Dealing with the gospel in the context of culture is nothing new. During the origin of the church the emerging leaders had to deal with a number of cultural issues that would impact the message and the future of the church.

Today we are still dealing with values and issues that directly effect the way that someone enters into the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For the ancient church the cultural issues stemmed from the transition out of Judaism and into Christianity. The core Jewish believers thought that the new Gentile believers should follow in the ways of the Mosaic Law to follow in the ways of Christ.

For Paul, the Apostle, this was a complete misrepresentation of the gospel. This must have been a difficult transition for the Jewish believers to undergo – they had to shift their entire worldview; it was an incredible departure from what they had practiced and held dear for years. They where entering a post Judaic era where the gospel was opened to everyone.

The strong pull to require the Gentile believers to adhere to Judaism even swayed Peter and Barnabas into thinking that Gentile believers should walk in the cultural ways of Judaism if they wanted to be saved. Paul brought on a full-scale debate to challenge the cultural stipulations attached to the gospel by the Jewish leaders. Through a series of council meetings it was determined that the Gentile believers did not need to follow the laws of Moses to be saved. A letter was drafted and delivered to the church at Antioch that encouraged the believers in their faith and released them from the cultural traditions of Judaism.

In our day the growth of ecclessial culture in some ways has formed a new set of semi-pharisaical stipulations that at times make it difficult for a new believer to enter into the gospel. There are so many cultural anomalies that seem to attach themsleves to the gospel that it can become a heavy burden; the gospel gets weighed down through superfluous additions and steps. These rights of passage that we often articulate are inconsequential to the gospel but they are communicated and interwoven into the message. In a way we are saying, "To be saved you should experience these things…and if you haven’t you probably aren’t saved."

We are in the middle of a cultural transition, whether you explain it in terms of modern and postmodern or traditional and emerging, there is undoubtedly a new wave of church coming out of the previous cultural paradigm. For the traditional-modern church this brings a number of uncomfortable precautions. What the modern church has invested in for years is often thrown to the wind by the postmodern culture. Things like hierarchal leadership, marketing, pulpits and propositional truth are just white noise in a postmodern perspective; while community, relational truth and learning together on a journey are seen as the crucial elements of a growing community in this new era. This transition can be potentially polarizing or unifying depending on the shape of things to come.

In the ancient church it was concluded that it should be made as easy as possible for a new believer to enter into the gospel, without cultural baggage, no matter how vested and meaningful these rights of passage had been for a previous generation. In the same way, in our time it’s not necessary to convert a new believer to a modern mindset to lead them into the gospel.

In this post-Christian culture we have to be careful not to be swayed into thinking that the postmodern believer should hold all of the same values and traditions that the modern believer holds dear. The ability to see the cultural shift and adjust is a crucial element in this time of transition.

I have spoken with a number of leaders that have this innate feeling that they need to convince this culture of absolute truth, to lead them to Christ. I am not a relativist at all but absolute truth is certainly a product of modernity and it is not the metanarrative that most postmoderns live within. Instead of spinning our wheels by presenting a worldview or a framework for truth, we should be presenting THE truth – Jesus. Amidst the transition we need to engage the culture with a gospel that’s devoid of cultural baggage, a gospel that is large enough to include the modernist and the postmodernist.

Maybe there should be a letter that is drafted by the modern church that says, "You don’t have to be modern to enter into the gospel." This letter could be delivered to all of the postmodern, emerging communities to link them to the larger church without the expectation of cultural conformity. In this effort this generation would not be called to walk through the modern church as a right of passage to Christianity – instead, they could begin where they are. This would clear away the effects of cultural Christianity to pave the way for the gospel in the midst of a cultural transition.

Obviously, we don’t have the atmosphere or framework of authority that the early church did so this wouldn’t really happen. But I think we should make every effort to present a gospel that is true to the heart of God without cultural additives; in an effort to make it accessible for a postmodern culture to enter into the gospel without having to convert to a modern mindset.

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Marty - I had many struggles with the overwhelming election tide as well. Sometimes even talking about coloring outside the lines can be controversial. I also wanted to mention that I do think there is a place to discuss absolute truth - I guess what I am saying is that it shouldn't always be the conversation we drive straight to. Thanks for the comments.
--Brian Orme ( brian dot orme at communitychurchinfo dot com ) on 1/10/2005; 10:13:03 PM

Good article Brian. I think this last election cycle helped solidify this concept for me. It seemed to me that, as Christians, we are all "supposed" to think the same, act the same and vote the same. There seems to be little room left for those who may color outside the accepted lines on particular issues.

And while I do agree that the central issue ought to be the truth of Jesus, when dealing with a culture that may reject any claim to truth, we still need to be prepared to have the foundational, philosophical discussions regarding absolute truth. But I agree with your main point, it needs to be in support of Jesus, not instead of.
--Marty ( taylorcalm at earthlink dot net ) on 1/10/2005; 10:58:33 AM

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