Cultural changes and a Christian Worldview

"Like clouds and wind without rain is one who does not give what he promises." Somewhere in Proverbs, sort of.

I thought I would get right back to this post, but I did not.  The end of last week was marked by very high heat, and high heat makes me a very stupid man.  Late last week, every morning was full and by the afternoon it was 95 degrees and I just could not think.  Every year I think, "We don't need an air-conditioner."  This year I might look for one at a yard sale!

The following is an excerpt from an article sent to me.  I will be commenting today on how a Christian worldview dispels the typical "cultural refugee" mentality that often marks the church.

From Peggy Noonan

This Is No Time for Games

Ronald Reagan wouldn't be playing 'Targeted Catastrophe'

But there are other reasons for American unease, and in a way some are deeper and more pervasive. Some are cultural. Here are only two. Pretty much everyone over 50 in America feels on some level like a refugee. That's because they were born in one place—the old America—and live now in another. We're like immigrants, whether we literally are or not. One of the reasons America has always celebrated immigrants is a natural, shared knowledge that they left behind everything they knew to enter a place that was different—different language, different ways and manners, different food and habits, different tempo. This took courage. They missed the old country. There's a line in a Bernard Shaw play, "Mrs. Warren's Profession": "I kept myself lonely for you!" That is the unspoken sentence of all immigrants toward their children—I made myself long for an old world so you could have a better one.

But everyone over 50 in America feels a certain cultural longing now. They hear the new culture out of the radio, the TV, the billboard, the movie, the talk show. It is so violent, so sexualized, so politicized, so rough. They miss the old America they were born into, 50 to 70 years ago. And they fear, deep down, that this new culture, the one their children live in, isn't going to make it. Because it is, in essence, an assaultive culture, from the pop music coming out of the rental car radio to the TSA agent with her hands on your kids' buttocks. We are increasingly strangers here, and we fear for the future. There are, by the way, 100 million Americans over 50. A third of the nation. That's a lot of displaced people. They are part of the wrong-track numbers.

So is this. In the Old America there were a lot of bad parents. There always are, because being a parent is hard, and not everyone has the ability or even the desire. But in the old America you knew it wasn't so bad, because the culture could bring the kids up. Inadequate parents could sort of say, 'Go outside and play in the culture," and the culture—relatively innocent, and boring—could be more or less trusted to bring the kids up. Popular songs, the messages in movies—all of it was pretty hopeful, and, to use a corny old word, wholesome. Grown-ups now know you can't send the kids out to play in the culture, because the culture will leave them distorted and disturbed. And there isn't less bad parenting now than there used to be. There may be more.

There is so much unease and yearning and sadness in America. So much good, too, so much energy and genius. But it isn't a country anyone should be playing games with, and adding to the general sense of loss.

So how should a Christian respond to these observations?  First, we must acknowledge that people do feel this way.  These feelings of alienation are real.  Yet, we must not give into the cultural stupidity that says we cannot critique or correct another's worldview of opinions.  In a gracious manner, it is possible to tell someone that while they might feel or think a certain way, they might want to consider a different alternative.  I would suggest an alternative informed by a Christian worldview.

First, cultures rise and fall according to how closely they mirror the created good.  In the beginning God created all things including humans to reflect purpose, direction, and unity to the will of God.  As a result, God created culture to also reflect the goodness, love, kindness, and wholeness of God.  As a culture or an individual come closer to character of God and to their created good, they reflect a wholeness and beauty that is winsome, healthy, and good.  As a culture or an individual drift away from their created good, they reflect disharmony, anger, dis-ease, and evil.  In other words, our behaviors, our cultural decisions, and our art that reflects our culture are not neutral.

The reason for our ability to drift away from our created good is what the Bible describes as the Fall of humanity.  With the Fall, every element of human personality is infected by the tendency toward evil.  This does not mean that humans are totally evil!  It means that we have to be on guard against our own tendency toward sin and away from our created good.  Often these movements seem so natural to us.  What they are is our fallen nature speaking!  The problem is that the more fallen humans we have making decisions, the more tendency to move away from our created good.  If there is not a check on this tendency, soon what is wicked is declared good and what is good will be declared evil.  At this point, the culture either has revival or it is lost to internal decay and eventually invasion of some sort.

All of this to dispel and to denounce our cultural insistence that no one can judge or declare another's opinions incorrect.  This is a false declaration.  We can and should decide the rightness, healthiness, and good of each cultural and individual choice.  Those that drift away from a created good should be lovingly and graciously told about the beauty and wholeness of our created good.  They should be lovingly pointed to something better!  We also should understand that some contemporary art is an attempt to illustrate the feelings of alienation and lostness felt by the artist.  These feelings should be encouraged, but transcended by pointing the individual to something higher and better.

This greater good is a relationship with God through the gospel.

Hopefully tomorrow, I will finish this series by tying the first two posts together in describing how the gospel addresses the culture and offers hope of restoration.