Rod Dreher, in his book, The Benedict Option, insists that currently the culture is shaping the next generation in dramatic ways—even shaping their faith, instead of their faith shaping their thinking about culture. I agree. Our agenda, therefore, for raising up the next generation must include intentionally countering the dominant misguided worldviews of the culture and helping them see the much more captivating, inviting, and logical worldviews of Scripture. This episode examines an approach to countering the world’s influence today that is failing, before we consider four aspects of a biblical approach to the “world” that we need to take with our loved ones walking beside us.
This is the second episode in our series, Guiding Our Loved Ones Into a Biblical Worldview. All parents, not just dads, are motivated to protect their children from harm. As we saw last week, one of the greatest sources of harm to them are ideas that take them captive, darkening their understanding. There is a reason why Jesus called Satan “the father of lies.” One of the tragedies of the past fifty years, in my view, is that well-meaning Christian leaders have taken the wrong approach to protecting their loved ones from the false ideas and temptations of the culture. Here is the approach that largely fails:
SEPARATING From the World
There is a strong biblical case for being careful not to be shaped by this world.
- Romans 12:2: Do not be conformed to this world.
- I John 2:15-16: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world
- John 17 teaches that we are to be In the world but not OF the world.
Furthermore, everyone knows the intense peer pressure that teens experience, which is tremendously intensified by the social media in which they daily swim in 2021. However, “separating from sinful culture” is rooted in several unbiblical ideas. The first is a heretical separation between the secular and sacred. This secular/sacred division is a form of Gnosticism condemned by the early church in the 325 AD Nicene Creed. Authors, Stonestreet and Kunkle explain this view:
Gnosticism, which has taken various forms throughout the history of the church, divides reality into two parts: the physical, which is evil, and the spiritual, which is good. In this formulation, we should strive for sacred things and avoid as much as possible that which is secular. A current Gnostic tendency is to elevate some jobs as “ministry,” while other jobs are not. For example, evangelism, foreign missions, and pastoral duties are considered full-time Christian service, while everyone else does secular work, which is at best, a way to make money to support those “in the ministry” or at worst a necessary evil. (A Practical Guide to Culture.)
Historically, unfortunately, several branches of Christendom located sin in the physical world. Contributing to this fallacy was the difficulty in translating the Greek word, SARX, i.e. FLESH. This Greek word is used both for the physical body as we use flesh today—but also as “the weaker element in human nature,” “the unregenerated state of man,” and “the seat of sin in man.” (see Vines Expository Dictionary). So SARX was synonymous for carnal, referring to our lower animal-like nature, the source of fleshly lusts. Thus, our sinful nature, SARX became highly associated with sexual sin. In fact, celibacy was considered a higher calling than marriage because having sex was considered to feed one’s carnal nature, even though biblically lawful. I don’t ever want to minimize the destructive nature of sexual sin. But when I see the shame heaped upon men who fail sexually, I am reminded of how Gnostic today’s church still is and of this quoted from CS Lewis:
If anyone thinks that (biblically informed) Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, they are quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing, and patronizing, and spoil sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me…they are the animal self and the diabolical self; and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church, may be nearer to hell than a prostitute. But of course, it is better to be neither (Mere Christianity).
Could it be that Christians of my generation who look back with nostalgia to the 50’s days, when June and Ward Cleaver had separate beds in the TV show Leave It to Beaver in contrast to our hook-up culture of today are still seeing through the lens of Gnosticism—sexual sins are the worst? Yes, sexual promiscuity was probably considerably less prevalent in the fifties, but Rosa Parks was still forced to sit in the back of the bus! Could Christians have so narrowly categorized “worldliness” as the sins of the body--drunkenness, doing drugs, and sex outside of marriage that they were blind to their own racism? Could their false dichotomy of separating sacred from secular, have caused them to make sure that black people heard the gospel, so they got their ticket to eternal life, but never lifted a finger to free them from the horrific injustice of racism in their culture?
