God. In fact everything comes from
God and returns to God.
On another basic level, when we speak to each other, we use
the laws of physics which God has already built into His universe. Sound waves,
vocal chords, ears, sound, taste and light receptors, all the millions of cells
involved in speaking and hearing - “He
that planted the ear shall He not hear?” There is not a word or a thought in
all the human race which has not depended entirely on God for its energy.
Everything we see, feel, hear, taste and smell is the
product of God’s creation. Our very self-awareness is a God-given ability, so
when any person claims to have ‘created something new’ they have not really
done more than rearrange things which were already in existence.
So it is no wonder the reductionists are not good company.
They can be the death of the party!
When we look at institutions
we see that no matter which form of government (or lack of it) chosen by
people, not one of them is original. Democracy, dictatorship, oligarchy,
tyranny, no matter which one we pick we find the same thing: humans trying to
govern other humans. Government in its broadest sense, begins with personal
self-control and goes out through smaller groups until it encompasses all
people in all countries. So we may speak of a style of government as being
‘cultural’ but all we are really saying is ‘this style of government operates
here’.
Characteristics of
human thought are
simply the way certain groups of people do things. In
But no culture is
permanent.
If one thinks of his culture as a permanent, stable thing,
one need only look back a short distance into the past to see how ephemeral a
culture really is. Beginning with the handful of people who departed from the
grounded
The Babylonians produced a distinctive culture, as did the
Egyptians, then the Greeks, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Russians, the
Indonesians, the Romans, and each of the small European states. The Jews
maintained their distinctive ways for more than 2000 years. Today many of the
different cultures are almost caricaturing themselves in order to be different,
but the fact remains – all cultures are relatively young, and none of them are
older than a few thousand years.
So where does the
Christian fit into all this?
Well it is obvious that no single culture has been set up by
God. No style of dress, custom, painting, music and so on . . . not a single
specific cultural characteristic is divinely inspired. All are the works of
Man, and none have been around for much longer than a few thousand years. The
‘feeling’ that cultures are solidly established is an illusion. In a very young
world all cultures are mere infants.
But should Christians turn their backs on their own cultures
as evil things? Are all the works of Man so tainted with sin that Christians
ought to have nothing to do with anything that is not ‘spiritual’? A few
Purists try to do this, to their own misery. The Purist approach – to cut one’s
self completely off from the world – has a rather ironic twist. When the Purist
is alone, he realises that all the world is shut up with him. Besides, to toss
out the entire culture because of the sin within it is flying in the face of
the example set by the Lord Jesus, who spent his time ‘rubbing shoulders’ with
the commoners, and it is also quite impractical, because in order to cut one’s
self off from the world, one would need to literally leave it altogether. Of
all men, Jesus was the most pure, yet he never isolated himself from the world.
So the question remains – what is good enough in a culture
to keep?
In order to answer this question we have to work out what we
as Christians need to live. By this we mean, what basic needs to Christians
have which are not sinful, but which are provided through their cultural
setting?
Food, clothes, a comfortable dwelling, perhaps a friend or
wife, and other ‘good’ needs such as useful employment and money, perhaps
entertainment. All these things are available in most cultures. None of these
things are sinful as needs, but each is open to being either a source of sin or
a source of goodness. Each Christian must decide for him or herself where the
line between permissible and unacceptable is. There is no hard and fast rule
about these things, and I am not trying to build up a set of rules.
The first thing which I see when I look at the example of
Jesus and the Apostles, is the fact that they all worked. Jesus worked so hard he had to rest beside a well. He fell
asleep in a boat during a storm. He sweated. He walked for hours every day,
healing and teaching. He withdrew for prayer because he was feeling drained.
Paul also worked, paying his own way by earning a little money as he preached.
Work must therefore be a good thing, since neither Jesus nor the Apostles
spurned it.
