The Gospel Coalition

In this brilliantly (and disturbing) written review of Daniel Radosh’s new book Rapture Ready, Hanna Rosin examines the deep contradictions of Christian popular culture. Please read!

As I mentioned in a post a couple days ago, the Bible teaches that God is on a mission to reclaim and replenish his corrupted territory—“making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). And there is a growing discussion over what role we play, if any, in God’s restoration project. Is the work of cultural renewal our job here and now, or not? Is this something God is doing, or we are doing? You can read part one of my answer here.

Here’s part two: 

Looking at the Lord’s Prayer and its reminder that God’s ultimate goal is to make earth like heaven begs a question: What is going on in heaven that God intends to bring here on earth? Well, whatever else the Bible might have to say about the current environment in heaven, the Lord’s Prayer teaches us that it’s an environment — a culture — where God’s name is perfectly hallowed and his will is perfectly done. Obviously this is by no means the state of affairs on earth at the present time, but Jesus foresees the time when the perfect doing of God’s will and the perfect hallowing of God’s name will be true “on earth as it is in heaven.” And contrary to what many have come to believe, this process of transformation does not begin when Christ returns.

With Christ’s first coming, God began the process of reversing the curse of sin and renewing all things. In Christ, God was moving in a new way and, in the words of C.S. Lewis, “winter began moving backwards.” All of Jesus’ ministry, the words he spoke and the miracles he performed, was to show that there was a new order in town: God’s order. When Jesus would heal the diseased, raise the dead, and forgive the desperate, he did so to show that with the arrival of God in the flesh came the restoration of the way God intended things to be.

Tim Keller rightly points out that Christ’s miracles were not the suspension of the natural order but the restoration of the natural order. They were, in other words, a reminder of what once was and a preview of what will eventually be a universal reality once again—a world of peace and justice, without death, disease, or conflict.  

The greatest miracle which proves this is, of course, the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus was “just the beginning of the saving, renewing, resurrecting work of God that will have its climax in the restoration of the entire cosmos,” as K. Scott Oliphant and Sinclair Ferguson remind us.  The bodily resurrection of Jesus “was the first bit of material order to be redeemed and transfigured,” writes John Stott. “It is the divine pledge that the rest will be redeemed and transfigured one day.”  Christ’s resurrection is both the model and the means for our resurrection — and the guarantee that what he started, he will finish.

Cornelius Plantinga puts it this way:

We have corrupted the earth through folly and sin, but God means to restore all things in the harmony, justice, and delight of shalom. This is a sign to us: On the third day Jesus rose again from the dead, the pledge that one day all things shall be renewed. And God has called people like us to become agents for the restoration project that is already in process.

The day will come when Christ returns and completes this process of transformation (read Revelation 21, for instance). Psalm 96:11-13 gives us a poetic glimpse of what will happen when Jesus returns to rule the earth:

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the LORD, for he comes,
for he comes to rule the earth.
He will rule the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness.

For those who have found forgiveness of sins in Christ, there will one day be no more sickness, no more death, no more tears, no more division, and no more tension. There will be, for the pardoned children of God, complete harmony. We will work and worship in a perfectly renewed earth without the interference of sin. We who believe the gospel will enjoy sinless hearts and minds along with disease-free bodies. All that causes us pain and discomfort will be destroyed, and we will live forever. We will finally be able, as John Piper says, ‘to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded energy and passion forever.’ 

However, in the meantime — the time between Christ’s first and second coming — we, the people of God, have been commissioned as God’s agents of renewal. For not only is Christ’s resurrection the pattern for our resurrection, but according to Romans 8:21 our resurrection is the pattern for the resurrection of all creation.

This is behind Jesus’ commissioning of all his transformed followers: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 29:19-20).

Commenting on these verses, theologian John Frame says,

You see how comprehensive that is? The Great Commission tells us not only to tell people the Gospel and get them baptized, but also to teach them to obey everything Jesus has commanded us. Everything. The Gospel creates new people, people radically committed to Christ in every area of their lives. People like these will change the world. They will fill and rule the earth to the glory of Jesus. They will plant churches, establish godly families, and will also plant godly hospitals, schools, arts, and sciences.

The Great Commission instructs us to bring every part of our lives and every part of our world under the lordship of Christ. And when we do, we bring the renewing power of God’s reign and rule “on earth as it is in heaven.”

We have been redeemed so that we might become instruments of redemption. This means that God’s ultimate purpose for Christians is not bringing them out of this world and into heaven, but using them to bring heaven into this world. Again, the Christian’s ultimate destination is not an ethereal heaven, but a new physical world, and God is ushering in this new world through his people. As we hallow God’s name and do God’s will in how we think, feel, and act (i.e., live unfashionably), the power of Christ’s resurrection flows through us — and as a result, we bring heaven’s culture to earth. In this manner we continue the work that Christ began and will one day complete.

