Part III
Social Mimicry In Church History
Here is where the rubber meets the road in the issue before us. Not only is the history of Israel clear on culture shaping their theology & consequent decisions, but Christian history is replete with the manipulation of cultural norms. We have only to look at the unfortunate story of the Christian Church as it continued on after the deaths of the Apostles, as well-meaning leaders sought to make the church more relevant to the pagan society they were immersed in, by homogenizing the two and baptizing pagan terms, statues, theology, & rituals with Christian names. The reddish water of early pagan culture is readily seen assimilated by the lily of the valley ( ie, Christian Church). Note this principle from Ellen White:
Society is composed of families, and is what the heads of families make it. Out of the heart are "the issues of life"; and the heart of the community, of the church, and of the nation is the household. The well-being of society, the success of the church, the prosperity of the nation, depend upon home influences.
The elevation or deterioration of the future of society will be determined by the manners and morals of the youth growing up around us. As the youth are educated, and as their characters are molded in their childhood to virtuous habits, self-control, and temperance, so will their influence be upon society. If they are left unenlightened and uncontrolled, and as the result become self-willed, intemperate in appetite and passion, so will be their future influence in molding society. The company which the young now keep, the habits they now form, and the principles they now adopt are the index to the state of society for years to come {AH 15.2}.
Society and culture are intricately entwined terms here. The sad reality of this truth began to be revealed in the culture that followed the moral deterioration of the Roman Empire, and the apostasy of the Christian Church. The family culture was eroded and society paid the price.
Early church theologians such as Augustine, & Thomas Aquinas (to say nothing of a number of the early Church Fathers) are known to have embraced Greek thought & philosophy to aid in explaining and teaching Christian doctrine. The cultural Hellenizing of Judaism continued into the early Christian centuries and Church as well.
Constantine the Great is well known for his Sunday law that ostensibly help make peace in the Roman Empire between pagans and Christians by blending two holy tenets in each culture into one. The pagan culture in existence clearly warped and fashioned the rising “Christian” culture that supplanted it. I say “Christian”, because it was a far cry from the one Jesus introduced through His Apostles.
Martin Luther, great man that he was, was even so influenced by the culture he grew up in, whether it was in his liking for beer or his attitude toward Jews. German Christians fell prey to that same fallacy later on, when Hitler promised them the world if only German culture was restored & purified.
Roman Catholic and many Protestant churches have accepted evolution as the preferred explanation of creation, whereas before the 1800's it was not. Why? Again, largely because the present day culture accepts it as valid.
Many more examples could be given, but perhaps one of the most astounding ones came out of the great civil conflict of the 1860s in the United States. Before & during the Civil War, whole denominations split or were at odds with each other over the issue of slavery. Depending on the culture of their geographical area, churches either condoned or condemned slavery, using the Bible to justify their positions.
Present Day Cultural Relativity
Since the 1960s, we have been involved in a massive social/cultural engineering experiment in the Western world. We have watched as well entrenched norms in society have fallen one by one. For instance, in America, the founding cultural influence having the most consequence was a militant Christian Protestantism against Catholicism. This Protestant cultural norm sought successfully for many years to side-line Catholics in American life & esteem. It even raised its head in President Kennedy’s election in the 1960s. Today, there is hardly anyone who cares. Culture becomes relative, as stated before, depending on the manipulations & lobbying that are applied and the ruling sanity of the day.
Whether we talk of the reversal of things once anathema in American society, like living together outside of marriage; legalized drug use; rock music; being gay, let alone gay marriage; the definition of marriage itself, or the new trans-gender issues, it is clear to see our society/culture is changing before our eyes. Militant feminism has reworked the landscape of American life through pen & paper, through demonstration & court. Homosexuals, who are only a single digit of our total population percentage-wise, weld an extraordinary influence in the Media & higher education. Our children in public schools are being taught the above changes from kindergarten on as the gospel truth, and like the German youth of the 1930s, are growing up with a new cultural paradigm they eagerly espouse. The institutions that use to be bulwarks for founding principles, are now found to be ambassadors for the “new theology” changes.
Places like Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and many others now proselytize for the liberal progressivism enveloping us. American churches now echo the changed norms of the society influencing them. There is a new ruling sanity our forefathers would hardly recognize, let alone the hallways of Heaven.
And what of the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Have we remained unscathed? In our present-day debates, each side could legitimately be accused of cultural bias. Like the Vice Squad detective I knew long ago told me, “..you work in this field long enough, and you begin to look at all human beings as just like these...”, referring to his suspects. Anyone who is an insurance agent, doctor, lawyer, nurse, carpenter, engineer—you fill in the blank—understands the premise that we look at things through the lense of our profession, family upbringing, race, religion, country, university, etc., and form opinions about what’s right & what’s wrong.
Group-think can be the bane of intellectuals on university campuses, local laity focus groups, or Conferences. In short, this “culture” trumps God more often than not. We are so very good at splicing this ingrained cultural predisposition into our interpretations of Scripture, that we are not even aware that we are doing it. Such was the case with the Jews of Jesus’s day, all the while believing they were being true to God.