Work is also a
theme running through the Bible. Adam and Eve were told to “dress and keep” the
garden, fools are condemned as slothful in Proverbs, diligence is held up as a
virtue, the Sabbath was a day of rest after six days of work, new Christians
are told to work in order to raise the money to pay for their families, and
gifts to the poor came from worker’s pockets. Jesus himself worked through his
apprenticeship with his father, applying himself in the sun and workshop.
Hard work is usually the key to wealth, and with wealth
comes a house, perhaps marriage, good food, entertainment and nice clothes. All
good things.
But God wants Christians to go further than these basics. He
has called us as sons and daughters, not as mere tenants in a dreary housing
estate. So the following must be said:
Self-expression is encouraged. The Church is
encouraged to work together as a body sharing gifts and ministries, “every one
of you has a hymn, or a psalm, or a word of knowledge”. The saints are told to
“make melody in their hearts”. The last few psalms are full of singing,
shouting, musical Christians – all creative in a certain way. As for
architecture, Solomon’s
But all cultures contain elements which are definitely
non-Christian. How do we define these elements? One sure way is by holding up
the 10 commandments like a measuring stick and seeing where the culture falls
short. If the culture strays from the guidelines in the Big Ten, then
Christians ought to avoid it. If it does not, then Christians may thoroughly
enjoy themselves.
It is not my intention to meticulously pick my way through
every aspect of my own culture, as that would be too tedious, and besides, you
(Reader) may come from a different culture. What is applicable to the Western
culture may not be at all applicable to your own. The principles however should be the same for any culture.
The body.
In every culture there are certain practices which abuse the
body. Christians are commanded to care
for their bodies, so obviously, they must try to avoid body-abuse. Body-abuse
may come in the form of drugs, excessive exercise, sleep-deprivation, toxic
substances and ‘attitude’ changes, through philosophy, or some other negative
input. Wrong-thinking can affect the health, so Christians ought to work
towards right-thinking at all times. What affects the mind also affects the
body and the spirit. A healthy
Christian should have a healthy mind, and a healthy body, and a healthy spirit.
The three work together. Whatever the prevailing culture does which goeas
against this ‘best plan’ should be avoided.
Some Christians see coffee, alcohol and tea as harmful to
the body, other saints include a wider range of foods. It is not for me to
judge, but whatever is perceived as harmful should be omitted.
Christians ought to make every effort to keep their body
well fed and fit. Why? Because the healthier the body is, the more able it is
to function at its maximum for the Lord.
Housing.
The usual rule in most things Christian is ‘modesty’.
Housing should therefore be practical, sensible, and non-ostentatious. A
Christian’s house may be attractive and even beautiful, because beauty is
godly. Hygiene and usefulness are also important, since a Christian is expected
to be “given to hospitality” and ‘welcoming strangers’, s the odd spare room
would be in order.
Fashion.
Modesty dictates a certain style, whatever the culture.
Clothes are not meant to distract or allure, but they may be attractive and
well made. Some cultures wear clothes which have a religious or spiritual tone,
so Christians ought to be aware of this. Some fashions, such as wooden plugs in
ear-lobes, or metal rings around necks, or foot-binding, are disfiguring to the
body, though ‘culturally accepted’. Body-piercing is also questionable, but
each individual must decide for themselves whether it is honouring God to have
it done.
Music.
The human voice is a gift from God, and part of the body.
(See 1) When it comes to songs, Christians ought to be careful they sing true
lyrics, not false or blasphemous lyrics. True lyrics can be about anything in
life which is true – not just “Praise
the Lord!” songs, but other criteria are also involved. Relevance, suitability,
positive or negative message, edifying? Instruments are also an individual
choice. Solomon’s
Every major culture seems to have had its own distinct type
of music, Christians ought to be careful they are not sucked into the culture
through its music.
Employment.
Christians have a single rule – work hard and be diligent.
Honest hard work is its own reward. The ‘sleep of a labouring man is sweet’
because he has done his best. But Christians ought to consider whether the
product of their work is beneficial to others or harmful, sensible or wasteful,
useful or useless, and so on.