Michael Wittmer beautifully pictures this process:

Just as sin began with individuals and rippled out to contaminate the entire world, so grace begins with individuals and ripples out to redeem the rest of creation. We humans are the bulls-eye of God’s grace, the target of his redemption. But though salvation begins with us, the God who redeems us does not want us to keep redemption to ourselves.

In this provocative article, T.M. Moore explores why we need to develop “enduring standards in a confused age.” He says:

Little in the way of abiding beauty, goodness, or truth has emerged from America’s cultural forges in recent years. A few groups and stars, an occasional writer, and perhaps a handful of works of art or architecture manage to extend their time in the spotlight to something just short of a generation, but then they, too, go the way of the “American idols” as the fickle tastes of a mundane age, tethered to nothing more than momentary titillation—measured in terms of willingness to part with a buck—go searching like a snake’s tongue for the next meal. Surely there is a better way to do culture?

Read the whole piece here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Bible tells us that redemption is God’s arrangement to reverse the curse of sin and renew all things — to restore creation, not destroy it. The Bible teaches that God is on a mission to reclaim and replenish his corrupted territory—“making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). God created both the physical and the spiritual and is going to redeem both the physical and the spiritual. Revelation 11:15 looks ahead to the day when “The kingdom of the world [will] become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he [will] reign forever and ever”—meaning that God is going to transform this present world into the world to come.

Now, most professing Christians are ready to affirm this. But, there seems to be growing discussion over what role we play, if any, in God’s restoration project. Is the work of cultural renewal our job here and now, or not? Is this something God is doing, or we are doing?

This is a question I devote an entire chapter to in this book I’m working on (Unfashionable: How to Make a Difference in this World by Being Different). And over the next few posts, I will be doing my best to answer this question as I understand it. So here we go…

One implication of God’s cosmic mission is that he intends to bring redemption into every arena where sin has brought corruption — and that’s everywhere! As the beloved Christmas hymn “Joy to the World” puts it:

He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

In this remarkable line, we broadcast in song a Gospel as large as the universe itself. The blessings of redemption “flow as far as the curse is found.” This hymn reminds us that the Gospel is good news to a world that has, in every imaginable way, been twisted away from the intention of the Creator’s design by the powers of sin and death, but that God, in Christ, is putting it back into shape.

Because God created peoples, places, and things, and since sin has corrupted peoples, places, and things, God intends to redeem peoples, places, and things. In Christ, God intends to redeem not only individuals, but neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. He intends to redeem not only environmentalists, but the environment; not just lawyers, but law; not simply government officials, but government itself (Isaiah 9:1-7). His goal is to transform every cultural sphere, from art and education to commerce and communication—everything! His mission is to redeem, renew, and regenerate all that is twisted and corrupt, broken and crusted over with sin.

Furthermore, this is a mission God will never abort. He simply refuses to quit until he has renewed every last inch of his good creation that has been contaminated by evil. “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). The apostle Paul says that God is using the power of Christ’s cross to “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Colossians 1:20). He speaks of God’s “plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.”

Cornelius Plantinga puts it nicely:

In a thousand ways, God will gather what’s scattered, rebuild what’s broken, restore what has been emptied out by centuries of waste and fraud. In a thousand ways, God will put right what’s wrong with his glorious creation.

God promises nothing short of cosmic renewal.

To me, the most startling aspect of God’s mission is that we, God’s people, have been enlisted by him to carry it out. We’ve been transformed by God to become agents of transformation. Redemption is not just about being rescued from our sin, it is also about being rescued to do something — to take up again the assignment that we were created for in the first place. And what was this assignment? The cultural mandate. We’re to be doing what God originally called us to do — develop both the social world and the natural world to the glory of God.

I was having a conversation with a good friend recently who was challenging me on this idea that Christians have been enlisted by God to bring about renewal in every cultural arena. His protest was based on his assertion that nowhere in the New Testament are Christians explicitly commanded to be engaged in the transformation of things like art or science or education. My response to him was that we don’t need any explicit command in the New Testament to be engaged in the transformation of culture because the cultural mandate given to Adam still applies. No where does the New Testament abrogate it. Jesus in fact restates it for his followers in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). What the New Testament does explicitly say, in fact, is that God fully intends to bring about the restoration of all things. And Christ’s admonition for Christians to function as the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” clearly implies that it is our business to be working in the same direction God is working—what would the alternative be?

(To be continued…)

When it comes to cultural analysis, John Seel has been a mentor of mine for a long time. He has been kind enough to share his insights and thoughts with me for many years now. For this I am grateful.

Anyway, on Sunday I posted a portion of a letter I received from him on education in America. And in going through my inbox today, I came across another note I received from him which I found to be remarkably insightful. Here is a portion of it:

Cultural analysts are well advised to assess their own cultural accommodation. What becomes conscious has already burrowed deeply into the unconscious.

