Putting On Flesh: Cultural Relevance & the Church

Jesus was the perfect example of the pursuit of cultural relevance.

A non-human became human in order to reach humans.  A spirit became flesh and bone in order to reach those of flesh and bone.  A person of divinity became a person of mortality in order to relate to the mortal.  The invisible became visible in order to reach the visible.  The invulnerable became breakable in order to love the weak and the broken.

I think you get the point.  Jesus was the embodiment—the inspiration—of Paul’s shocking words:  “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”  Jesus modeled for us our calling to become like those around us so that they may be empowered to become like Him.

The Church has to face reality if it wants to again be a “relevant” voice in today’s world.  Hard reality:  the Church is no longer the center of society.  The Church no longer establishes cultural norms and expectations, and it is no longer considered the dominant voice in matters of morality, politics, or education.  In some circles, the voice of the Church isn’t even legitimate, much less authoritative.

The world has changed around us, so we have to change our mindset.

This isn’t bad news; it’s just reality.  Whereas the Church formerly sat on a throne, it now is poised to wash feet.  (Fortunately, it was our assignment all along to wash feet!)  Again, it isn’t bad news, because God has never pursued cultures or thrones.  The Father has only ever pursued the human heart.

Where we are now more accurately reflects our intended design—to lovingly serve, rather than to authoritatively dictate.

We have two camps in the Church today, and they split roughly along generational lines.  (The divide I make is an over-simplification, I know.)  The first camp likes to build walls, and the second camp likes to build bridges.  Both have their strengths, and both have their weaknesses.

The “Wall” camp is comprised of primarily older generations, and it likes to remain separate from non-Churched culture.  It is conservative, in a traditionalist sense, and it has seen everything.  There is a clear divide between “us” and “them” in broader culture, and to cross the divide is to risk compromising integrity.  I would propose that misunderstanding and insecurity can tend to drive the wall-building process, but I’d also grant that the pursuit of purity, consecration, and holiness is a very good, wise thing.  Non-Churched “culture,” in general, is a mountain they’d rather avoid than climb.

The “Bridge” camp is comprised of primarily younger generations, and it likes to blend itself into non-Churched culture.  It is progressive, in a sometimes-rebellious sense.  There is a lot of overlap concerning “us” and “them,” as those in this globalized camp are more like their younger peers out in the “world” than they are like their older parents back in the church pews.  The ability to function in non-Church culture is lauded as relevance.  I would propose that a heart to belong, a heart to reach, and a heart to unify tend to drive the bridge-building process, but I’d also grant that these pursuits can be naïve, can shoot holes through integrity, and can be negatively anti-Church.  The “world” is refreshingly their mission field, but they quickly throw away the time-tested and the sacred for the untested trendy and new.

Granted, a ton of people fall somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.  I think each of us sees elements of both in ourselves.

We can draw two bottom lines concerning these camps:

1.  The Church has no transformative voice in the world when it hides itself behind walls, separate from the world.

2.  The Church has no transformative voice in the world when it hides itself behind relevance, identical to the world.

“I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”  So where is the balance?

Jesus related to us, so that we could relate to Him.  Likeness to us was never His end goal.  Likeness to us broke down the wall, but it took His being qualitatively different from us to save us.  He put on flesh, but He was full of Spirit.  The paradox:  humanity couldn’t save humanity, but only a human could save humanity.

Further, it wasn’t just Jesus’s likeness to us that made Him relevant.  Likeness to us was certainly part of the package, but His relevance was so much more than skin.  His relevance was wrapped up in the fact that He offered to us what we needed.  He had life, and we needed life.  He had an alternative way of living and believing, and we needed an alternative way of living and believing.  He was a tangible picture of God, and we needed a tangible picture of God.  Surface-level “cultural relevance” cannot be despised, as all of those things were packaged in skin and bone, but there was so much more substance to Jesus’s way.

He didn’t hide behind imaginary walls that separated “us” from “Him,” and He didn’t stop being God for the sake of being human.  God wrapped what we needed in flesh so that we could receive it.

We can’t love well if we build walls.  We can’t love well while withholding the treasure that has been given freely to us to carry.

I must admit that the call to “cultural relevance” is a call that irks me.  It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, because I can hardly be satisfied with the sense that the Church is playing catch-up with the rest of the world.  But this is our reality.  We fell behind in the arts, in media, in creativity, in ingenuity, in innovation, in ideation, in problem solving, etc., and we are scrambling to catch up.

Something in me leaps at the hope that—some day soon!—the Church will no longer be scrambling and settling for cultural relevance, but that it will be setting the industry standards, raising the bar in the arts and media, and meaningfully contributing to society at large.  Indeed, we are on our way to seeing this be the world’s reality, as people of faith are rapidly adding value, excellence, and meaning to “culture” in all spheres of society.

