A few years ago David Platt wrote an excellent book Counter Culture: Following Christ in an Anti-Christian Age that discussed several cultural shifts that have occurred in recent years. These shifts have created a lot of difficult conversations among churches and denominations. Some have turned away from biblical teaching in the areas of the shifts and embraced the changes while others have stood steadfast in promoting traditional marriages, sexual morality and religious liberty. Platt urges believers to keep their focus on the holiness of God and His mercy towards all while remaining faithful to the teachings of Scripture. I read this book when it first came out and am in the process of reading it again.
No one can argue that our nation and world has not gone through tremendous cultural changes over the years. Traditional values have been set aside by laws, by the courts, by churches and denominations and in the thinking of many within our culture. Behaviors that not that long ago were rejected by the majority of society is now openly displayed and approved by many. As Platt writes, "Godless worldviews thus leave us with a hopeless subjectivity concerning good and evil that is wholly dependent on social constructs. Whatever a culture deems right is right, and whatever a culture deems wrong is wrong." What God has to say about a matter doesn't matter to an increasing population, including growing numbers of people within the church.
For the past several years numerous denominations have created multiple committees and councils to "study" these changes in the culture and report back so the denomination can issue a Statement on the issue. In some cases, these Statements are not binding upon their churches but are only an opinion on the matter that churches can accept or reject. If enough reject it another committee is formed for further study. Personally, I think many of these studies consists more of checking to see which way the wind is blowing rather than to determine what the Word of God has to say about the matter.
The late Francis Schaffer saw this day coming. Platt quotes Schaffer who wrote, "Where is the clear voice speaking to the crucial issues of the day with distinctively biblical, Christian answers? With tears we must say it is not there and that a large segment of the evangelical world has become seduced by the world spirit of this present age. And more than this, we can expect the future to be a further disaster if the evangelical world does not take a stand for biblical truth and morality in the full spectrum of life." Powerful words, and even more powerful when one realizes he wrote this in 1982!
It is precisely because the church did not speak with a clear voice when these issues first began to rise that we find ourselves where we are today. The worldview that welcomes these cultural changes is one that ultimately leads to destruction and pain in the lives of those who hold it. We see even now the damaging results of a worldview that rejects God in the violence, the lives ruined by drugs, the number of children growing up in single-parent homes, the poverty that holds so many in its grip, the sex trafficking that is damaging so many lives, the rising suicide rate in our country, the confusion around sexual identity and the emptiness so many experience in their lives.
There is but one answer to this pain and confusion and that is to return to God and His standards. The church must become united in not only speaking God's truth to this culture; it must also become actively involved in countering it. I recently read of a group of Christian women who began ministering to the workers of a strip club. They went to the club to meet the women and begin to know them. As they built relationships with them they were able to share Christ with them. In time, the owner even allowed them to have a Bible study there for the women before the club opened. Their pastor led the Bible study, and for some of the workers he was the first male in their lives who treated them with respect. Some became Christians and found other employment. One of the things that stood out to the Christian ladies was that they were the first to treat the women who worked there with respect. They were told that many of the workers often received letters from church people who condemned them and what they did, but no one ever reached out in love to build a relationship with them. How many church folk will go into a strip club to love people and invite them to encounter Jesus Christ in a transforming way?
Standing against the culture of our day will not be popular, even within some churches. Many prefer to not rock the boat, not take an unpopular stand and avoid any controversy as a way to attract people to the church. We need to remind such people that the Gospel itself is controversial and yet if we fail to proclaim it we are doing people a disservice and, worse, making the sacrificial death of Christ of no effect. No church can take on every cultural change, but every church can do something.
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