(9) Culture Has Religious Roots

Intimately connected with the concept that human life is lived in service to some god is the thought that culture is always religiously characterized or qualified. Culture is not only the fine arts. It is the sum total of ways in which a given group of people responds to God’s command to make something of the world He has placed them in. It is always expressive of hidden religious force or influences. Paul speaks of "principalities, powers, world rulers of this darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12).
It is also possible for a culture to be directed by the Holy Spirit, as it will be in a final sense in the New Jerusalem. This means that cultural life in a nation or a period of history is not a neutral thing; it is intensely religious.
This is easy to illustrate when we look back into pre-modern times. The Hebrews lived in a theocracy, a culture that was at every point, when faith was active, directed by God Himself through his prophets, priests and kings. The Greek and Roman civilizations were deeply religious. The early Christians suffered as atheists because they did not serve gods the Romans served. No one had any illusions in those days about serving the national life from its religious roots or living life without regard to the service of the gods.
The problem today is that modern man, supposing himself to have been emancipated from ancient myths and the service of the gods, has fallen prey to the most powerful and deceptive myth of all time, the myth that there are no gods, that all things can be explained through physical science. Schumacher, discussing things that the modern world views as good in themselves, as ends rather than means, says,

" . . . If something that requires no justification may be called an ‘absolute,’ the modern world, which claims that everything is relative, does, in fact, worship very large number of ‘ absolutes.’ . . . Not only power and wealth are treated as good in themselves – provided they are mine, and not someone else’s – but also knowledge for its own sake, speed of movement, size of market, rapidity of change, quantity of education, number of hospitals, etc., etc. In truth, none of these sacred cows is a genuine end; they are all means parading as ends.

Then he quotes Etienne Gilson, as follows:

"In the Inferno of the world of knowledge, there is a special punishment for this sort of sin; it is a relapse into mythology . . . A world which has lost the Christian God cannot but resemble a world which had not yet found him. Just like the world of Thales and of Plato, our modern world is ‘full of gods.’ There are blind Evolution, clear-sighted Orthogenesis, benevolent Progress, and others . . . It is however not important for us to realize that mankind is doomed to live more and more under the spell of a new scientific, social, and political mythology, unless we resolutely exorcise these befuddled notions whose influence on modern life is becoming appalling . . . For when gods fight among themselves, men have to die." (see footnote 1).

Modern culture is just as much religiously rooted as any. The fact that modern man has conceived himself otherwise does nothing to change the situation. For Christians, the price of failing to recognize the religious roots of modern culture is to serve the gods of that culture without realizing it. And that is forbidden in the New Testament with solemn warnings like that in Matthew 7:21-23. The religious rootage of modern culture is one of the most critical features of our times; to fail to perceive it and bear witness to Christ’s counter claim of lordship over all things is to fail to proclaim the Gospel, whatever else we may say in our effort to do so.

(10) Life Is Plural As Well As Individual

The reason why not only individual life is related to the service of some god but culture also has religious roots is that human life is plural as well as singular, community life as well as individual life. North American people have become very individualistic in their view of life, in part perhaps because of frontier experience. Whatever the cause, it is difficult for us to form a very clear picture of the importance of plural or community life. We even tend to read our individualistic interpretation of life back into history and into the Bible, although we would have to admit that life those times was far more a community matter than it is now.
The Bible is quite clear on the importance of a non-individualistic concept of life. It speaks of God’s creating humans male and female in His own image and suggests that in the marriage relationship a new "oneness" emerges which transcends the individuality of either partner and expresses the image of God in a way in which neither of them alone could do. (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:5; Ephesians 6:31-33) It speaks of the family in heaven and on earth whose name, or identity, is dependent upon the Heavenly Father and so in some mysterious sense reflects the plurality in oneness of the Trinity itself. (Eph. 3:14-15) Israel is such a closed community that the sin of Achan can defile the entire nation (Joshua 7:10-15). The Christian church is called the "Body of Christ" and the intimate reality of that relationship is made the basis for all sorts of more appeals and ethical priorities among Christians. (I Corinthians 12, among many passages) Over all these instances looms the great Biblical distinction between the old race of Adam and the new race in Christ. These are the two cities of St. Augustine. They embody a reality of group life which mysterious, ineradicable, and potent.
The implications of this state of affairs are far-reaching. It explains the power of peer pressure in school and in society. It reminds us of how difficult it is to disengage ourselves from the "modern mind," that elusive but powerful collection of ideas and viewpoints which characterize modern man and characterize us as well because we are inextricably linked to that "man." It is probably connected with the Biblical emphasis on concern for the poor and with our Lord’s saying that inasmuch as we have done it (fed, clothed, visited, etc.) to the least of His brethren, we have done it to Him. (Matthew 25:40) As the Apostle Paul says, " . . . none of us liveth to himself . . . " (Romans 14:7). We are all linked mysteriously and intricately to each other in webs of greater or lesser depth and strength. The awareness of this part of a Christian mind, and living out its implications is one function of a Christian life.