I recall the Christian sign-writer who refused to paint a
sign advertising cigarettes. Another Christian graphic-designer turned down a
job for promotion of Roman Catholic recruitment. Christians in business have to
be on guard all the time lest they work for causes which are opposed to Christianity – otherwise they
are like the man sitting on the branch and sawing through it from the trunk
side.
Religion.
Every culture promotes many ‘spiritual’ ideas. Cults and
pseudo churches are everywhere. Philosophies are being invented every day.
Non-Christian cultures are a seething pot full of anti-Christian thinking.
So Christians must keep within the Bible guidelines, no more
no less.
Because spiritual things are so permeated into every
culture, Christians have to be on guard all the time. Films, videos, TV
programs, music, conversations and the whole Media circus constantly dishes out
material for non-Christians, hence
the lack of Christianity in it, hence the blasphemies, hence the immorality.
Evolution is a religion just as much as some of the New Age teachings, and
every non-Christian you meet has many ideas which are diametrically opposed to
the Bible.
Entertainment.
There are many good things in every culture. Good drama,
good music, good art . . . but as C.S.Lewis put it “any road out of
Celtic music can lead (out of the City) into Celtic
mysticism, Indian dance can lead (out) to Hinduism, Martial Arts can lead (out)
to spiritism.
Military Service.
Christians may wear a uniform to defend their country. The
armed forces are not ‘unchristian’ – even Christians are called “soldiers” in
the Bible, and given a range of weapons. The State is also called the “wielder
of the sword” i.e. the death penalty. So Christians may join the army, air
force or navy. The only thing they must beware of is an unjust war. It is always better to obey God rather than men, so
military service may involve a Christian in a difficult choice.
Sport.
There is nothing evil or wrong with Sport (except perhaps
boxing and other attacking forms in which the body is abused, see 1) But
neither is there much to say for it,
because all Sport is based on competition,
and competition is not acceptable for Christians. The Christian alternative to
competition is co-operation, help, consideration and encouragement. Rather than
demolishing other people, Christians are called to come alongside them and
support them. The weak are to lifted up, not beaten and triumphed over.
Take Monopoly for example. This game is geared so that the
winner is the player who causes everyone else to go bankrupt. Greed and
accumulation are the rule. If the winner shared his money with the other
players, the game would never end.
Sport however is good for the body, provided it does not
become an obsession. Sport can bring people together in friendly groups. It can
enhance life in merry comradeships. It can prolong life by promoting health
through good food and exercise.
The last mark of a
“culture” is
“Characteristic products of human thought”, which means the philosophies behind
people’s thinking. Here in the Western world, the culture is influenced heavily
by Materialism. As well as this we have adopted the destructive assumptions of
Evolution. Science has been deified, and the white-coated technician is a sort
of icon, representing authority and permanence.
Our whole Western education system is saturated in
evolutionary thinking, which has led most Westerners to believe that : the
Earth is very old, Man is descended from apes, the solar system formed from a
cloud of gas, life is an accident, and there is nothing after death.
Thankfully though, no culture has ever made love illegal.
Christians therefore have at least one thing which they can practise without
being arrested. Love in action expresses itself in kindness, generosity,
thoughtfulness, help, encouragement and so on. Love is something which all
humans appreciate, though Christians alone can accurately identify its Source.
So we have come full circle, from the reductionist approach
to culture, to the Christian response to their own particular culture. Now we
might tread carefully into an unknown area . . . and guess at what a Christian
culture might be like.
What if Christians
were in the majority?
Christians have never been the majority, in the sense that
they have formed the government and the people of a whole country or nation.
NonChristians have always held sway in every culture, since Adam and Eve
produced the first family. Their first son was a murderer and before long
almost all their children were condemned to burial under the waters of a Flood.
