Transforming Culture

Nowadays we hear a lot about how the church is to be transforming culture. Christians leaders often talk about how the church is to be an agent of cultural change within society. One person I know actually prefers the title "cultural architect" instead of lead pastor. I suppose we can give him props for being catchy.

Now, I am NOT against good aesthetics. In fact, I think I could make a pretty convincing case that the Bible promotes good aesthetics. Try reading the last 15 chapters of Exodus without reaching this conclusion! I'm part of a church community that cares deeply about creating an excellent aesthetic environment for people to encounter God in experiential ways that promotes life-change. We care about what is on stage, how things sound, and what the lights are doing. We believe that aesthetics are important. Nothing is worse than a church environment that is painfully outdated. Such environments communicate that God is outdated and irrelevant. There is something valuable about staying with the times.

But I often wonder if our desire to transform culture is really just a cover up for our own need to feel culturally relevant. How else can you explain why some of the most "successful" churches in America look most like Hollywood or the trends you see in People Magazine? Are we truly transforming culture or are we really just taking our cultural cues from what is considered to be the latest and greatest and then trying to replicate it--often times unsuccessfully? And have we ever seen this reversed? When was the last time we saw culture taking cues from the church with regard to relevancy? The least we could do is be honest about such matters. And while we are being honest, why don't we just agree that good aesthetics--no matter how important they might be--are not what is going to transform culture.

Howard A. Snyder puts it this way:

"The church is not to be understood primarily as a means to the end of transforming society. This would be to trample over the uniqueness and infinite worth to God of the Christian community. Besides, the amazing and profound fact is that the Church most transforms society when it is itself growing and being perfected in the love of Christ. In fact when the Church is taken merely as a mean to transform society, very little is accomplished. For in that case the uniqueness of the Church is denied and we enter the battle on the same terms as secular and godless forces. We assume the battle for right and justice can be won by force, by technique, by doing. It can't. These very clearly are not the weapons of Christian war (Eph. 6:10-20). Truly Christian transformation of culture comes through Christlike (and hence sacrificial) love, community and being."

The means to transforming culture--or more accurately--the people within our cultural society is Christlike love. Manifesting self-sacrificial, Calvary-like, unconditional love--while limitless with regard to expression--will always transcend cultural fads that come and go. Perhaps Jesus knew what he was doing when he gave us the new command (John 13:34). And so while we must always be seeking to find the most culturally relevant ways to express this new command--excellent aesthetics included--the new command never changes: love one another.