** Disclaimer: This post may offend some Christians. **
Over the past 30 years, Christians have been trying, and succeeding to a point, to keep up with the current American culture. Well, keeping up with the culture isn’t entirely true. Christians have actually started their own sub-culture. Christians have their own music (“A friend is forever when the Lord is the friend of them”), movies (have you ever noticed that Christian movies have actors whose careers have kind of bottomed out?), bookstores (don’t get me started on Christian bookstores–I usually have trouble finding the book that I’m looking for because the potpourri is in the way), and you gotta love those Christian T-shirts. Hey, I’m basically poking fun at myself and my tribe. In college, I was the guy wearing “The Lord’s Gym” t-shirt and driving around with a “Jesus is my best friend” bumper sticker on my car.
When Paul went to Athens in Acts 17, he appealed to the Greek culture that was there to communicate the gospel. As believers, we need to look at our culture with a “gospel lens”. There really is no dichotomy between the secular and the sacred. Why? Because as the famous Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper, said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”. So, Christians need to take off their WWJD bracelets and put down that Max Lucado book (sorry, no offense Max) and look into the culture where God has placed them and figure out how to communicate the gospel into that culture. If you are having trouble with what I mean by “Christian Sub-Culture”, click here to see the “Stuff Christians Like” Blog. To read another blogger’s thoughts on the issue click here.