We, are not the pattern; here is the pattern we are told we will emulate:
“Notwithstanding the widespread declension of faith and piety, there are true followers of Christ in these churches. Before the final visitation of God's judgments upon the earth there will be among the people of the Lord such a revival of primitive godliness as has not been witnessed since apostolic times. The Spirit and power of God will be poured out upon His children. At that time many will separate themselves from those churches in which the love of this world (culture) has supplanted love for God and His word (culture). Many, both of ministers and people, will gladly accept those great truths which God has caused to be proclaimed at this time to prepare a people for the Lord's second coming. The enemy of souls desires to hinder this work; and before the time for such a movement shall come, he will endeavor to prevent it by introducing a counterfeit. In those churches which he can bring under his deceptive power he will make it appear that God's special blessing is poured out; there will be manifest what is thought to be great religious interest. Multitudes will exult that God is working marvelously for them, when the work is that of another spirit. Under a religious guise, Satan will seek to extend his influence over the Christian world. {GC 464.1} (emphasis mine)
If we are to return to “primitive godliness”, we will have to start testing things by the only absolute we have on this planet at the end of time: the Bible. There is a reason Jesus lived “..by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God...”. If we use the prevailing cultural norm as our benchmark, we will find ourselves christianizing living together arrangements, evolution, worldly music, practicing gay members, gay clergy, and other culturally accepted norms. This is exactly what many of the churches across the world have done today, astonishingly using the Bible to support their new theology.
In reality, they are simply aping the worldly culture we are all immersed in. Every one of the aforementioned things have become normalized & accepted in the world first. The “glass ceiling” of taboo in each of these areas was first breached in principle there. If the Bible is to be our norm, our benchmark, and we are to return to the “primitive godliness” patterned in the Apostolic Church, then we must be able to see it in the Bible’s pages. Without the lens of our culture, these new “norms” are just not there.
Scripture clearly teaches that we as Christians are not to “..be conformed to this world, but be transformed...” (Ro.12:2). What this and other verses imply is that we are to confront the culture of the world with a Christ transformed perspective, because “..My kingdom (culture) is not of this world...” (Jn.18:36). If we are being transformed now into citizens of this new kingdom and not conformed to the world as Ro.12:2 bluntly states, then there is a clear call to confront world values, world attitudes, world beliefs, and world accepted ways of doing things.
Ellen White notes the following:
The qualities which shine with greatest luster in the kingdoms of the world, have no place in Christ's spiritual kingdom. That which is highly exalted among men, and brings exaltation to its possessor, such as caste, rank, position, or wealth, is not esteemed in the spiritual kingdom. The Lord says, "Them that honour me, I will honour" (1 Samuel 2:30). In Christ's kingdom men are distinguished according to their piety. . .
The kingdom of heaven is of a higher order than any earthly kingdom. Whether we shall have a higher position or a lower position, will not be determined by our rank, wealth, or education, but by the character of the obedience rendered to the word of God... {AG 60.2}
For instance, if we place the contemporary music that has become acceptable in our churches (which undeniably comes from the world) next to this clarified standard, it becomes obvious it is not acceptable. We can do this with all of the aforementioned issues and we find plainly that we have not confronted the world with the kingdom of God, but conformed to it.
Is the Bible our absolute benchmark for the culture of Heaven, teaching us how to become citizens of the kingdom, or is it not?
We must free ourselves from the customs and bondage of society, that when the principles of our faith are at stake, we shall not hesitate to show our colors, even though we are called singular for so doing. Keep the conscience tender, that you may hear the faintest whisper of the voice that spoke as never man spoke. Let all who would wear the yoke of Christ show an inflexible purpose to do right because it is right. Keep the eye fixed on Jesus, inquiring at every step, Is this the way of the Lord? The Lord will not leave any one who does this, to become the sport of Satan's temptation. . .Do not imitate men. Study your Bibles, and imitate Christ. {OHC 341.5}
And this:
The Lord Himself has established a separating wall between the things of the world and the things which He has chosen out of the world and sanctified to Himself. The world will not acknowledge this distinction. . . . But God has made this separation, and He will have it exist. In both the Old and the New Testaments the Lord has positively enjoined upon His people to be distinct from the world, in spirit, in pursuits, in practice; to be a holy nation, a peculiar people, that they may show forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. The east is not farther from the west than are the children of light, in customs, practices, and spirit, from the children of darkness. This distinction will be more marked, more decided, as we near the close of time. . . . {TMK 308.3}
Final Thoughts
It is clear that through the centuries culture has changed our worship by warping our theology.
The ubiquity of man-made culture and its influence cannot be denied, and this iceberg predominately lurking below the surface of our awareness has been manipulating mankind from the very beginning, the catalyst for so many changes.
For the Christian Church—for the Seventh-day Adventist Church—it is one that will sink and drown everything God has been seeking to transform in Mankind, that they might reflect the true culture of Heaven.
If we do not come to terms with culture (the world) and confront it in our personal lives and in our corporate lives, we will find ourselves puppets on strings to Satan’s cultural amalgamations. We will end up reflecting the culturally manipulated form of godliness that the Jewish people had at the First Coming of Christ—at His Second Coming. But, by His grace, may we be given eyes to see Satan’s plan for us, to flee from it, and be ready for His Second Coming.
Bob Stewart is pastor at Grand Rapids Central SDA Church, and Lowell/Riverside Fellowship in Michigan.