(11) Christ Has Redeemed All Things

The cosmic scope of Christ’s redemption brings all these last four points to a common focal plane. What God is said to have loved in John 3:16, is "the world." This is surely not "the world" of I John 2:16, "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vain glory of life." The latter world passes away, as the next verse indicates. But the world God loved is the world He created, the world that was laid under a curse because of human sin and will be restored when Christ returns (Romans 8:19-22). Before He ascended, Christ, on the basis of his completed redemptive work, claimed all authority in that world, both in heaven and on earth. Philippians 2:4-9 repeats the same concept in different words. Because Christ humbled himself and became obedient even to death on the cross, God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that every knee should bow to him and every tongue confess that He is lord. This is all summed up in Colossians 1:20 when Paul says, "and through him (Christ) reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things upon the earth or things in the heavens."
One thing this means is that salvation is much more than soul oriented. Being saved does not mean a ticket to heaven at death without much difference in the journey before that point. Christ saves people’s lives, not just their "souls." The consequences of His redeeming love, if felt with any genuineness at all, must be felt in all of life and not only in one’s emotions or one’s belief-structure. Tom Howard has caught this beautifully in the context of the family. He says:

" . . . the family situation is, as it were, the elementary schoolroom where we start learning in small, easy, and natural ways to love – that is, to discover that self-giving, freedom, and joy are all one thing . . . My Life For Yours is the principle at the bottom of everything, to embrace which is to live and to refuse which is to die? Heaven or hell." (see footnote 2)

Nor is it only in the family situation that you "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure." (Phil. 2:12-13) Redemption reached out into all the social and cultural activities by means of which we respond, whether we intend to or not, to God’s command to do something worthwhile with His world.
The outworking of our salvation is a matter both individual and corporate. We are to do all we do as unto the Lord, which includes the service we render to the boss on the job, the response we give to the state in matters civil, the effort we put into our education, and the response we make to the needs of our neighbor, near or far. This is our individual duty as Christians. But we have a corporate duty as well. Today much more is accomplished by people who work in groups than by people who are "lone wolves." So we gather together to worship the Lord on Sunday in the church. There is a richness and a substance to our public offering of praise through Jesus Christ that there cannot be to our individual praying and praising, needful as those are. Christians are also members of a new race of people; they are the Body of Christ. As such, it behooves them to embody in group activity evidences of His saving lordship. So Christians band together to establish schools, to struggle with the nature of Christian business activity, or to wield some influence in the political arena. These are activities which do not belong within the responsibility of Sunday church; the church as a social institution alongside other social institutions. Only as Christians work together to do this sort of thing can their praying, "Thy Kingdom come," really mean very much. Christ’s redemption is as wide as life, and the church is responsible to demonstrate that.
This does not mean, of course, that the church is going to alter the whole world and bring in the millennium by means of group activity in educational, social, political, or economic areas. Scripture is clear that before Christ returns things will go from bad to worse and that the antichrist will ultimately appear and, for a time, dominate the world. But Christian group activity does mean that we can set up some sign-posts, we can model some ways of doing things, which when Christ returns, will prove to have been pointing in the right direction. That is all we are responsible to do, and that is all we need to expect to do. Doing that will take all the time and strength we are given until He comes or we go to be with Him. But do this much we must if we want to witness to the true scope of Christ’s salvation and hear him say, "Well done . . . faithful servant." A salvation as big as life calls for the involvement of all life’s activities on the part of those who claim to enjoy it.

Editor: Al Greene

Alta Vista College

Footnotes:

1. Schumacher, E.F., A Guide for the Perplexed, New York, Harper, 1977.
2. Howard, Tom, Hallowed Be This House, Wheaton, Shaw, 1979.