The Church is truly relevant when it has answers to the world’s problems.  It regains its voice when it stops condemning and starts investing and valuing, choosing to acknowledge the good being brought into the Earth by those who are not like us.  The Church is legitimate in the world’s eyes, regardless of its faith, when it releases excellence, creativity, and higher standards (and love!) into the Earth, for all to know and admire.

“Cultural relevance” is the philosophy of a Body that can see the world has passed it by.  “Cultural creativity” will be the philosophy of a Body that can see it has great resources, potential, and value to add to a world that needs some help.

Regardless, we carry the assignment—taking after Jesus’s example—to put on the flesh of the world around us, so that they may see and understand that we truly care.

Is the Church Still Relevant?

I recently worked my way through a slew of articles that posed this question, in one way or another:  “Is the Church relevant?”

All of the articles I read were gloomy, written by both older authors who lived through the American Christian glory days and younger authors who are frustrated by spiritual apathy. Most writers indict the modern American Church for what they see as “the Church’s” major failures to adequately address, engage, or maintain the attention of secular society.

The talking points of the day boil down to:

1.  If the Christian religious community is no longer the majority political voice in the States, and if we have indeed lost the Culture Wars (which, we have lost the Culture Wars), then the church institution must be irrelevant. The Church should engage politically, dive into politics with solidarity and unity, and steer the direction of the politics and morality of this nation.

2.  If the millennial population in America is disillusioned with religion and is leaving the Church, then the church institution must be irrelevant. The Church should post-modernize, greater considering its youth and young adult population and meeting them at their generation’s aesthetic tastes and preferences.

3.  If atheism, naturalism, and science are the dominating legitimate worldviews of the developed world, then the church institution must be irrelevant. The Church should work to discredit the flimsy body of science that attacks religion and faith at every angle, and we should keep our religion pure by preventing the encroachment of science into faith matters.

There are problems with all of those points, and there are problems with each perspective we have developed in response to those points. But I won’t go there in this post. All I will say, before moving on, is that the prevalence of each of these talking points in our conversations, and our responses to them, is largely due to fear. That these things are steering our conversations, our methods, and our understanding of our relevance to the world radically reveals our insecurity.

We’re letting worldly barometers determine our God-given role and God-given assignment. We’re letting cultural cues determine our value. We—a spiritual Body—are weakly responding to a changing world in worldly ways.

(I’m not advocating non-action, non-progressivism, etc. I’m all for the Body of Christ moving forward, growing, and getting better at what it does. We just need to reconsider who we are and what it is that makes us relevant.)

Moving on.

The Church is two things:  organism and organization. We are both people and institution. As such, I believe the Church can pursue relevance in two different ways.

First, the Church will be relevant only as long as it has love to offer. People are relevant if they are willing to love sacrificially. People—believer and nonbeliever alike—need love more than anything else. If the Church ministers love to human beings who need it (in the form of relationship, physical needs, financial needs, forgiveness, grace, human touch), it is relevant. A person, and therefore the Church, is relevant as long as he or she pours out love for a world that is thirsty for love.

Love without an agenda is the most relevant kind of love. Perhaps this is where we have lost ground. As a Body, we can tend to be competent lovers-with-strings-attached. We can also systematize our love, forfeiting some of its value. Raw, grace-filled, sacrificial, unabridged love makes our presence in the Earth very relevant.

Second, the Church will be relevant only as long as it maintains organizational excellence. Organizations are relevant if they can move beyond chasing industry standards into challenging industry standards. As an organization, we can serve the world with our excellence. A high tide raises all ships. We can move beyond “staying relevant” into establishing the standards and setting the bars. The best leadership principles, organizational leadership principles, and business principles are really just Kingdom principles.

Our excellence—creatively, strategically, economically, organizationally, morally—makes us relevant to a world that is less than excellent. Rather than lagging behind, we can be pushing the standards forward. Relevance in this area looks like Church leaders or Christian experts being called upon to consult secular bodies in areas of crisis management, business strategy, education, and character development. We meet needs as the world presents them, because we have access to resources, answers, and strategies the world doesn’t have.

Relevance isn’t political. It isn’t even social or cultural. Relevance is our ability to love and serve the world—just as Jesus did. Relevance is our ability to make the world around us better, providing alternatives to the way things are already being done—just as Jesus did. It’s about being salty and bright where there is little flavor or daylight.

It isn’t about being right, being the majority, or even being approved of. It’s about being present, with something to offer from a different Kingdom.

Can the Church be relevant? It already is, and it always will be. Jesus would not have invested so much into an irrelevant Bride.