The Culture of Church
Leadership journal - CTLibrary.com
When we speak of reaching out to our culture through the gospel, we must be reminded that the gospel is also a culture. This is only one of the problems with the attempt to "translate" the gospel into the language of the culture. As we often say, "Something is lost in translation." We are learning that you have not said "salvation" when you say "self-esteem." To have "a positive self-image" is not at all what Christians mean when we say "redemption." "The American Way" is not equivalent to "the kingdom of God."I got into an "argument" with a professor last year over whether there is a Biblical culture. He sees the narrative woven within a context of ancient israel and the Greco-Roman world. While I agree in the historical perspective, the terminology, phraseology, poetic style, and grammatical construction is largely dead in the world yet persists in the church. The church has adopted this "culture" as their own. This professor argued that the sociological definition of culture is the context you are born into. Ultimately he saw culture as being in the way of missions. He had no problem suggesting we call Jesus the "pig of God" in a culture minus sheep. Its a pretty silly argument. Do we have Pharisees or Saducees? No... We don't "translate" these as Politicians and Evangelicals... :)
One reason this sort of translation is doomed to failure, one reason why it inevitably ends up with our preaching something much less than the gospel of Jesus Christ, is that Christianity is a culture. You cannot learn to speak French by reading a French novel in an English translation-you must sit for the grammar, the syntax, and the vocabulary, and learn it. So you cannot know Christianity by having it translated into some other medium like Marxism, feminism, or the language of self-esteem. Christianity is a distinct culture with its own vocabulary, grammar, and practices. Too often, when we try to speak to our culture, we merely adopt the culture of the moment, rather than present the gospel to the culture.Ah, so reading an English translation of a book written Hebrew-Greek invariably presents a different meaning? Oh, boy! I better keep those languages up to be sure I preach faithfully!
Rather than reaching out to speak to our culture, our time as preachers is better spent inculturating modern, late-twentieth-century Americans into that culture called church. When I walk into a class on Introductory Physics, I expect not to understand immediately most of the vocabulary, terminology, and concepts. Why should it be any different for modern Americans walking into a church? This is why the concept of "user-friendly churches" often leads to churches getting used. There is no way I can crank the gospel down to the level where any American can walk in off the street and know what it is all about within fifteen minutes. One can't do that even with baseball! You have to learn the vocabulary, the rules, and the culture in order to understand it. Being in church is something at least as different as being in a baseball stadium. Rather than worry a great deal about reaching our culture, I think we mostly ought to worry about speaking to the church-laying on contemporary Christians the stories, images, and practices that make us disciples.The church has culture. The language, metaphor, imagery, and presentation of Scripture conveys its own culture, unique in today's world. This culture is intertwined with the practice of the church. We keep the narrative in the context and proclaim it in such a way as to draw the hearer into the context. This context is the church of the 1st century and the church of today. It's not something we constantly reinvent. God chose his time and place for His Word and we honor it. (Now, there are non-Biblical cultures which are worth preserving too, like Lutheran potlucks and gemuetlichkeit!)
