Decoding Culture
One of the themes of Buzz 07 is decoding culture. I just finished a chapter for a book that will be published on the topic next year. It's a collection of "essays." Just thought I'd share an excerpt.
Church Steeples
There was a time, just a few centuries ago, when nautical maps of Europe had legends that included the location of churches on land and church steeples doubled as navigational tools for ship captains. Churches were typically built on choice real estate in the center of town or atop the highest hill. And in some places, there were ordinances against building anything taller than the church steeple so it would occupy the place closest to heaven. Nothing was more visible on the pre-modern skyline than church steeples. And in a sense, church steeples symbolized the place of the church in culture. There was a day, in the not too distant past, when church was the center of culture. Church was the place to go. Church was the thing to do. Nothing was more visible than the church steeple. Nothing was more audible than the church bells. And it might be a slight exaggeration, but all the pre-modern church had to do was raise a steeple and ring a bell.
Is it safe to say that things have changed?
The church no longer enjoys a cultural monopoly. We are the minority in post-Christian America. And the significance of that is this: we can't afford to do church the way it's always been done. Our tactics must change.
Don't get me wrong: the message is sacred. But methods are not. And the moment we anoint our methods as sacred, we stop creating the future and start repeating the past. We stop doing ministry out of imagination and start doing ministry out of memory. And if we think that raising the steeple or ringing the bells will get the job done; the church in America will end up right where the Israelites found themselves in Judges 2:10:
After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.
Permission to speak frankly?
Too many pastors are getting As in Biblical exegesis and Ds in cultural exegesis. We know Scripture, but we're out of touch with the times. The end result is a gap between theology and reality called irrelevance. We're out of touch with the very people we're trying to reach--the unchurched and dechurched. We've got to exegete our culture so we can close the gap. That's what incarnation is all about.
The post-Christian church needs a revelation: irrelevance is irreverence!
Church and Culture
As I see it, the church has four options when it comes to engaging culture: 1) ignore it, 2) imitate it, 3) condemn it, or 4) create it. And each option leads in polar opposite directions.
We can ignore culture, but the byproduct of ignorance is irrelevance. The more we ignore culture the more irrelevant we'll become. And if the church ignores the culture, the culture will ignore the church.
We can imitate culture, but imitation is a form of suicide. Originality is sacrificed on the altar of cultural conformity. If we don't shape the culture, the culture will shape us.
We can condemn culture, but condemnation is a cop out. Let me just call it what it is: condemnation is spiritual laziness. We've got to stop pointing the finger and start offering better alternatives. If the church condemns the culture, the culture will condemn the church.
Those three options will lead the church down a dead-end road to irrelevance, but there is another option--the only option if we're serious about fulfilling the Great Commission and incarnating the gospel. We can compete for culture by creating culture.
In the immortal words of the Italian artist and poet, Michelangelo: criticize by creating.
At the end of the day, the culture will treat the church the way the church treats the culture. And we're not called to condemn. We're called to redeem.
Cultural Capital
Let me confront an issue spiritual leaders face: it is difficult to demand attention if we don't pay attention. If we talk without listening, what we have to say is viewed as a diatribe. And we'll keep answering questions no one is asking!
A few years ago someone paid me a surprising compliment that caught me off guard. They thanked me for quoting non-Biblical sources in my messages. No one had ever commented on that component of my communication, but that compliment has become part of my philosophy of preaching. I love to read and I'm interested in just about everything, so it's not uncommon for me to quote anyone from Aristotle and Heraclites to Gladwell and Goleman. And what I realized is this. Quoting Scripture gives me credibility with Christians. Quoting non-Biblical sources gives me credibility with non-Christians. And while our non-biblical sources should never be unbiblical, we have to recognize that cross pollinating with non-theological disciplines gives us cultural capital.
Every year we do two series titled God @ the Billboard and God @ the Box Office that explore spiritual themes in popular songs and movies. The reason is simple: the sixty percent of Americans who don’t attend church get their theology from movies and music. For better or for worse, musicians and movie makers are the chief theologians in our culture.
In the prophetic words of the eighteenth century Scottish thinker, Andrew Fletcher: "Give me the making of the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws."
Our culture is shaped, even more than we realize, by the movies we watch and the music we listen to. And we have a choice. We can ignore them. We can condemn them. Or we can dialogue about them. God @ the Box Office and God @ the Billboards are attempts to exegete the movies and music that are shaping the cultural consciousness of nearly two hundred million unchurched Americans. We exegete the scripts and lyrics and juxtapose them with Scripture. And while a series on movies or music may sound like watered-down or dumbed-down versions of the gospel, they are actually two of our hardest hitting sermon series because movies and music are brutally honest about the human condition.