The post-Flood generations were equally wicked, first building a tower in
defiance of God and then forming secular city-states all round the planet. One
by one God has had to destroy them – Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians,
Hittites, Aztecs, Mayans, Olmecs, Greeks, Romans, Elamites, Medians, Persians
and all the hundreds of small cities. Even today the process of judging the
nations continues, as God brings one against the other, just as He did when he
brought
But if a whole
nation were totally Christian, what
would it be like? Many fanciful ideas spring to mind, but I think it might
actually be surprisingly dull. The streets would be quiet, and the neon lights,
casinos, gambling dens, striptease joints, sleazy bars and so on would be gone.
People would be busy and not idle, and each citizen would care well for own his
property and all it touched. Private ownership would be present, but there
would be no high-interest mortgages, or huge insurance policies, because people
with more would give to those with less, helping each other with their
finances. Instead of people ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ they would make sure
the Joneses kept up with them.
Children could wander safely into any part of the city
without fear or danger from strangers or bullying. Every door would be unlocked,
every home a place of welcome and hospitality. Security vans would be gone, and
probably most of the Banks. The padlock industry would cease, along with all
the chains, security gadgets and alarms common to this world. Nobody would hate
their neighbour or shun them because of disputes. Trade and commerce would
continue, but on different lines. Products would tend to be sensible and
practical, with little ornamentation.
All the problems which beset our present world (usually the
result of personal choice) would be gone.
The Arts would flourish as creative people reflected the
beauties of Nature, and the trend in abstract work would be towards beauty
rather than ugliness, harmony rather than nihilism. All the gossip magazines,
gaudy signs, derelict buildings, titillating chat shows and so on would be
gone, and in their place would be literature and entertainment of the highest
calibre, edifying and intelligent, funny and informative. No longer would
Christians need to ‘come alongside’ the world to reach the lost, so pseudo
Christian entertainment would also be gone.
There would be no crime, no domestic violence, no abortions,
no unwanted children, no credit cards, no bigotry, no racism, no corrupt
business practises, no defaulting on promises, no prisons, and no shifty
politics. The country would be governed by a group of elders whose aim would be
to make sure all the public amenities were available to all. Taxes and Rates
would be based on what was needed.
Hospitals would treat the usual round of sicknesses and
accidents. Parents would teach, nurture and raise their own children. Higher
education (for teaching in areas most parents would not be specifically trained
for) would still operate in universities or polytechs. The supply infrastructure
would be scaled down but it would still be there, only on a much smaller scale.
(People would still need power, water, rubbish-removal and so on)
If this Christian culture ever came about, I am sure there would need to be what I like
to call the “Cult Police” . These people would be employed hunting down (if
that is the right expression) those people who veered off from the sensible and
general understanding of the Scriptures. The false teachers would need to be
reasoned with, corrected, and re-instated in the community, otherwise they
would be asked to leave the country. This would prevent the growth of heresies
and cults and encourage people to study the Bible rather than follow specious
arguments.
But such a society will never arise because Jesus called the
Church a “little flock” in the midst of “wolves”. Until the end of this present
age, Christians will remain as salt in the meal, and candles on the shelf.
But it is nice to dream.
Nature and culture.
Nature tells us that there is a Creator. It cannot tell us
much more than that, so there is not much point in trying to find God in
Nature. God is so much greater than what He has made, so any attempt to find
Him in His handiwork will always fail.
But Nature can tell us many things which help us understand
God a little better. For example, when the Bible tells us that God is
“glorious”, and we see a sunrise over snowy mountains, we understand better
what “glorious” means. We also understand “mighty” a little better when we see
ocean waves crashing onto rocks during a storm. We understand the “gentleness’
of God better when we see a thistledown floating by, or feel the fur of a
newborn kitten. Likewise we understand “intelligence” when we learn biology,
and “wisdom” when we see the Table of Elements. We understand “grace” better
when we watch a swan gliding over a lake, and we understand “power” when he
stand near to a huge cataract thundering into a ravine.
All the useful meanings of words come to life when we see
them working in Nature. Majesty, Patience, Tenderness, Obedience, Sadness,
Starvation, Anger, Brutality, and so on. Every expression which humans use to
describe things is found in Nature, illustrated there in some living creature,
or physical effect. There must be some good reason for this.