After a recent discussion with theology students about the ways technology and social networking are changing our private consciousness and public discourse, an astute student asked about my use of an iPhone, which awkwardly announced at that very moment the arrival of a new email. “I need it for business,” I defensively muttered. I thought about it again, when texting my wife a week later on the same iPhone about the banalities of my momentary activity: “I’m standing in the line at customs at the Toronto airport.” Being over fifty, I haven’t succumbed to “text-speak.” But it’s a superficial concession.

In the past month, I’ve read several books, which in the light of these conversations and experiences have helped me make connections I might have missed.

Three books in particular stand out: Andrew Keen, “The Cult of the Amateur” (Doubleday, 2007), Farhad Manjoo, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society” (Wiley, 2008), and Lee Siegel, “Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob” (Spigel & Grau, 2008).

Together these books expose the cultural effects of the radical democratization of the Internet. In their book, “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything,” Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams celebrate the economic potential of mass participation. Tocqueville’s “tyranny of the majority” and Nietzsche’s “herd” are praised as signs of hope in a global market. When the bottom line is the bottom line, the logic holds. But into that market black hole goes everything else of value.

Keen tells the story of a chance encounter at a San Francisco mixer.

“Over glasses of fruity local Chardonnay, we swapped notes about our newest new things. He told me his current gig involved a new software for publishing music, text, and video on the Internet.’It’s MySpace meets YouTube meets Wikipedia meets Google,’ he said. ‘On steroids.’ In reply, I explained I was working on a polemic about the destructive impact of the digital revolution on our culture, economy, and values.’It’s ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule,’ I said, unable to resist a smile. ‘On steroids.’”

Manjoo shows how the Internet is changing the nature of our social discourse. If postmodernism is the “incredulity of metanarratives,” then the Internet is the technology that filters information that is coherent with one’s own chosen subplot. He suggests that what is altered by modern communication technology is not simply the speed and access to more information and news, but more importantly they have altered “our very grasp of reality.” “What’s new about today’s world is that we’ve got a choice about which reality to believe.” It is the difference between “truth” and “truthiness.” “Truthiness,” a phrase coined by Stephen Cobert, is truth that you have decided to trust. For some it will be Bill O’Reilly for others Keith Olbermann. But in the end, there is news that fits your preconceived views.

Of the three books, the most sweeping study of the Internet is Siegel’s “Against the Machine.” “The Internet is possibly the most radical transformation of private and public life in the history of humankind.” It has penetrated itself more deeply than any other medium and has been blithely accepted without a trace of self-critical social or theological discernment. “The Internet is the first social environment to serve the needs of the isolated, elevated, asocial individual.” It is the technology of Generation Me.

There is a direct connection between Facebook and the hook up culture of college life. See Kathleen Bogle’s “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus (New York University Press, 2008). Mediated by binge drinking, Facebook is the technological portal to the normative collegiate pattern of uncommitted random sex. Tom Wolfe wryly notes that under the current social patterns, “home plate” is learning each other’s names. One college senior told a Boston Globe reporter, “You hook up with someone. Then, if you like each other the next day, in the sunlight, you might go out.”

Technology is not neutral. Facebook creates a mindset. Texting creates a form of communication.

This is a point made recently in an op-ed by Perry Glazer in the Boston Globe. Christian cultural analysts need to be the first to the table with thoughtful discernment. Too often we are the last…as we’ve been preoccupied debating whether the baptism of an Avatar in Second Life really counts.

(As I continue to slave away in writing Unfashionable, I thought I’d share with you (feel free to offer suggestions, corrections, etc.) the first three pages. This is how the book begins):

Christianity, according to Jesus, is not cool.

There, I said it.

I’ll even go a step further: If what’s fashionable in our society interests you, then true Christianity won’t. It’s that simple.

Think about it. Jesus said some pretty unfashionable stuff. If you want to live, you must die. If you want to find your life, lose it. He talked about self-sacrifice and crosses and suffering and death. He talked about the need to lay down our lives for those who hate us and hurt us. He talked about serving, not being served; seeking last place, not first. He talked of gouging out your eye and cutting off your hand if they cause you to sin.

He was making the profound point that daily Christian living means daily Christian dying — dying to our fascination with the values of this world and living for something infinitely larger than whatever happens to be in vogue at the moment. Jesus calls his people to live for what is timeless, not trendy. Christians are called to take up the cross and follow Jesus, not social norms; to live above the fray of fashionability, refusing to get caught up in the most recent cultural craze. All of which is flat-out uncool in a world that idolizes whatever’s in style.

In this prayer from The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett presents the paradoxical nature of God’s ways in contrast to the world’s:

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

In God’s economy, in order to win, you must lose. And that flies in the face of everything our culture believes is necessary to be successful.

