Christians engage in culture naively. They either do not realize the pervasiveness of sin in their own lives, or they fail to recognize the depravity of their culture. They project their own eternal hope for redemption onto this world’s temporal institutions, which leads to frustration, foolishness and disappointment. Nevertheless, we have a host of Christian brothers and sisters who came before us and struggled with these same tendencies. In his book “The Secular Saint” Robert E. Webber observes that Christians interact with culture in at least three different ways.
Webber writes that some Christians deal with culture by separating themselves. In Protestant history this standoffishness is associated with the Anabaptists. Picture a 16th century version of a Montana militia commune that says, “on the third day, God created the Remington bolt-action rifle, so that Man could fight the dinosaurs. And the homosexuals” (yes, Mean Girls reference). The Anabaptists believed that:
- In the current age there is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom evil. The problem with this view is that it quickly forgets Paul’s Romans 7 dilemma, “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members” (vv. 21-23). Separationism becomes so busy fighting the evil on the outside that it neglects the evil of our own hearts.
- The present church is fallen and needed to be restored. A concern for revival in the church is certainly commendable. However, it should be coupled with faith that, “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27). The ultimate destiny of the church has been decided. Contemporary to the Anabaptists, John Calvin wrote in the Institutes, “I always hold that truth does not perish in the church though it be oppressed…but is wondrously preserved by the Lord to rise again and prove victorious in his own time” (Book 4, Chapter 9, subsection 13). If Calvin is correct, then even when the external expressions of the church appear to be “fallen” there are still believers of the true church that need to be shepherded. Utter separation by those who recognize the corruption leaves those believers behind.
- Given the need for restitution, a radical break from the state is necessary. This is dangerous because it gives the separationist an excuse to ignore passages that clearly preach submission to the government (Romans 9, Mark 12:13-17, etc…).
Fearing the negative impacts of separationism, the Christian pendulum swings the opposite way into “integration.” Webber points to Constantine’s “Christian empire” as the early example of this. He attaches Luther to this kind of thinking too. Luther viewed Christians as citizens both of a secular and of a heavenly kingdom. What this should actually look like “is a problem that Luther continued to wrestle with throughout his life” (Webber). Personally, I relate most closely to Luther’s conundrum. How can we simultaneously “be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Hebrews 12:28, ESV) and render to Caesar what is Caesar’s?
Is something more hopeful behind Door Number Three? Webber calls it the “transformational model.” It emphasizes the church as a redemptive structure that can change the world. For instance, during the Roman Empire the church was seen to have moralizing effect – making conditions of slaves more bearable, facilitating charity toward the poor, etc… Augustine argued this in City of God. As he tried to understand the world in the context of the traumatic fall of Rome, he encouraged his fellow believers to look ahead to a spiritual hope. As the medieval era progressed, this developed into a concept of “Christendom”. Unfortunately, this opens up Christianity to be blamed for every wrong political move (the Crusades for example). Moreover, for all the attempts to “Christianize” society, it is as full of sin as it was in Augustine’s day. Today, “conservative evangelicals” maintain their place as one of the most powerful voting blocks, and they are proud of it! I once heard Jerry Falwell boast about how he “took on” five liberals single-handedly on Larry King Live (I assumed that he meant intellectually took them on, but this was never clarified). How does that promote the Gospel?
Instead of reacting in any of these ways, we ought to aim at developing a public theology that realizes that political and secular entities are inherently corrupt but simultaneously fights to incorporate the beneficial aspects of the different models of Christian-secular interaction. This will not look like a neatly defined system. Instead, it will take into account all of the principles on this subject that we see from Genesis to Revelation and prays for wisdom to know where to apply each one. We want to include the separationist’s desire for consecration, the integrationist’s desire for submission, and the transformationist’s desire for regeneration!
