The Christian and Culture

Photo Source: Christianity by Toronto Atheist, on Flickr

Resource: Itulua-Abumere, F. (2013): The Christian and Culture. Dallas: Upublish.info
U Publish


The Christian and Culture

Before the practice of Christianity, culture has been in existence. Culture is the regimented way in which a set of human beings conduct their lives. Culture was involved in the conception, broadcast and adaptation of the gospel. Culture represents a picture of a group of people. It highlights their traditions and achievements. While some aspects of culture are beyond by larger world like language, music, literature, technology, history, art, habits, etc. other aspects are unique to respective people.


Literature, culture and theology:

Literature:

Literature is an art of written works. Literally translated, the word literature means acquaintance with letters. The two most basic written literary categories include fiction and nonfiction. However, in the Christian view, literature is a writing that deals with Christian themes and incorporates the Christian world view. This constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing which includes, scripture writing, Christian non-friction, Christian allegory, Christian fiction, Christian poetry and Christian theatre. Looking at literature from the Christian perspective, the scripture falls within the strict definition of literature. The Holy bible is not generally considered literature. However, the Bible has been treated and appreciated as literature. The King James Version in particular has long been considered a masterpiece of English prose, whatever may be thought of its religious significance. Several retelling of the Bible, or parts of the Bible, have also been made with the aim of emphasizing its literary qualities. Letters, theological treatises and other instructive and devotional works have been produced by Christian authors since the time of Jesus Christ. For early Christian times almost all writing would be non-fiction, including letters, biblical commentaries, doctrinal works and hagiography. (Dickerson, 2003)

Culture:

Culture has various meanings. However, to generalize it all "Culture" is simply the way we do things that are important to us, whether they cloths, cars, boats, food, church, sports, the arts, whatever. Culture, as a way of defining one's self, needs to attract people's interest and persuade them to invest a part of themselves in it. People like to feel a part of a tribe and understand their identity within that tribe. This works well in small communities and people feel needed and special in their small world. Mass culture however lets people define themselves in relation to everybody else in mass society. In a sense it 'makes the ball park a lot bigger' and we have to fight harder to find and keep our identity. Within culture there is what we call the Christian culture. The Christian culture is that which prevails in any given society. The content of there culture is determined by the daily interactions, needs and desires, and cultural movements that make up everyday lives of Christians. It can include any number of practices, including those pertaining to cooking, clothing, mass media and the many facets of entertainment such as sports and literature. In modern urban mass societies, Christian pop culture has been crucially shaped by the development of industrial mass production, the introduction of new technologies of sound and image broadcasting and recording, and the growth of mass media industries, the film, broadcast radio, television and the book publishing industries as well as the print and electronic news media. Items of Christian culture most typically appeal to a broad spectrum of Christians. (Douglas, 2001; Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952)

Theology:

Theology is the study of a god or, more generally, the study of religious faith, practice, and experiences or of spirituality. Augustine of Hippo defined theology in English as the science of things divine. Christian theology is a discourse concerning Christianity. Christian theologians use Biblical exegesis, rational analysis, and argument to understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote Christianity (Migliore, 2004). Theology might be undertaken to help the theologian understand Christianity more truly, make comparisons between Christianity and other traditions, defend Christianity against critics, facilitate Christianity's reform, assist in the propagation of Christianity, draw on the resources of the Christian tradition to address some present situation or need, or for a variety of other reasons. (Alistair, 1998)


Christianity and culture:

The universality of the gospel necessitated a difference between Christianity and culture. Christianity can continue living in any culture, but every culture will have a definite beliefs, values, or practices which say the opposite to Christianity and for that reason must be put aside. The Jewish stressed on peripheral uprightness by obvious compliance to rules had to be put aside, for salvation is obtained by faith alone, apart from works. The Gentile practices of idolatry and immorality also had to be rejected as contrary to one's calling in Christ. Any agreement to culture which obstruct the teaching of the gospel should also be abandoned. It all seems quite simple, doesn't it? However history reveals the difficulty which the saints have had in constantly relating Christianity to culture.

In the past, the church has applied great effort to recognize with modern day culture without becoming either inaccessible from it or indistinguishable to it. The church has endeavor, with different degrees of success, to relate to modern culture without creating a counter-culture and without being obsessive by secular culture. Pointless to say, the church has not always succeeded in walking the tight rope between these two boundaries. In the early church at Jerusalem, the Jewish culture was muscularly disparate to Christianity. The furthermost jeopardy was posed by the Judaistic Christians who wanted to enforce the Jewish culture on the Gentile supporters. When Christianity was declared in the midst of the Gentiles, we saw the fight which the churches (like the one in Corinth) had in keeping the world out of the church. As bigger antagonism from Rome was persistent against the Christians, this jeopardy diminished for a period.

When the church enunciates modern culture corrupt, it seeks to get rid of that culture from Christianity by making a counter-culture of its own. Proper Christians are trained to accept this counter-culture in position of their previous way of lives. When the church is controlling as much as necessary, it may seek to enforce this "Christian culture" on society as a whole. Such was the case in the second century when Roman government was committed to religion. I have come to the conclusion that it is absolutely essential for us as Christians to understand the relationship between culture and Christianity. There are different ways culture can affect Christianity in our today society whereby the Christian values and faith will be threatened in such society.

Culture plays a crucial role in foreign missions. Western missions have frequently been very much slowed down by the cultural mistakes of the missionaries and their distribution organizations. The inability to differentiate between what is cultural and what is Christian, missionaries have often endeavor to remove Western Christianity to foreign soil, rather than to take the gospel and allow it to develop within the native culture of the people. Christianity has often been regarded as a paternalistic and capitalistic. Churches are assembled in Western way, with Western monies. Those who are transformed dress as Westerners. Over and over again, indigenous leaders are sent to Western Countries to obtain a Western edification. Control of the missionaries and of the recently generated churches stays in Western hands.