I assume that God has surrounded Man with these living,
moving, operating illustrations in order to supply a sort of ‘teaching aid’ to
tell us about Himself. Like the simple
diagrams which lecturers like to show to their classes, God has given us many
‘diagrams’ of Himself to lead us to a better understanding of Himself. This is
why so many sermons work successfully when they use illustrations from Nature.
The mother bird sacrifices herself to feed her chicks, the wolf pack catches
the prey because each member obeys the leader, ducks fly in a ‘V’ shape because
this gives every duck except the leader an easier flight. Diagrams serve a
small but useful purpose, because they are always limited, but once the meaning
has been seized, the illustration becomes redundant.
Unfortunately there are people who make gods of the
diagrams. These misguided Nature-worshippers treat God’s diagrams as if they
were the ultimate truth. There are some who call the planet by a name, and reverence the ‘Earth Mother’. Some people
regard trees with too high regard, others try to communicate with dolphins.
Nature has become, for many, the ultimate reality, and the God who made it has
been rejected.
But Christians can draw a great lesson from the way God has
set up Creation, because there is a parallel working here. God is greater than
Creation, so it is foolish to gaze adoringly at Creation and miss the God who
made it. In the same way God has allowed for different cultures to arise, but
it is foolish to gaze at any culture and miss the God who created humans.
Christians may enjoy their culture, even revel in its good points, dance, sing,
write, act, teach, lead, govern and so on, but they must never see their
culture as much more than a diagram. The greater must rise above the lesser.
If we took the reductionist view and emptied culture to its
dregs, we would not have much to admire. Science, the great reductionist force
in our modern world, has been emptying the universe for many years now, and the
best it can say about the whole universe is “We are energy”, or, “All is
random”. In a sense this is true, but as I said, reductionists empty the hole
bath and forget about the pleasure of the hot water.
Greater and Lesser.
There is a pattern in the Bible, of greater and lesser. The
Great God creates life, and life, in a small way, brings to birth. The Father
speaks, and Jesus speaks. The Father does the works, and Jesus does the works.
The adult is always larger than the offspring. The whole of Creation comes from
an invisible word, and life begins at the microscopic level. Whatever God does
on the grand scale, is found in smaller scales.
God has so ordered
things that they are formed from ever decreasing levels of simplicity. Take the
beautiful cat on the couch. It is an animal, a bioelectrical lifeform. Analyse
it further and you find strings of molecules. Dissect them and you find atoms.
Further down you find sub-atomic particles, and so on, until the cat has
disappeared utterly. But embrace the
whole cat and you have a lot more than a few simple equations.
A large culture is made out of thousands or millions of
people, yet each person in that culture is just one person. At the beginning
Adam and Eve represented the whole world’s culture. As soon as they had
children the different cultures began to develop. Today we see some of the
fruits of those original divergences.
Christians ought to use
the reductionist method to dissect their culture, but having done that, they
ought to also look at the good in it,
and the fullness of it. If we abandoned our whole culture as too evil
to be a part of, or too abstract to relate to, we would be of no use to it.
Jesus never abandoned his village, (although he created all its substance) and
the only culture he ever left to itself was the Jewish one, ( but only until
after his crucifixion). Knowing all he
knew about his culture, Jesus worked within in it with his mind, body and
spirit. He embraced all that was good and loved the people (though he was their
creator). His example is astonishing, considering who he was.
So the problem of living in a culture is two-fold. On the
one hand we are in danger if abandoning it altogether, because of our
reductionist views, (or because we think we are “too pure”), while on the other
hand we are in danger of embracing everything, and becoming so immersed in the
culture that we can be of no use at all to it. As always Jesus struck the
perfect balance. He spoke like a Jew, dressed like a Jew, associated with Jews,
ate like a Jew, and attended Jewish festivals and so on, yet he maintained his
Sonship throughout, and lifted people up and out of the Jewish culture. Paul
did a similar thing, being “all things to all men” in his attempt to “save
some”.
The principles of the