Laying Down Our Weapons

Culture, says George Grant, is religion externalized. When you think about it, this definition makes a lot of sense. As we live our lives, we make hundreds of choices a day. How will I spend the next few moments, the next week, the next year? What music will I listen to? How will I decorate and arrange my home? What bumper sticker will I paste on my car? How will I vote? The answers say volumes about my core values and beliefs.

Our actions actually say more about our core beliefs than do our words. I can say the Bible is the standard of belief and practice in my life, but if I go from Sunday to Sunday without opening it, my practice contradicts my words. Perhaps I should say I would like it to be true that the Bible is the standard for my life. Perhaps I should say I would like you to think this about me. It is our actions, then, that form the building blocks of our culture, rather than our spoken creeds.

No culture is monolithic. It is an amalgam of millions of people interacting with one another as they live out their core beliefs in the decisions they make. Some societies are more free than others and allow a wide variety of individual expressions. Others through force or social pressure impose severe restrictions of self-expression by limiting choices that do not support the core beliefs of those in power. But even in relatively free societies, there is an inevitable tension as a multitude of worldviews interact and collide.

There are some, it seems, who label any core beliefs that involve a personal force, such as the Bible's YHWH or Islam's Allah, as religious beliefs, and those that involve an impersonal force, such as materialism's Chance, as secular. The claim is then made that while secular core beliefs (their core beliefs) are acceptable anywhere, the expression of religious core beliefs must be restricted to designated areas where they are less likely to interact with or impose upon others.

This assignation of religious core values to a second-class status is not surprising by those who espouse a materialistic or other god-free value system. It is simply an attempt to apply social pressure to restrict unwanted cultural competition and give more power to their worldview. What is surprising to me is how many theistic people accept the restriction! What is the qualitative difference, after all, between a statement that says Chance governs the fate of men and a statement that assigns this governance to Providence? Both are core beliefs. Neither is scientific. Neither is provable through observation, experimentation or reason.

In this, I believe one of the strengths of the Biblical worldview is being corrupted and turned on us as a weapon. The Bible endorses the idea of freedom of conscience. No human government is authorized by God to judge the thoughts and beliefs of other men. Revelation 19 gives us an image of a conquering Christ. The weapon He wields is a sword, but He does not carry that sword in His hand, He holds it in His mouth. It is the sword of His Word. The Great Commission (Matthew 28) gives the soldiers of the cross our marching orders. We are not told to wrestle power from the godless nations by physical strength, we are told to make disciples. In other words, we are told to teach. Says Paul, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God..." (2 Corinthians 10: 4,5) We are not called upon to impose by force, we are called upon to convince.

There have been times in the history of the Church when this has been forgotten, and we have set aside our spiritual weapons and picked up the weapons of the world in order to win 'converts.' It is important to remember that this problem is always solved by reformation within the Church as God leads His children back to His Word. The problem, though, was not that we were seeking domination by our worldview (as every worldview does). The problem was how we went about it.

Today, however, we are at risk of setting aside our spiritual weapons and giving up the fight altogether. We accept pronouncements that our religion does not belong in polite conversation, in the sciences, in the public eye, in the schools, in the arts, or in the government. We yield those areas to the god of Chance. Because we do not want to impose our religion, we give up  all efforts to accomplish the task of convincing, discipling and taking dominion that God has given us to do. That, I believe, is one of the important struggles within the Church today. We must find that place of balance in which we refrain from attempts to force others to believe, and yet boldly build a culture that reflects the blessings of God's Word, His Law and His Gospel.

Comments

[Agate]

I really like what you say here about culture being an external expression of our core beliefs. When you put it that way, it doesn't make any sense to be quiet and apologetic about being Christian. On the other hand, if I'm making all my choices based on my love for God, won't my Christianity be obvious, without preaching? Won't people know and respect my faith simply by seeing and understanding what I do? It's when I preach that I take the risk of being a clanging symbol--the hypocritical Christian who angers and alienates so many non-believers.

[Jeremy Doan]

So much of this discussion concerns semantics. How exactly do we define "religion"? Is it your belief in whatever god? or is it your belief in what explains this universe? I hold more to the latter. Therefore, everyone has religion, and religion affects every decision they make. Christians, as you say, do much harm to themselves when they attempt to separate their "religion" from their societal and political interactions

[cwv warrior]

Amazingly, meaning this is God's doing, I am coming in on this topic from an entirely different angle. If you have a few hours to spare (h-hm), read Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. Her thing is the cultural mandate. I quote from her other book with Charles Colson, "the Lord's cultural commission is inseparable from the great commission." They even write, "that may be a jarring statement for many conservative Christians"!

Ouch! That's how bad it is. Christians don't understand the split in their worldview which Ms. Pearcey explains as fact/value...that is life/church, science/ethics, natural/supernatural. Today, people see the science side as truth and everything on the other side as relativistic. In other words, we don't apply the word truth to religion, as a society. Therefore, the church rarely applies God's revealed truth to life. THis is why I'm not in church right now. I don't find it relevant. Voting, school curriculum, art, work, our choices are never separate from God's view yet we have made it so.

You don't know how overwhelmed I am that someone besides Nancy Pearcey gets it! Thank you for the fresh air.

[Dory]

Agate,
I'm not sure that the only alternatives are either 'preaching' or remaining silent and hoping others will notice your 'obvious' Christian model. There are many appropriate ways to put forward a Christian worldview in political debate, in our practice of the arts and sciences, in our interactions with our neighbors, etc.

But are you saying you think we are not called to make disciples but only to model? See Matthew 28, Titus 2, 2 Cor. 10. I do think our lives give credibility to our testimony, but they cannot replace our testimony.

Most people who have a view of Christians as hypocrites do so because they misunderstand the Gospel we believe. They think we consider ourselves better than others and deserving of heaven. It is obvious to them that we are not sin-free, so they consider us hypocritical. We cannot correct this notion by modeling Christian living. We can only correct it by teaching them the true Gospel.

[Milton Stanley]

Very much enjoyed this post, Dory, particularly the part about Rev. 19. You think very clearly and write very. Thought you might like to know I wrote about your post and linked to it at my blog. Peace.

[Stuart DiNenno]

"This assignation of religious core values to a second-class status is not surprising by those who espouse a materialistic or other god-free value system. It is simply an attempt to apply social pressure to restrict unwanted cultural competition and give more power to their worldview."

I recently had a brief email exchange with the head of the Cultural Department at the German Embassy which relates to what you say above.

I posted the messages on my blog, if anyone wants to read them:

http://christianity-applied.blogspot.com/2005/01/tyranny-of-germanys-education.html