We need to get serious about exegeting culture and finding spiritual identification points. We need to redeem cultural metaphors to communicate the gospel. Isn't that what Jesus did as a parabolist? He framed truth in ways that fit within the cognitive categories of his listeners. It was intellectual incarnation.
If we choose to ignore the culture around us, we aren't following in the footsteps of Jesus. We're only digging our own grave and burying ourselves alive.
Church Steeples
There was a time, just a few centuries ago, when nautical maps of Europe had legends that included the location of churches on land and church steeples doubled as navigational tools for ship captains. Churches were typically built on choice real estate in the center of town or atop the highest hill. And in some places, there were ordinances against building anything taller than the church steeple so it would occupy the place closest to heaven. Nothing was more visible on the pre-modern skyline than church steeples. And in a sense, church steeples symbolized the place of the church in culture. There was a day, in the not too distant past, when church was the center of culture. Church was the place to go. Church was the thing to do. Nothing was more visible than the church steeple. Nothing was more audible than the church bells. And it might be a slight exaggeration, but all the pre-modern church had to do was raise a steeple and ring a bell.
Is it safe to say that things have changed?
The church no longer enjoys a cultural monopoly. We are the minority in post-Christian America. And the significance of that is this: we can't afford to do church the way it's always been done. Our tactics must change.
Don't get me wrong: the message is sacred. But methods are not. And the moment we anoint our methods as sacred, we stop creating the future and start repeating the past. We stop doing ministry out of imagination and start doing ministry out of memory. And if we think that raising the steeple or ringing the bells will get the job done; the church in America will end up right where the Israelites found themselves in Judges 2:10:
After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.
Permission to speak frankly?
Too many pastors are getting As in Biblical exegesis and Ds in cultural exegesis. We know Scripture, but we're out of touch with the times. The end result is a gap between theology and reality called irrelevance. We're out of touch with the very people we're trying to reach--the unchurched and dechurched. We've got to exegete our culture so we can close the gap. That's what incarnation is all about.
The post-Christian church needs a revelation: irrelevance is irreverence!
Church and Culture
As I see it, the church has four options when it comes to engaging culture: 1) ignore it, 2) imitate it, 3) condemn it, or 4) create it. And each option leads in polar opposite directions.
We can ignore culture, but the byproduct of ignorance is irrelevance. The more we ignore culture the more irrelevant we'll become. And if the church ignores the culture, the culture will ignore the church.
We can imitate culture, but imitation is a form of suicide. Originality is sacrificed on the altar of cultural conformity. If we don't shape the culture, the culture will shape us.
We can condemn culture, but condemnation is a cop out. Let me just call it what it is: condemnation is spiritual laziness. We've got to stop pointing the finger and start offering better alternatives. If the church condemns the culture, the culture will condemn the church.
Those three options will lead the church down a dead-end road to irrelevance, but there is another option--the only option if we're serious about fulfilling the Great Commission and incarnating the gospel. We can compete for culture by creating culture.
In the immortal words of the Italian artist and poet, Michelangelo: criticize by creating.
At the end of the day, the culture will treat the church the way the church treats the culture. And we're not called to condemn. We're called to redeem.
Cultural Capital
Let me confront an issue spiritual leaders face: it is difficult to demand attention if we don't pay attention. If we talk without listening, what we have to say is viewed as a diatribe. And we'll keep answering questions no one is asking!
A few years ago someone paid me a surprising compliment that caught me off guard. They thanked me for quoting non-Biblical sources in my messages. No one had ever commented on that component of my communication, but that compliment has become part of my philosophy of preaching. I love to read and I'm interested in just about everything, so it's not uncommon for me to quote anyone from Aristotle and Heraclites to Gladwell and Goleman. And what I realized is this. Quoting Scripture gives me credibility with Christians. Quoting non-Biblical sources gives me credibility with non-Christians. And while our non-biblical sources should never be unbiblical, we have to recognize that cross pollinating with non-theological disciplines gives us cultural capital.
Every year we do two series titled God @ the Billboard and God @ the Box Office that explore spiritual themes in popular songs and movies. The reason is simple: the sixty percent of Americans who don’t attend church get their theology from movies and music. For better or for worse, musicians and movie makers are the chief theologians in our culture.
