The call of Scripture for Christian unity is firm, but casually treated by many Christians – holding numerous differentials in faith, Scripture, applications, emphases, truth and fiction, even attitudes toward each other and the world. As the old saying goes: Brethren this ought not so to be. The problem might be illustrated in a number of contexts, but we will refer to the issues of emphasis in Christian culture and activity. Early in my personal experience the emphasis was on evangelism in the evangelical community, which espoused Christian conversion. Christian culture was affirmed, but insufficient time was given to the context of culture. There was considerable negativity, with some humor about the issue, related to the general culture, even little ditties about the theme among young Christians emerging into adulthood. One was: We don’t smoke and we don’t chew – and we don’t go with the girls that do. Some people think we don’t have fun. We don’t! It was presumed that if a person were genuinely spiritual the appeal of culture, of whatever value, was not given much attention except to be dangerous. Resistance was broken. Today most Christians appear to follow the general culture – a culture influenced in part by biblical accent – but not as carefully as it ought to be. Studies appear to show there is not reduced difference between those declaring themselves Christian and those who ignore faith contexts. Embrace of the general culture has tended to broadening the Church context. Christians were meant to have an influence on culture so to help form it, help recover propriety when it wanders, and offer creativity to it so to lift the belief and conduct to higher context. Instead, there is a defensive attitude in joining whatever is available in the hope that Christianity will be thought compatible – so as to be appealing at least in the redemptive factor of it.
In a general letter some years ago from Ken Myers, of the Mars Hill project, the point was put rather well: . . . . among some Christians renewal [has] meant that we should accompany popular cultural projects with cheerleading chaplaincies, peppering the cultural status quo with vaguely Jesusy platitudes, and failing to make distinctions between healthy and sick cultural trends. Myers argued for a better approach than was being given at the time to improve culture. Now some years after his point was advanced, there may be no real improvement. Likely there has been further gradual decline. (This does not deny that some groups preserve a nourishing culture, but the noises grow while the melodies are muted.) This can be pressed further, but the reader has likely decided for currency or the ideal. Here is a call for the cultivation of a better culture and practice than we are getting years into a new millennium of anticipation for improvement. We are presently fed with programs of violence; music that is dependent upon sound blasting; of a sex drenched approach to so much presented in public language and visuals in the media, with the accents of some entertainments; of the lack of family values and solidarity. Issues include an extensive drug culture.
What prevents the number of Christian colleges, graduating a large number of Christian men and women each year, and supported by instructed church leaders, from addressing the issues? Secular and State institutions have taken on public projects to educate the general public about this or that. Several institutions including Harvard University have solicited my subscription to their health letters. I have taken some so as to evaluate them, and determine if the public support of education is meaning more than teaching young people how to better themselves in job markets. The health letters I found to be excellent. Other services are also offered to the public. If excellent Christian institutions might find a service of issuing regular publications, perhaps through subscriptions, of the areas and values they research, teach and demonstrate, we may be moved in better directions for winning cultural wars. Already they have introduced student programs that are impressive for serving the needs of persons as God would have them served – now growing out of infant programs of recent decades that have become meaningful for Christianity to life, perhaps affecting some aspects of culture. We ought to have a better component of Christian culture impressing the massive Christian public. Further this would likely contribute to a larger growth of an already excellent Christian higher education. The approaches to legalism prevailing in Christian institutions in my youthful experience gave me more than they took away. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020