culture
Christianity as cultural salt
Scott Sauls, pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, has a really good piece from earlier this week titled “No More Moral-Majority Thinking” in which he explores how the church’s influence in the culture should be viewed through Jesus' metaphor “You are the salt of the earth”.
Salt, he notes, when taken in by itself, offends the senses. It’s bitter and raises your blood pressure. But when it is a “minority ingredient”, it can bring out the best in the culture around it. He traces through history, pointing out that the church grew quickly under the persecution of the early Romans, but then became empty when Constantine established it as a state religion.
Sauls argues that rather than trying to drive Christian principles through government, American Christians should instead focus on being that salty, enhancing presence in the culture that leaves the world better than we found it.
There are many examples of this. All of the Ivy League universities except for one were founded by Christians. Let’s keep doing that. Many hospital names begin with the word “Saint,” pointing to their Christian beginnings. Let’s keep doing that. As secular journalist Nicholas Kristof says, evangelical Christians are the most self-giving, exemplary servants to the world’s poor. Let’s keep doing that. Rembrandt painted world class paintings. Beethoven and Handel made world class music. Dostoevsky wrote world class literature. Let’s keep doing that. Evangelical leader Kevin Palau recently partnered with the openly gay mayor of Portland to resource and bless an under-served public school. Let’s keep doing that. A little Baptist church in Texas pooled funds together to pay for an outspoken, anti-Christian atheist’s medical needs. Let’s keep doing that. But what if people misunderstand our intent? What if by associating with non-believers in such intimate ways, people begin to think we are soft on truth? If we must choose, and sometimes we must, it is better to be misunderstood and labeled as too soft on sin, than it is to be misunderstood as self-righteous, harsh and strict. Jesus was regularly accused of being a glutton and a drunk, even though he was neither. Why? Because Jesus lived his life around drunks, prostitutes, shady tax collectors, and the like…and never felt the need to explain himself. Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them (Luke 15:1-2). Mustn’t we?
I love this reminder that Christians have indeed served the culture in amazing, caring ways to serve people in Jesus' name. My only hesitation is his assertion that “salty” Christianity “always does best” as a minority. Which historically may be true, but it raises a question in my mind.
I think it was the Mere Fidelity guys who talked about this at some point, but - sure, it’s great to be the minority element, the prophet calling out the sinful king and culture… but what happens if/when the king repents? How does Christianity work itself out in people who get elected to high office?
Maybe it’s a hypothetical point, and that Christianity always has been and always will be a minority, but to say it only really works well as a minority seems like an overstatement. Someday Christianity won’t be a minority. Of course, things will be a little different then.
Still, a really good piece from Pastor Sauls. Worth reading the whole thing.
The Benedict Option (i.e. Christian Cultural Withdrawal)
Rod Dreher has been championing an idea he calls The Benedict Option - as he describes it, “a limited, strategic withdrawal of Christians from the mainstream of American popular culture, for the sake of shoring up our understanding of what the church is, and what we must do to be the church”
Alan Jacobs spins things in a slightly different direction:
So I wonder if a better way to think about the Benedict Option is not as a strategic withdrawal from anything in particular but a strategic attentiveness to the institutions and forms of life within which Christians can flourish.
It’s some interesting reading, even if Dreher can be rather dour. But I really like what Jake Meador has to say about it today over at Mere Orthodoxy.
…perhaps the issue isn’t that the culture has moved away from the faith, but that the faith’s adherents have moved away from it along with the culture–and as the culture we’ve attached ourselves to becomes progressively more antagonistic to orthodoxy we are simply becoming aware of the distance that has opened between the faithful and traditional orthodoxy. We’ve been riding along with the culture even when we shouldn’t have and we’re just now beginning to realize where that ride has taken us.
While there will always be some who feel called to a more significant strategic withdrawal from the culture, Meador’s analysis seems close to the mark. Maybe withdrawing from the culture isn’t something special for this time and era so much as it is a call out from a culture to which we’re far too drawn in. Certainly worth some reading and thought.
10 mistakes conservatives make in art and entertainment
Erik Lokkesmoe has a good article on Townhall.com where he lists 10 mistakes conservatives make in art and entertainment. It’s worthwhile reading and thinking it over. Some excerpts:
Mistake #1: We try to improve art and entertainment from the top-down and the outside-in. For example, when well-meaning people, flush with cash but bankrupt on talent, attempt to “show Hollywood” by creating films that go around proven creative methods, the result is always the same: direct to video, a waste of time and money. Enduring change, meanwhile, comes from the bottom-up (working your way up from the mailroom) and the inside-out (working within the creative industries).
Mistake #2: We don’t quite understand common grace – the idea that the good, the true, and the beautiful can be found in the most “unlikely” of places (Broadway) and people (liberal artists). Without a strong belief in common grace, we will either get angry at the culture or withdraw from it entirely.
Mistake #7: We use the arts to save souls and sway elections. True artists enter their work with a sense of mystery, wonderment, always uncertain what may finally appear on the canvas or film or pages. Children’s author Madeleine L’Engle speaks of her surprise when a certain character appeared unexpectedly in the plot of the novel she was writing. She says, “I cannot imagine the book without [the character], and I know that it is a much better book because of him. But where he came from I cannot say. He was a sheer gift of grace.” A sermon can be artful, and Lord knows campaign ads could use some imagination. Mixing art and agenda, however, is propaganda, whether it comes from the left or the right. If you want to send a message, Samuel Goldwyn rightly said, call Western Union.
Mistake #10: We like safe art. Soggy may be a better term. Easy to digest. Nothing that causes heartburn. Do we really want art that never challenges our convictions, wrestles with our beliefs, or questions our faith? Let’s not forget: beauty is hardly safe, truth is never tame, goodness is anything but trite. Author Franky Schaeffer said it best : “The arts ask hard questions. Art incinerates polyester/velvet dreams of inner healing and cheap grace. Art hurts, slaps, and defines. Art is interested in truth: in bad words spoken by bad people, in good words spoken by good people, in sin and goodness, in life, sex, birth, color, texture, death, love, hate, nature, man, religion, music, God, fire, water, and air. Art tears down, builds up, and redefines. Art is uncomfortable” Finally, and most profoundly, he writes: “Good art (which, among other things, means truth-telling art) is good in itself, even when it is about bad things.”
You should really read the whole thing.