In the prophetic words of the eighteenth century Scottish thinker, Andrew Fletcher: "Give me the making of the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws."
Our culture is shaped, even more than we realize, by the movies we watch and the music we listen to. And we have a choice. We can ignore them. We can condemn them. Or we can dialogue about them. God @ the Box Office and God @ the Billboards are attempts to exegete the movies and music that are shaping the cultural consciousness of nearly two hundred million unchurched Americans. We exegete the scripts and lyrics and juxtapose them with Scripture. And while a series on movies or music may sound like watered-down or dumbed-down versions of the gospel, they are actually two of our hardest hitting sermon series because movies and music are brutally honest about the human condition.
We need to get serious about exegeting culture and finding spiritual identification points. We need to redeem cultural metaphors to communicate the gospel. Isn't that what Jesus did as a parabolist? He framed truth in ways that fit within the cognitive categories of his listeners. It was intellectual incarnation.
If we choose to ignore the culture around us, we aren't following in the footsteps of Jesus. We're only digging our own grave and burying ourselves alive.
20 Comments:
Well said...
Not much else to say - you nailed it.
This post has been removed by the author.
Mark, great stuff.
Any way I could get a pre-release copy of that book to review?
Email me.
Amazing...this one is definitely being tacked up on my wall as a not so gentle reminder of the filter I must run all ministry through. Thanks!
Mark,
Great thoughts on connecting with our culture. Sounds a lot like Paul speaking in Athens. He started with their own cultural understanding and built a cognitive bridge with the listeners.
Paul
bro,
i'm sending this to my leaders. thanks for breaking down the sober reality of how the church - as a whole - views and has viewed culture. such rich stuff...thanks man. look forward to meeting ya at the NNCC.
Cultural Exegesis begins with a relationship not a book.
http://revotional.voxtropolis.com/
Mark -
This is one of the best lines I have read in awhile.
"If we choose to ignore the culture around us, we aren't following in the footsteps of Jesus."
That's a call to action!
Great post Mark...this is what I've been trying to say to my leaders but you've put into words for me. Thanks.
How important is it to stay relevant with ecclesiastical methodology, I wonder? I guess my question is, what is the purpose of the church at its core? Is it to be a relevant tool to attract people to the corporate gathering? Or is it a place for believers to be edified and equipped to go out into their communities and reach people with the love of Christ?
Ecclesiastical methods are minuscule compared to a life lived in love.
How does the Church (as a corporate entity) create culture? Or do you mean, that we should as Christians be artisans in our vocations, redeeming our surrounding culture by our contribution to it?
Before Christians can do anything in culture, we first need to experience a personal reformation. Individual reform must take place before the corporate body attempts to redeem anything. Perhaps our first goal should be to renew our personal relationship with God and let that spill over into the culture.
Historically this is how reformations began; one man alone with God, finding his faith wanting and drawing close. I agree we should be engaging culture by creating it. I just wonder if that is the call of each individual Christian or the corporate Assembly.
Interesting post; nice job. Would love to see the points developed more.
Cheers!
Thanks for this post, Mark. It really resonates with me. Right before I moved to DC I thought about leaving church a few times because I didn't really feel connected; and I also felt sometimes like I wasn't really welcome, having made some not-so-super decisions, among people who seemed (or pretended?) to "have it all together". And somehow the message of Jesus embracing precisely those who didn't have it all together, yet of whom there were multitudes, was missing. I feel like I get a glimpse of that Jesus in some of what you write. Thank you.
Mark,
I am looking forward to the book and the conference. Everything you said is right on. I especially like the part about talking without listening. Leaders are learners.
Incredibly well said. You will know if you are moving in the right direction when the criticism comes from other "Christians." And don't you even think about backing down! We will always have Pharisees...and we have a lot of work to do to reach the world.
Mark I recently heard an interview with Andy Crouch the director of the Christian Vision Project that was along these same lines.
He says that over the last century Christians have had a series of postures for culture. Typically we either condemn, critique, copy or consume culture.
For a while we thought the best thing we could do with culture is to just condemn it. Sort of stand outside it and resist it and be suspicious of it and try to avoid it. Of course this posture is appropriate when you are living in a place like Germany during the Holocaust. But culture doesn’t usually change when people condemn it. How many boycotts really work? Say there are eight screens at that movie theater and they are all showing movies that Christians would object to. If all we do is stay away from the movie theater, then that theater is still going to show the movies.
