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| Series Theme: "Culture Wars" |
| Chapter 2: Reasons to read this study
CONTENTS:
PART 2.1 Why the Need for these Studies Focus Paul's Approach Why follow this study? The Additional Demands of Truth
PART 2.2 Another Reason – we're NOT Losers! Focus Refocus A Challenging Example Losers!
Church History warns A Basic ‘Holding' Strategy Summary-Recap
PART 2.1 Why the Need for these Studies
Acts 17:17 “Paul… reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.”
Focus: We need to be clear in our thinking WHY we need to study the modern culture wars as Christians. TEN reasons are suggested.
Paul's Approach: The apostle Paul, in the verse above, arrives in Athens and while he is waiting for Silas and Timothy to come (v.15,16) he takes the opportunity to go to both the local synagogue AND the local marketplace where he talked and reasoned with those he found in both places. For the Jews in the synagogue probably, “as was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and … he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.” (17:2,3 – as he did in Thessalonica). In the marketplace, he had to use a different approach in bringing the Gospel, so instead of using the Scriptures, as he had done in the synagogue, he sought to focus the debaters on the shortfalls of their activities, in this case having an idol to ‘an unknown god' (v.23). The challenge, I would suggest, is can we go into the marketplace (of ideas) and produce credible answers to the questions of the day and can we be up to facing these subjects honestly?
Why follow this study? May I make some suggestions why we NEED to do this.
1. First, failing to confront the enemy at the gates, may mean that we find ourselves being very unpleasantly challenged if we find ourselves in a situation where other people hear us expressing an unguarded opinion and we find ourselves at odds with society, authority, if not the police. (I joke not!)
2. Some of us who hold traditional Christian values and who have children at school, may find ourselves shocked at what we hear is being taught and if we raise an objection, find ourselves branded as extreme, fundamentalist bigots. Now you may put that down to a form of legitimate persecution, but it will do little to help you witness to the truth unless you have a thought-out, reasonable, gracious answer ready.
3. Some of us may have our young people at University or College where they won't merely be in a minority if they hold views running counter to those pervading society today, they may be branded weird AND, as I know some young Christians are feeling, feel oppressed-verging-on-depression by the climate among bright young people today, no longer feeling bright! Some verging on suicide. Not unusual.
4. Some of us may be youth pastors with responsibility for teaching young people. If we do not listen carefully to what is going on in their social networking, we may find ourselves being listened to, not by those grasping for our every word for learning, but more observing us as an object under a microscope who is clearly from another world to theirs!
5. Some of us may be leaders – pastors, elders, ministers, vicars, call them what you will – who will suddenly find we are being challenged to be ‘inclusive' and have full understanding of the ‘diversity' that many in the world around us are espousing. How will we respond?
6. Bluntly, if we remain in our safe Sunday morning comfort-and-coffee, unquestioning environment, we may find that we are simply an irrelevancy in our world, which will do nothing to help us witness to them.
The Additional Demands of Truth: Jesus said , “the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.” (Jn 18:37) So, in addition to the six reasons above, we need to think through these things carefully because: 1. It is incumbent upon us as Christians to seek the truth. 2. It is our duty to hold right attitudes towards everyone else, based on truth. 3. Above all else it is our responsibility to hold right attitudes before God, conforming to what He thinks and feels as He reveals that in His word. 4. If others, for a variety of reasons, appear to be holding positions that run contrary to our understanding of God's desire for His world, seen in Scripture, we need to check that we are actually right and, if so, why others are not, OR if we are wrong, what needs changing in our thinking? There are possibly other truth-reasons, but these will do for now. Read them again and see that this is why we are doing these studies.
A Three-Pronged Attack on the Truth: The more we read and the more we think about these issues, the more we will see that this whole subject of Culture Wars is a carefully orchestrated outright war on the truth that is seen in: • A distortion of factual truths of history – an attack on physical history, • A creation of an atmosphere of guilt imposition that neutralizes those who might stand for the truth – an attack on the emotions • A challenge to everything about the Christian Faith, a faith that underpinned so much that was good in history – a spiritual attack.
As Christians, hopefully with a strong knowledge of the Bible, we know that there is always a spiritual war under way, exercised by Satan who is described as a liar, a deceiver, and a destroyer. Tragically over the last century he has been at work through his agents so that these attacks above are seen in the realms of:
• Politics , originating we will see in the far left, but undermining previous policy-approaches to politics and focusing change on race, gender etc., where attacks have sought to rewrite history with blatant untruths, to demean and undermine the West to allow far-left governments to prevail with human rights abuses and gain power to change the political and economic face of the world, and thus change the balance of power in the world,
• Morality , where distortion of truth and imposition of guilt has made the West inward looking, forgetting the good of its past by focusing on the poor aspects (small by comparison) of its past, and undermining foundations for what is right and good so a permissive and abusive and self-destructive culture prevails,
• Spiritual expressions of belief that have been demeaned and made to look bigoted, intolerant, hostile to reasonable and rational modern outlooks on life.
