The one who rules over all

God's people in our day have no revealed mandate to swing the actual word sword of God's justice at contemporary pagans. But the principle remains - we must retain a distinct separation from our culture while mounting an active opposition to it, else we will blend with it. We are still called to this separation from and combat with our own godless culture.

Time was when we used to smile a bit at the fundies who denounced television and the cinema (I mention these because they are very 'Canaanite' in their sexual preoccupation), but the more recent pornographic explosion has sobered us. Celluloid is a powerful cultural medium, fully as dangerous to the Christian mind for what it suggests as for what it preaches, as perilous in what it finds laughable as in what it seriously propounds. But that is simply one aspect of our secularized culture. [The explosion of pornography on the Internet since these lines were written only confirms what he says.]

The church needs not only saints who live godly lives but also saints who develop godly minds and thereby critique and expose the whole gamut of the godless culture in which we live, minds that can not only recognized false doctrine (whether it comes via advertising, education, or government pronouncements) but also unmask the assumptions behind Antichrist's propaganda. Is this not our mandate? 'Instead of being moulded to this world, have your mind renewed, and so be transformed in nature, able to make out what the will of God is, namely, what is good and acceptable to him and perfect." (Romans 12:2 Moffatt)

One word more. If the church is going to do this we must cease thinking that God calls only missionaries and pastors. We must ask God to call believers to be artists, journalists, politicians and historians. That is, if we are to produce an effective counterculture we must begin by holding that all of life belongs to Yahweh (Baal has no royal rights at all in any compartment of Yahweh's universe). Our congregation has produced a brochure which we give to people we visit, part of which summarizes our beliefs. Among our essential convictions we include that 'God rules over all of life: nothing is outside his dominion - whether business and politics, economics and education, science and sex, history and harvests, art and affliction, music and marriage. All of life is holy and must be submitted to his reign.' That will not solve our cultural problem. But if we make any progress it must begin with that conviction. If we assume Baal has a corner of farming and sex, then we have already given the crown rights of Jesus to Antichrist.

From Such a Great Salvation - Expositions of the Book of Judges, by Dale Ralph Davis. pages 34/5

At this point in the book, Davis is discussing how Baal was worshipped for his supposed control over harvests (hence the reference to farming), and within the worship was temple prostitution, which the Israelites got themselves involved in, to their peril. 

Religion

...in using the word "religion" we are already making assumptions which need to be examined. In most human cultures religion is not a separate activity set apart from the rest of life. Neither in practice nor in thought is religion separate from the rest of life. In practice all the life of society is permeated by beliefs which western Europeans would call religious, and in thought what we call religion is a whole worldview, a way of understanding the whole of human experience. The sharp line which modern Western culture has drawn between religious affairs and secular affairs is itself one of the most significant peculiarities of our culture and would be incomprehensible to the vast majority of people who have not been brought into contact with this culture. It follows that in thinking about the implications of the claim that Jesus is God's unique self-revelation for our relation to the world religions, we must take into view more than what we call religion. The contemporary debate about Christianity and the world's religions is generally conducted with the unspoken assumption that "religion" is the primary medium of human contact with the divine. But this assumption has to be questioned. When the New Testament affirms that God has nowhere left himself without witness, there is no suggestion that this witness is necessarily to be found in the sphere of what we call religion. The parables of Jesus are notable for the fact that they speak of secular experiences. When the Fourth Gospel affirms that the light of the Logos who came into the world in Jesus shines on every human being, there is no suggestion that this light is identified with human religion. The text goes on to say that this light shines in the darkness, and the ensuing story constantly suggests that it is religion which is the primary area of darkness, while the common people, unlearned in religious matters, are the ones who respond to the light. And it is significant that Justin Martyr, one of the earliest apologists to use this Johannine teaching in making contact with the unbelieving world, affirms that the true light did indeed shine on the great philosophers like Socrates, but that the contemporary religion was the work of devils. Our thought must therefore be directed not just to the religions so called; we must ask about the relation of the gospel to all who live by other commitments, whether they are called religious or secular.

Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, pages 172/3

Art for our times

We cannot make art apart from the time in which we live. We must know what is going on, and understand our environment if we want to understand anything of relevance to our times. We must also know the spirit of the times in order to know where it is wrong and should be challenged and fought.... We can never just follow the past: the battle and means of creativity were theirs, for their own situation. And God, in placing us in another period, has given us our own calling: to be "salting salt" today, to hunger and thirst for righteousness in the here and now.

Hans RookmaakerModern Art and the Death of a Culture

Is Art only to be produced to challenge and fight?  Certainly some art is, but can Rookmaaker's statement be applied to all art in any period?  (Note that one of Rookmaaker's books was called, Art Needs No Justification.)

Consumer Christianity

The habits we learn as consumers in the market economy tend to carry over to other dimensions of life. Thus we are conditioned to approach religion as a commodity, as just another consumer good alongside toothpaste and vacation homes. Think, for instance, of the commonplace practice of "church shopping." This is to say, capitalism encourages a shallow, decontextualized engagement with religious beliefs. Like the vast array of exotic cultural products from around the world that appear side by side on the shelves of the import franchise at the mall, in a consumer culture, beliefs tend to become free-floating cultural objects. These objects do not require anything of me; they entail no particular commitment or engagement. They do not bind me to any particular people or community.... Reduced to a religious commodity, Christian beliefs can be held in the midst of a political economy that runs counter to those beliefs without any tension at all.

Daniel Bell, Jr.The Economy of Desire

Culture-making

Culture making is needed in every company, every school and every church.  In every place there are impossibilities that leave even the powerful feeling constrained and drained, and that rob the powerless of the ability to imagine something different and better.  At root, every human cultural enterprise is haunted by the ultimate impossibility, death, which threatens to slam shut the door of human hope.  But God is at work precisely in these places where the impossible seems absolute.  Our calling is to join him in what he is already doing -- to make visible what, in exodus and resurrection, he has already done.

Andy Crouch
Culture Making

Normality?

From the moment we get up in the morning until we go to bed at night, we race from place to place and from one obligation to the next.... When we submit to this sort of schedule we are consenting to cultural patterns long in the making, patterns that have become so ingrained that we accept them as normal and thus beyond question or critique. But is it normal to think that our pace of life should be one that leads to exhaustion, hypertension, anxiety, boredom, and despair?

Norman WirzbaLiving the Sabbath

Transforming culture

Human culture will someday be transformed.  Does this mean, then, that we must begin that process of transformation here and now?  Are we as Christians called to transform culture in the present age?  Not, I think, in any grandiose or triumphalistic manner.  We are called to await the coming transformation.  But we should wait actively, not passively.  We must seek the City which is to come.

Richard Mouw
When the Kings Come Marching In

Transforming culture

Christ will transform culture at the end time.  The ships of Tarshish, presently vessels that serve rebellious designs, will someday carry the wealth of the nations into the presence of the Creator.  Political power will be gathered into that City wherein the saints will rule forever.  The peoples and tribes and nations of the earth will sing praises to the Lamb who was slain.  In short, the "filling" of the earth will be harnessed and remolded for the sake of God's glory.

Richard Mouw
When the Kings Come Marching In

Lack of imagination

Our deficiency is not motivation or money, but imagination.  Our ability to live Christianly and be the church corporately has failed because we do not believe it is possible.... Wanting to obey Christ but lacking his imagination, we reinterpret the mission of the church through the only framework comprehensible to us -- the one we've inherited from consumer culture.

Skye Jethani
The Divine Commodity

So how should Christians live in society?

Very carefully; but, I would also say, joyfully.  That's the most important thing Christians can do.  They should live in the United States, for example, without pretending they are at home here because they are not at home anywhere.  Every social order is going to give Christians peculiar challenges.  Christians belong to a worldwide church that has great and varied resources; they're not trapped in any one country.  Their home is part of a movable feast.

Stanley Hauerwas
The Hauerwas Reader

The prophetic voice

The essential question for the church is whether or not its prophetic voice has been co-opted into the culture of the day. The community of God's people who are striving to remain faithful to the whole counsel of God's Word will be prophetic voices crying out in the wilderness of the dominant culture of our day.

Walter Brueggemann
The Prophetic Imagination