The Church’s Never-Ending Culture War
Living in a time of tumult tests us in many ways. Ours is an age of chaos where it appears the West is collapsing. This ongoing conflict is often called the culture war. On one side, we have postmodernism and its sledgehammer, critical theory, which is deconstructing the very foundations of society. Postmodernism promises to be a road to utopia, but it’s really just the highway to hell.
On the other side, we have various shades of conservatives who, at least in theory, want to conserve our Western heritage. More and more, we see the recognition, even from non-Christians, that Christianity is central to the West’s past, present, and future. In some ways, this culture war is between one side that is pro-Christ and the other side that is anti-Christ.
The problem is that many in the church want nothing to do with the culture war of our day. To be sure, some want to co-opt Christianity for their own perverse reasons, and the church must avoid such puppeteering. Nonetheless, the war rages around us, and for many Christians, all this fighting seems rather unchristian. Shouldn’t we stay above the fray? Shouldn’t Christians be all about love and kindness? Shouldn’t we care more about the world to come than this one?
Variations of these questions are all too common. American Christianity has forgotten the history of the church, and she appears painfully ignorant of what Scripture teaches. The truth is, to be a Christian is to be involved in a culture war that will continue until Christ returns. To ignore this reality, or attempt to be above it, is a dereliction of duty and plays into the enemy’s hand.
When we understand church history and Scripture, we will recognize the goodness and necessity of the church’s faithful engagement in this cosmic culture war.
The Early Church’s Culture War
I was recently teaching a college course on the Christian worldview. A student asked me, “Didn’t the early church avoid culture wars, and shouldn’t we?” His question reflects a popular sentiment in American evangelicalism—the church has lost its way because it is too entangled with the conflicts of our day. Sadly, this line of thinking reflects a deep ignorance of the church’s history.
The church, wherever she goes, always engages in culture wars. This is a theological necessity, which we will examine below, but it is also a historical reality. In his book, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac, Steven Smith examines the culture wars that the early church fought (and won) in Rome.[1] The church’s victory over Rome’s paganism fundamentally reshaped the West, and the world, for the better. As Christ has said, the church is the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matt. 5:13–16). Wherever the church goes, she brings with her a distinct culture.
Smith’s book is a fascinating read as it demonstrates how the early church defeated Roman paganism and thus changed culture for the better. Human rights, sexual fidelity, care for the weak and vulnerable, and the overthrow of slavery are some of the byproducts of the Christianization of the West. When a society lives according to God’s standards, it receives many blessings. Smith demonstrates, like others have, that the victory of Christianity advanced the West and changed the world. Christendom changed the world for the better as it built a more Christianized culture. In short, Paganism (both ancient and modern) has no foundation for rights, or equality, and thus leads to suffering and tyranny.
When Christians abandon the culture war, they abandon the ground their forefathers won at great cost. The witness of the church is one of waging, and winning, culture wars through the declaration and application of the gospel to all of life.
Culture is downstream of religion. Today’s paganism, even in its secularized form, is religious to the core. Our current conflict is between two totalizing and religious views of life. If we abandon the culture war, we neuter our gospel witness and abandon our neighbors to be preyed on by pagan beasts.
What Is Culture?
To fully understand the stakes of the culture war, we must know what culture is and where the conflict began. The truth is that the culture war actually predates the church.
The word culture comes from the word cultivate. Just as we cultivate the ground and bring forth fruit, culture is the fruit of our societal labors. The first command given to humanity is often called the cultural mandate (Gen. 1:26–28). Here God commands man to be fruitful, to multiply, to subdue the earth, and to reign over it. As God’s representative, mankind is to rule God’s world. Our charge is to cultivate the world through human dominion. The world is a garden and we are to bring forth righteous fruit as God’s gardeners.
In short, creation is what God makes, and culture is what we, as sub-creators, make with his creation. Man is commanded to bring forth the potential and beauty of God’s creation through cultural activities. This includes everything from math and science to the arts, from politics to church. Culture building is at the very heart of what it means to be image bearers. To be human is to be a culture-builder.
The Ancient Culture War
Just as the beginning of culture is found in the Garden, likewise the first shots of the culture war were fired there in the Garden. In Genesis 3:1–7, Satan offers a fundamentally different view of what it means to be human, and thus what it means to fulfill the cultural mandate. He attacks the truthfulness of God and deceives the woman by promising her she can become more like God through disobedience (Gen. 3:5). Through disobedience, Adam and Eve produce a new, worse cultural product. In taking the forbidden fruit, humanity sought to define good and evil apart from God. Mankind sought autonomy, or self-law. Sin is lawlessness, a rejection of God's authority in favor of man’s authority. Claiming autonomy, mankind fell into sin and everything was changed, including our cultural activities.
For this reason, God cursed the serpent, the man, the woman, and the ground. For the man and woman, each was cursed in ways that hindered their primary role in the cultural project. Because of sin, fulfilling the cultural mandate was changed forever.
This ancient culture war is between two different ways of being human, two different responses to God’s authority. This war flows through two different family seeds (Gen. 3:15). The seed of the woman produces a different way of life, and a different culture, than those who are of the seed of the Serpent.
As culture building is inherent to being human, these two lines invariably produced different cultures. One line, immediately seen in Cain, produces a culture of death. The other line, seen in Abel and Seth, though far from perfect, produces a culture of life and flourishing founded in faith. Culture is downstream of religion. In short, worship determines what cultural fruit will be produced.
This culture war runs through every page of the Bible. God, who is the source of life, offers instructions for life and prosperity. Good culture-building begins with having a right relationship with God and everything flows downstream of that reality. God’s culture is one of life, order, goodness, and beauty because God himself is the source of them all.
Yet, man chooses to worship the creation instead of the Creator, whether it be Baal worship or secular humanism. The cultural product of false worship is always death, chaos, tyranny, and ugliness. Whether it is Egypt’s brutality to the Hebrews, the child sacrifice of the Canaanites, or the barbarism of Rome, the culture of death always flows from a rejection of God. Satan perverts the cultural mandate and brings about a culture of death in the mockery of God’s culture of life. Humans will always produce a culture, the only question is, “What kind of culture will we produce?” This is true of every church, family, school, community, and nation. Throughout history, the culture war rages on because culture is always downstream of religion.
Conclusion
Wherever false worship resides, the culture of death and chaos rises. Ideas matter, and what we think about God, humanity, and the world will determine what type of culture we produce. God created man to produce a God-honoring culture, but Satan offers his counterfeit version. One produces life, freedom, and human flourishing. The other produces death, tyranny, and despair. This battle is at the heart of redemption, as creation itself longs for the final victory of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19).
For this reason, Christians are commanded to pray that God’s kingdom would return to the earth (Matt 6:10). In the meantime, we are instructed to be salt and light in a dying world (Matt 5:13–14). The good news is that right now Christ is reconciling everything under his universal authority (Col. 1:15–20). As the true Adam, Christ is reconciling everything and will make all things new. Christ’s work brings about an eternally perfect world and culture.
This is the end history is marching toward. One day, heaven and earth will be remade, and the culture of life will finally and fully win. Until that day, the cosmos cry out in birth pangs as the ancient culture war rages on. Through the gospel, mankind and the world will be recreated and man will finally, and eternally, fulfill the cultural mandate in the new creation. Until then, the culture war rages on and the church is called to be on the frontlines declaring Christ’s universal authority and comprehensive redemption.
Pastor Levi Secord
Christ Bible Church
[1] Steven D. Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018).