The wrong way to avoid being conformed to the ideas and values of this world is to think that “this world” refers to God’s creation and the human culture that Adam and his descendants were commissioned to shape. Rather this world refers to the wrong cultural values of our age, which Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:6-7 are doomed to pass away in contrast to the wisdom that God decreed before the ages. It is the combination of ungodly forces within the culture that Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 result from the fact that the god of this word has blinded the minds of unbelievers. The term, world, refers to any culture’s elements—its values, perspective, and thinking—contributed by the sinful nature of humans who are darkened in their understanding (Eph 4:18).
How to Lead Our Loved Ones Into A Biblical Approach to “The World”
A. Understanding Our Part in the Four-Chapter Gospel Story. The four-chapter gospel is Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. To whatever degree the poison of Gnosticism pollutes the thinking of Christians, the gospel is reduced to the Fall and Redemption—being saved to go to heaven. It ignores the the first chapter of God's story--creation—Adam and Eve’s assignment to develop the earth’s potential. It misses the core biblical truth that God loves his creation and assigned humans to use their mind and creativity to develop the world’s potential. It wasn’t their world, but God’s. But they were to care for it and cultivate it so that it would become the place GOD INTENDED TO BE.
The second chapter of the Gospel Story reveals the antagonist, Satan who seduces our first parents into joining his rebellion against the High King of the Universe. As Adam and Eve’s dominion over their kingdom, earth, was to be a blessing upon it, their rebellion against God brings a curse upon their kingdom. As they rebelled against God’s rule, their kingdom, earth, rebels against their rule. The ground that Adam is to cultivate and the relationships in the home that Eve is to cultivate are cursed. But before God even cursed Adam and Eve for their sin, in grace He promised that a Second Adam, the seed of the woman would one day come to overthrow Satan, Sin and Death, the usurpers of Adam and Eve’s kingdom.
The third chapter of the Gospel is the arrival of Messiah Jesus to accomplish our redemption—purchasing us out of slavery to Satan, sin, and death with his shed blood. He gives a foretaste of the work he would accomplish at the cross by temporarily overthrowing each of these powers. Demons are cast out, Jesus demonstrates human righteousness, calling his followers to a righteousness of character that far exceeds the superficial works of the Scribes and Pharisee’s. His power to restore the broken physical world is shown by healing lepers, the blind, the paralyzed, by silencing a howling storm and by raising humans from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection proves that the curse upon Adam and his kingdom has been reversed. But the story doesn’t end with Jesus handing his followers a ticket to escape to heaven when they died, thereby escaping a culture dominated by religious leaders who were so evil that they condemned to death the Son of God, the only righteous human in history. Instead, Jesus appointed them to go into the world as agents of reconciliation.
The fourth chapter of the Gospel story is restoration. CS Lewis points to this truth in the Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan dies an excruciating death at the hands of the Whit Witch but comes alive. He explains to Lucy and Susan what it all meant: It means, said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still that she did not know. Her knowledge goes only back to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there, a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s place, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.)
Restoration is about death working backwards throughout Adam’s fallen world. Sin has fracture human harmony with 1) God, 2) within themselves, 3) with each other, and with the world. Now Christ-followers are to be agents of this reconciliation process. We are to help others be reconciled to God through Christ, be restored and made whole themselves by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and be restored to their cultural task of shaping a just world and developing the potential God has built into creation. In this calling, we strive to shape a righteous culture, recognizing that: 1) though disarmed, Satan still lives to oppose God’s rule, 2) though empowered by the Holy Spirit to overcome sin, our sinful nature is not fully crucified, and 3) that the heartbreak of death must still be endured. But the believer’s certain hope is that Jesus has begun to fix everything broken by sin and invited us to join him in this life. Revelation 21:5 assures us of this reality. And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold I am making all things new.”