Christians also respond as critics, which has its place as well. Artists want people to critique their work (rather than condemn) and ask questions like “what was the artist meaning when he created this.” But when we simply critique and tell people we shouldn’t be doing this or that, people want to ask, “Well, what should we be doing?”
But I think it’s equally wrong to simply copy or consume culture. I think very often Christians are known as people who merely imitate culture but never have anything creative of our own. It's wrong when you ask people about culture and all they can discuss is what they consume, not what they create or cultivate themselves.
According to Crouch the best overall posture toward culture is that of an artist or gardener, we should cultivate and create.
The only way to change what is shown on the movie screens is to make a different kind of movie that can compete effectively with the ones that are currently showing. Merely staying home isn’t going to leave a screen blank. On the other hand, if all we do is just go to whatever movies are being shown, that isn’t going to change what’s being shown either. It’s only when you make something different that the culture of the movie theater or the movie industry will change.
The antidote to being a mere consumer is to become a creator. Life is not about waiting for Hollywood to offer you thrilling experiences, but to actually be someone who jumps into the work of making something beautiful and true and good for the world. When you become creative, when you become someone whose life is about what you’re doing with other people to shape the culture, the appeal of just consuming diminishes.
Crouch says this can start in the workplace. People are typically paid to cultivate or create something for a living. We often talk about the workplace as a very negative thing, or the best we can do is "witness" in the workplace. But most people are engaged in work that God meant for us to do. Whether you’re a filmmaker, a carpenter, an accountant or a lawyer we can all cultivate and preserve what is good and create new ways to do God’s work in the world.
Crouch says, “Christians are called to carry out their work in a way that moves the horizons of the world around them closer to what God intended the world to be like.”
FYI: The interview was on the Catalyst Podcast.
I will read more, but my first impression is that I hope your understanding of culture is better then his understanding of geography. Batterson writes, "As I see it, the church has four options when it comes to engaging culture:... And each option leads in polar opposite directions." You do realize that there are only 2 poles on the earth (North and South) it thus it is quite impossible to have 4 polar opposites in 4 directions.
Mark,
Well said and a great wake-up call to believers and churches. The only time Jesus really got angry was when those who knew better were not reaching out better by putting up obstacles to those who wanted better. We need to remove the barriers and by understanding and creating culture, I believe they will slowly be let down. Thanks for all you do. Looking forward for the book. Another book tour in the making?
Bob Hicks
www.bobhicks.typepad.com
wonderful insight, it was like you were able to take the bits and pieces in my mind and organize the fragments into something useful. i shared some of it with my congregation in our eveing sevice as we covered Acts 17:16-21 and it was like a truth bomb went off and know one was spared.
thanks
http://walkingwithchris.blogspot.com
There is one big flaw in this ideology. As the post said, "We can condemn culture, but condemnation is a cop out. Let me just call it what it is: condemnation is spiritual laziness. We've got to stop pointing the finger and start offering better alternatives. If the church condemns the culture, the culture will condemn the church."
Sometimes condemnation needs to occur. If a child is going close to an electrical socket, do you lure the child away by amusing it with a toy? Sometimes this works. But what will work, without a doubt, is snatching the child away from it and explaining the serious harm that could happen.
Do we approve of the actions of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton? No. Do we need to say so? Yes! And why is this necessary? Do we offer better alternatives along the way, as the post said? Yes, where possible. But it is clear that we must take a stand against those things that are immoral, sinful, and unholy. If we do not do this, we risk merging in with the world and becoming a part of it.
Jesus offered an alternative with His redeeming grace, and at the same time condemned those things that were condemnable. We must follow His example and not our own concepts.
The ‘steeples’ observations reminded me of a few things…..
First, in art history, they taught that the steeple is the direct descendent of the obelisk. The obelisk was originally a phallic symbol; the larger the obelisk = the greater the person. This also mirrors the Marilyn Manson lyrics, “The beautiful people, the beautiful people , I t's all relative to the size of your steeple
You can't see the forest for the trees
You can't smell your own sh* on your knees”
..anyway, I once was part of a small ‘full gospel’ church that had received a new pastor. After several weeks at the church, the pastor commented about a ‘heaviness’ or depression over the church. Supposedly, the Lord had told him that the depression existed because of the steeple atop the church(‘cuz, steeple = religion); so, the congregation took the steeple down & had a ‘steeple burning’. I know, it sounds weird, but the church did triple in size over the next 6 months…. Thanks, st. Mars @ http://faithinart.com
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