But then, everything Jesus said about the nature of Christian discipleship is the exact opposite of what our culture exalts and values.

Take the beatitudes, where Jesus (in Matthew 5:1-10) describes the unique characteristics of those who truly follow him. When you compare these to what our world values, there’s not a lot of overlap, to say the least.

Blessed are the poor in spirit? Our culture looks down on those who aren’t self-sufficient and self-made — who aren’t “rich in spirit.”

Blessed are those who mourn? We have little patience for anyone who lacks self-esteem.

Blessed are the meek? We exalt the politically and socially strong and influential. After all, what do we see more of — conferences on servanthood or conferences on leadership?

Blessed are the merciful? Blessed are the peacemakers? Mercy and peacemaking look weak; revenge is tougher, more honorable. After winning a game by 42 points, a famous basketball player was asked why his team’s starting lineup stayed in after the outcome was certain. He replied, “You don’t get anywhere in this world by having sympathy.”

Blessed are the pure in heart? What could possibly be more old-fashioned (or judgmental) than purity?

Jesus goes on to say that if we’re serious about following him in these ways, this world will insult us, persecute us, and tell lies about us (Matthew 5:10-11). In other words, we won’t be very popular.

That’s what this book is all about.

In a recent interview, I was asked if I saw any troubling trends among today’s young Christian leaders. I answered, “Our fascination with fitting in.” In our day, Christians seem preoccupied with persuading the world around us that we’re cool, which in our society means prominent and prosperous, smart and stylish, successful and savvy — in a word, winners. Many young Christian leaders declare that the best way to reach the world is to become just like it. They encourage us to look, talk, think, believe, and act like the world.

The truth, however, is that real Christianity is good news for losers, not winners (see Luke 5:31-32 and 1 Corinthians 1:26-29). Furthermore, Christians make a difference in the world by being different from it, not by being the same. In fact, in the words of theologian David Wells, it’s “those who are cognitively and morally dislocated from worldly culture who alone carry the power to change it.” What gives us transforming influence is our calling and privilege to be in the world, not of it; to be against the world, for the world.

So instead of trying our best to fit in, we need to be encouraged and challenged by the biblical reminder that God’s people have always served the world around them best when they’ve been most counter-cultural, most distinctively different from their surroundings.

Sadly, it’s just this point of being “different” that many in the church seem to be resisting more and more.

Back in the 1950s, when my grandfather was becoming a well-known preacher of the gospel, a famous actor pulled him aside and said, “Billy, don’t ever try to compete with Hollywood, because Hollywood will always do it better than you. You give the world the one thing Hollywood can’t — the straightforward, timeless truth of the gospel.” That’s exactly what he did.

In many ways, the church today needs to heed this actor’s advice. Many Christians today have lost trust in God’s unfashionable ways. To put it bluntly, we’ve spent too much of our churches’ time and money trying to “do Hollywood” so to speak, just so we’ll fit in. In some circles, the transformation of Christianity into entertainment is quickly becoming the standard today, not the exception. Pastors outdo each other in becoming as stylish and smooth as a show in Las Vegas. Many expressions of Christianity are almost indistinguishable from their postmodern cultural surroundings.

In the words of Paul Grant, Christians have been “seduced by cool.”

Of course, this is nothing new. From the ancient Israelites who rejected God as their King in favor of a human king for the purpose of being like “all the other nations” right down to our present fascination with the latest intellectual trend, God’s people have always struggled with wanting to fit in.

But the faithful, according to Jesus, are not the fashionable. They’re not supposed to “fit in”; they’re supposed to be “odd.” Our oddness, in fact, is essential to our faithfulness. Or to put it another way, faithfulness to Christ requires foreignness to the world’s trendy diversions.

In C. S. Lewis’s fictional Screwtape Letters, the senior demon Screwtape advises a demon-in-training to keep Christians “in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity And.’” For his 1940s audience, Lewis illustrated this by “Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing,” and others. He goes on, “If they must be Christians let them be Christians with a [diversion]. Substitute for the faith itself some fashion with a Christian coloring. Work their horror of the same old thing.” For many young Christian leaders today, such a list would be topped by “Christianity and Coolness.” Mere Christianity (“the same old thing”) just doesn’t seem fashionable enough all by itself, so we try dressing it up with a sprinkle of trendy cachet.

Today, perhaps more than ever, Christians need to be reminded of the antithesis between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1–3). Much of what the world esteems as wise, God considers foolish; much of what the world dismisses as foolish, God considers wise.

True followers of Jesus have been given a new heart and mind, a new way, a new destiny. This is why we’re to operate according to a different standard, with different goals and motivations, and an altogether different perspective on money, lifestyle, and relationships. Our thoughts, our affections, our behavior, our priorities and pursuits and passions — all is to be different. We march to the beat of a different drummer.