In all of these ways, truth has been the casualty. THIS is how significant this subject of culture wars is.
PART 2.2 Another Reason – we're NOT Losers!
Jer 29:7 “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf.”
Focus: The world views us as ‘losers', which is a challenge for us to refute by wisdom, knowledge, understanding and humble, compassionate, Spirit-empowered lives, as we seek to bless the world in which we live.
Refocus: It is easy, as we Christians view ourselves as ‘the people of God', to spend our lives and our preaching on portraying the ‘victorious Christian life' and yet be so isolated from society around us, that we become an irrelevant and unreal element of the world. The Lord spoke to His people in exile in Babylon to seek the welfare of the place where they found themselves. I have a feeling that many of us have a negative ‘exile' mentality, where we are the minority. If we do, it limits our effectiveness if we cannot see the possibilities of being here, in the midst of all these people living contrary to the way we believe God wants them to live. That's us!
A Challenging Example: Douglas Murray, who I referred to at the end of the first chapter, is a self-declared gay who mostly writes winningly and comprehensively on these topics in his book, ‘The Madness of Crowds – Gender, Race and Identity'. Now in no sense does he come over as a believer and so in his long chapter simply titled, ‘Gay', he starts out by telling of a film-showing he went to in London, that ended up being shown in secret in a church after there had been gay protests against it.
The film sought to portray the work of conversion therapy, helping gays back to a straight life, but it was his wonderings about these people (Christians) and this showing, that I found concerning. Listen: “they are on the losing side. When they appear on television they are treated with scorn – perhaps too much scorn – they seem unlikely to be taking anywhere by storm any time soon. Here, this evening, they are the losers. And aware of the thrill that can occur when the boot is on the other foot, I feel a reluctance to treat them in victory as some of their ideological confreres might have treated me if we had met before.”
(Remember, he writes as a gay). But speaking about the gay activists who basically shut down that film-showing in a public venue, he pointed out, “In doing so they contradict the claims made by gay rights activists from the start of the battle for gay equality, which is that it should be no business of anyone else what consenting adults get up to in private. If that goes for the rights of gay groups, then surely it ought to apply to the rights of Christian fundamentalists and other groups too.” Interesting!
Losers! There are some other useful things that come out of that example, but it was his quiet, if not gentle, assertion that we Christians are the losers in the battle over gender considerations, that I found disturbing. THAT is how the world views us, especially perhaps the gay community: it's a done deal, Christians, shut up. Well perhaps in the search for truth that is not so, as we shall go on to show – with the help of Douglas Murray himself who says some things that you may find surprising and I hope, surprisingly helpful.
Real Righteousness: Righteousness, which we care about, has perhaps sometimes been demonstrated, through parts of the Church in the past, as equivalent to bigoted harshness, but Jesus was ‘graciously righteous', if I may term it that, and held a perfect balance between strongly denouncing the blind religious leaders while being caring, considerate, compassionate, and accepting of the ‘low life' of his day. Today, it seems, we often find that being reversed: we denounce the ‘low life' of society but make friends with godless authorities. Our calling is to demonstrate compassion and understanding in order to bring healing and change into the society in which we find ourselves.
Church History warns: Reading church history recently, about the period following Constantine and the ease that he brought to the church, I was struck by a comment that in the 360s, “Bishops woke up one day to find themselves shut out of the halls of power and their people put squarely on the back foot.” The cause of this was the change of emperor who, while not ordering violent persecution of Christians, did however turn a blind eye when others did. When a massacre of Christians took place and one particular bishop was killed, the author observed, that a usually fair-minded … Christian scholar of that day… half acknowledges that the bishop “had it coming” for “ he had been extremely obnoxious to all classes...” I find that uncomfortable. The teaching of the apostle Peter, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” (1 Pet 3:15) clearly had no place in that bishop's understanding. That should not be us.
A Basic ‘Holding' Strategy: Today we need to recognise that where once we were tolerated, today we are seen as the enemy, not especially to do with the gospel but often more to do with ways of thinking in our cultures, which I hope to examine in other pages. In the meantime, Jesus' counsel, “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven,” (Mt 5:16) still holds true as a stance to take, to ward off the vultures of unjust and illogical criticism. Stay with me. No quick answers, but careful thought!
Summary-Recap: No longer should we be seen as ‘losers' but a compassionate example of wise and balanced lives that attract the hurting seekers out there. When Christianity is associated with politics, we are indeed losers. If, instead, we are able to be seen as a viable alternative to the ways the world has been living, we can indeed become salt and light to it and be the witness to Jesus that he desires.
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