Culture plays a vital role in evangelism. In the old days, Paul told the Corinthian saints that he cautiously thought-out the crash of his culture on the preaching of the gospel, altering his culture in any way that was biblical to take away pointless barriers to the gospel (1 Cor. 9:19-23). Most people finds out that a good part of there failure as a witness is connected to there cultural rigidity. Original or rather real believing Christians have wanted to defend themselves from the "world" by creating firm policies which are often the origin for alienating our unsaved neighbors.

Culture plays a vital role in the worship of the church. Years ago in America till lately, the churches in America have never seen such a spectacular change in the cultures represented in the congregation. The 1960s brought about a new generation, one which reacted sturdily to the values and the lifestyle and the culture of their parents. The "hippies," the "Jesus people," and a crowd of other reactionary movements came into existence. Even as the revolutionary aspects have passed, many of the younger generation of Christians have come out of this tradition, or at least have come to accept a part of this counter-culture. This is most obvious in the area of music. Instead of the traditional hymns, accompanied by the traditional instruments, the piano and the organ, there is a new-angled kind of music, often accompanied by guitars. The older generation have tendencies to find the new music "disrespectful," though the younger generation finds the older musical forms not stimulating. The harmony of the church, particularly in its worship, has been endangered. Recognition of these "cultural" differences and reacting to them in a biblical way has brought about growth for the church. As discovered in the Book of Acts, it is possible for people of various cultures to be Christians. However, these differences in culture can also threaten the unity of the church. In order to guard against such a breech in fellowship, Christians of each culture must be sensitive to those things which are offensive to Christians of a different culture and must seek to set these things aside, making cultural concessions for the sake of unity and harmony. Churches, , must learn to live and to worship together, respecting the cultural differences of others in the body of Christ.

The church is often culture-bound, thus hindering its ministry. Most religious researchers` have observed that the church often seems to be on the lagging boundary of culture, rather than on the leading edge. One of the reasons why the church fails to minister creatively, and the para-church groups do so, is because the church is plagued with cultural paralysis. Tillapaugh in his book, The Church Unleashed, tells how the Baptist and Methodist denominations grew rapidly in the 19th century by responding to the changes in society. As the population moved west, there were not enough trained ministers to plant and pastor the churches which were required. The Baptists responded creatively by supplying 'farmer-preachers' while the Methodists had their 'circuit riders'. The result was the rapid growth of these churches, due to their responsiveness to the changes in their culture. The church of today is so culture-bound that it finds change difficult and distressing if possible at all. The typical symptom of this cultural severity is the protection, since we have always done it that way before, the church needs to be able to become aware of changes in the culture around it and to respond creatively, yet biblical to them. Creativity in ministry is, in part, due to appropriate understanding of culture and its relationship to the gospel.

Satan most effective attacks upon the church sometimes come from culture. Bizarrely, Christian seems to use there own hands to attract Satan to attack the church in very direct and forward ways, rather than through his more delicate and effective means. For example, the current conspiracy about which the church is being warned is that of secular humanism. Our consideration has thus been focused on such issues as the teaching of evolution and prayer in schools. In the meantime, Satan is at work undermining our culture. Since our culture is something of which Christians are rarely conscious, the painful part of it all is that Satan's devices are not even detected.

For instance, for a long time the American culture was largely Christian in its values. In the past, society did not look positively upon divorce or homosexuality, and so hardly any practiced these evils, at least in a very open way. Unbelievers considered themselves Christians because they practiced Christian values. Christians prided themselves for practicing Christian ethics, too. In truth, many unbelievers and Christians were only in compliance to the mores of their society they conformed to a culture which was apparently, at least, Christian. Satan used the moral culture as a means of misleading many to consider them selves Christian, when they were only conformists.

Drenched by this atmosphere, Christians did not remain married or heterosexual because of any obligation to Christian main beliefs, but out of conformity to culture's values. Non Christian values, nevertheless, have changed to conform more closely to their hearts. Divorces have become easy to get hold of and society came to tolerates them and even support them. The values of non believers have become evident, and so have the values of the Christians. While the divorce rate among the general population has slowed down, the rate of divorces among Christians is reportedly still climbing. Christians are on the lagging edge of culture again. In other words, we can see that Christians were not performing out of sincerity by staying married to their wives, but only out of cultural conformity. Satan thus can attack Christians in such a faint way that they are unaware of what has happened. When we balance Christianity or spirituality to conformity with a certain agreed culture which is what the Judaizers did, and what legalists of every age does, Satan can attack Christians by undermining their culture, an area of which they are only slightly mindful.

Conclusion:

In conclusion to these writing, I will like to say that in today's society, living in an environment that is hostile to Christians can prevent Christians from carrying out there duties diligently. If you live in an Islamic country, there is a sense of fear even when you are praying through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is because the Islamic culture practice in that society does not permit such ways of prayers. This alone will discourage a Christian from going into the streets to preach the gospel. This essay has drawn on both old and new testament in other to analysis this topic. As we can see, the practice of culture plays a deep role in practicing Christianity for instance culture plays a vital role in evangelism.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A freelance writer who meticulously structured and maintained blogs just for you:A LIFE SO FAR AWAYand my other blog:OFW: THIS IS MY LIFE AND STORY Thank you for your valuable time. Follow my business & writings and you'll find what life's meant to be.