Culture Is Everywhere. Use It to Point to Christ.

Like fish in water, we’re immersed in culture in ways we don’t realize. Christians talk about culture as something “out there” in the world that influences how we think, or maybe as a society that disdains us and our faith. By this way of thinking, culture is an abstract concept we’re meant to hold at arm’s length.

But culture is more than something “out there” that we can engage, resist, or step back from. It’s much more concrete. Culture is just as much “in here”; it’s a shared way of making sense of life in our communities, families, and even our own thoughts and desires. If we think of it only as the dominant pop culture trends or highbrow works of art, we may miss how every moment of our lives is cultural.

Culture consists of the ways and products of creatures in creation. It involves not only the fruit of human creativity like movies, books, and coffee mugs but also life patterns and habits like homework, holidays, morning commutes, and selfies. Across the scope of our lives, everything is cultural. Christians can’t choose whether to engage with culture, only how.

Culture Is Inescapable and It Matters

Suppose our default framework for thinking about culture is the content we see on TV or social media. We’re likely to approach Christian cultural engagement by imitating those media, infusing them with a gospel message, and driving for popular approval. But Christ doesn’t call us to popularity. Desiring it leads Christians down the wrong path. Moreover, that framework for understanding culture is flawed.

We should instead imagine culture as a language we all speak. It’s communication. We constantly receive culture and are formed by it. Every book, song, dinner, and habit can become a channel of blessing to the world. Each offers an opportunity to witness to the hope of Jesus.

Every book, song, dinner, and habit can become a channel of blessing to the world. Each offers an opportunity to witness to the hope of Jesus.

Culture is an ever-present part of our lives because God created humanity in his image, to rule over his world as a reflection of his likeness (Gen. 1:26–27). Unlike God, we don’t create from nothing. But like God, we can bring order to chaos. That’s part of what it means to be in God’s image: to make culture.

Culture Is a Way of Living

From the beginning, God gave humanity a cultural mandate (vv. 27–28). Because he gave this command, we know we have the capacity to fulfill it. We can use creative reason and will to create what we desire. But our desire presents us with a choice: to follow God’s ways and multiply his image well or to walk our own way in disobedience.

Scripture captures this dynamic as the choice between the way of wisdom and the way of folly (see Prov. 9). One way leads to life and flourishing, while the other leads to death. Culture is a way of living.

We’re called to live according to the way of Christ. That wise way leads us to love for God and our neighbor in every time, place, and activity. When we live in a godly way, we shape the world to reflect what’s objectively true, good, and beautiful. We can see this way in dads who remain faithful to their wives and are patient with their kids and in coffee shop owners who serve excellent drinks at a fair price with joyful hearts. These ways of living make the way of Christ known on earth.

When we live unwisely, we orient ourselves and others away from God’s design for the world. This looks more like spiraling sin described in Gen. 3–6. We see this unwise way in the patterns of sin that characterizes God’s people throughout the biblical narrative. We can see this way of folly in the murders, frauds, and sorrows that fill the headlines every day. That misdirected way of living distorts creation’s goodness, leading to dissatisfaction in this life and misery in the next.

Culture Isn’t the Point

Yet we must remember that culture isn’t the point of human existence; it’s a tool for God’s glory. God’s great goal in history is to point people to the One who is the way (John 14:6) and through this to be known and loved by those he has redeemed. As we walk the way of Christ, we shape the world we and our neighbors inhabit. If we walk wisely, we create culture that points people toward Christ.

As we walk the way of Christ, we shape the world we and our neighbors inhabit.

Songs and catechisms, charity to the poor and silent prayer—these are all cultural realities. Even the Lord’s Supper requires human culture: We don’t consume raw elements of the earth but grapes made into wine and wheat made into bread. God ordains these creative acts.

Ordinary objects like paintings and bicycles, post offices and frying pans, baseball gloves and guitars can all be used to direct our heads, hearts, and hands to love God and our neighbor. They can also direct us away from God and his ways. So the point has never been the things themselves but the One to whom they point.

The Christian life is about more than simply trying to avoid partaking in sinful culture. It’s about living according to God’s greater plan. We can’t escape culture; culture is how we live and what we create. It shapes us even as we shape it. A Christian’s vocation is to create culture that reveals the reality of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection to the world around us.