Jeremy L. Berg

In my previous post I suggested today’s youth culture can help remind us what really distinguishes a healthy church from a sick, diseased or dying church: “Are the individuals who make up that church authentically regenerated, committed followers of Christ whose lives bear outward evidence of the inward sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit?”  Teens value authenticity above almost anything else and they can spot a fake a mile away.  They want the “real thing” or nothing at all.  This leads me to the first potentially disastrous leak I see plaguing the evangelical Church in America today: Culture Christians.

I define “culture Christians” as those whose Christian identity is tied most passionately to the ongoing culture wars and efforts of the religious right to “Take America back for God” through legislating Christian morality in the public square.  They are very passionate and committed to their form of Christianity and as a political voting block carry significant weight and influence.  For those who believe the evangelical Church’s primary role on earth is to hold the pagan world accountable to God by imposing their moral standard on a secular state, the motivation and zeal runs high. Those who speak loudest do not always speak wisest.  Because of the power this evangelical voting block has exercised in the heated political battles and presidential races recently, the majority of people outside the church have a completely politicized, right wing impression of the entire evangelical Church.  Jesus = rebublican, etc.   

The problem is that this is simply not the God-ordained role of the church.  We are not the moral police of an increasingly secularized culture.  We are the Body of Christ, called to be a countercultural people, replicating Christ’s self-sacrificial love to the world around us.  We do have an active political and prophetic role; but we are active and prophetic in a very different sense than the cultural warriors.  We influence the culture around us by remaining a peculiar people who don’t play by the same rules as the world.  We represent Christ’s political agenda – which rarely fits into either right or left, republican or democratic categories.  We serve the Kingdom of God and have Christ as King – not Caesar or the President.    

My interactions with teens have reinforced my conviction that what the world needs is not another political agenda, another crafty politician, another clever platform, another Christian moral policeman shouting “No, No, No” to a scoffing crowd of unbelievers.  (A timely read for the current perceptions young people have of Christians is “UnChristian” by David Kinneman and Gabe Lyons.) Rather, the teens I interact with get fired up about joining a movement of rebels who capture the attention of the naysayers through surprising acts of love and service, shocking the world by our greater sense of purpose, and gaining credibility in the eyes onlookers by living lives of notable character and integrity.  

The problem with merging the Christian church with a particular political stance in the culture war is that the church’s mission to reach the world with the Gospel is then bound up with how successful the church is in fighting the culture war.  When we lose ground in the culture war (and make more enemies in the process) we lose our voice and witness as well.  If the Evangelical ship is indeed taking on water, one of the major leaks has certainly been this unfortunate identification of Christianity with a culture war more committed to changing the culture of America than becoming a unique Jesus-shaped culture of our own — a peculiar people distinct from the culture whose very existence bears prophetic witness to the Good News of God’s advancing Kingdom in the world.

The culture war is almost lost.  The sector of evangelicalism that has staked it’s reputation on that battlefront will suffer greatly in the defeat.  The good news is that the true church, the true Body of Christ, will continue faithfully bearing witness to the Kingdom of God and the self-sacrificial, Calvary love of Jesus in the meantime.