Transforming culture, step by step

None of these songs has been born again, and to that end there is no such thing as Christian music. (Jon Foreman, lead singer Switchfoot)

One of the things reading Ordinary has done for me is make me think. One of the great issues that we face as a church today is our relation to the culture. Much of our thinking about this topic goes back to H. Richard Niebuhr’s classic book Christ and Culture (1951). Niebuhr espouses the view of Christ Transforming Culture, be it high culture or low pop culture. 

But Horton sees today’s Christian caught in a bind, and he blames an “unrealistic call to cultural transformation” (p.159).  Younger Christians may change their political stripes but their end goal is the same, making” the kingdoms of this age the kingdom of Christ…done through direct (especially political) action” (p.159). But Horton knows this is an illusion, and only leads to disenchantment and cynicism. 

But the alternative to cultural transformation is not passivity. Nor is it a separation of one’s calling in Christ from one’s calling in the world. There is a sense of eschatological confusion, which Horton draws out in his discussion of the “already” and the “not yet”, this present age and the age to come. And then he comes to the idea of faithful presence, which he gets from James Davison Hunter.

The first Christians did not seek to change their culture. They lived their lives as Christians in the world, and people noticed. And people wondered why? And people found out, and were converted. And as the church grew, the culture did change. Sometimes in massive sweeps. Sometimes in gradual steps. But as the water drops  from the raging torrent and from the massive glacier both end up in the ocean, so the culture is changed in small and large ways every day by the faithful presence of believers in the world. To paraphrase Jon Foreman above, “Not because I make Christian music, but because I am a Christian making music.”