B. Understanding What We are Saved FOR. Although our true homeland is the Kingdom of Christ and no earthly kingdom, Christians are not preoccupied with some kind of higher world. We are NOT called to be so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. As we surrender to Christ’s lordship, our sanctification makes us more HUMAN. Tom Howard reminds us, The Incarnation takes all that properly belongs to our humanity and delivers it back to us, redeemed. All of our inclinations and appetites and capabilities and yearnings and proclivities are purified and gathered up and glorified by Christ. He did not come to thin out human life; he came to set it free. All the dancing and feasting and processing and singing and building and sculpting and baking and merrymaking that belong to us, and that were stolen away into the service of false God’s are returned to us in the gospel. (Evangelical is Not Enough).
Restored human life is the message of the gospel and in this era. Christians are to show a glimpse of the richness of human life, when relationships that had been broken by sin are restored—to God, within ourselves, to others, and to creation. We are the firstfruits of God’s new creation, a movie trailer of coming attractions when life is fully restored at Christ returns. Unlike some religions, Christianity is not escapist. Buddhism calls its adherents to escape from the world through meditation. Hindus consider the physical world to be an illusion to be escaped by the births and rebirths of reincarnation. Nor is Christianity totalitarian like Islam. It does not spread by military might and impose Sharia Law by force. Christianity spreads in every unique human culture through influence—the metaphors Jesus chose being light, salt, and leaven. As Abraham and Israel were chose by God to be a blessing to the world, Christians, the spiritual seed of Abraham, are redeemed to be a blessing to the world. Stonestreet and Kunkle observe:
The Story the Scriptures tell clarifies that just as God intended His image bearers to bring life to the world by ruling over it as He would, he intends redeemed humans to join His work in bringing new life to the world. Remember Paul’s mission statement that believers had been given “the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Cr 5:17-21). Of course, being human looks different since the fall than it did before the fall. Now there is evil to fight and brokenness to restore….Bad things happen to good people. Still our salvation employs us in God’s redemptive plan for the world.
As believers have engaged culture, rather than retreating from it, here are some of their accomplishments (cited in the book, Restoring All Things: God’s Audacious Plan to Change the World Through Everyday People).
- Not all help is helpful, and the Christian church has learned much that it is teaching the world about helping the poor.
- God is a worker, and we are created in His image. Therefore, our work, when rightly understood and engaged can bring good to the world.
- Christians have led the way in rescuing women and girls from prostitution and human trafficking.
- Throughout history, Christians have championed education.
- While society struggles with how to handle those convicted of serious crimes, Christians are leading the way in restoring them to our communities.
- Christians are once again offering the good gift of marriage as a healing institution to a sexually exhausted culture.
- Christians have proclaimed the dignity of all of life by taking seriously the exhortation in James to care for orphans.
- God is a creator, and we are made to create too. For centuries, Christians led the way in the arts. Some modern Christians are leading the way again.
C. Understanding that God has assigned us to engage culture at this exact cultural moment. Paul explains this truth in Acts 17, And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. In other words, God has called you and me to this cultural moment. The particular culture in which God has ordained that we and our loved ones swim, will always consist of part fresh pure, righteous water, because the humans shaping it, though fallen, retain their identity as God’s image bearers. It will at the same time have streams that are polluted by human sin. Every other generation in history has had to wrestle with living IN the world (to shape it) but not be OF the world (shaped by it). Since God determines our cultural moment, the failure to respond to the cultural issues of our day is a dereliction of duty.
D. Resistance to being conformed to this world requires us to fight on the battlefield of ideas—worldviews. Don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of YOUR MIND. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims. This battlefield of worldviews is described by Paul, who wrotes, We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
Let’s consider the popular worldview in our current culture--that the purpose of sex is fun and recreation. As we guide our adolescents into an accurate understanding of sex we need to help them see the richer, moe logical, more true-to-life view biblical of sex:
- That sex IS exhilarating, heart-pounding fun and enormously pleasurable.
- That in the context where God places sex, between a married man and woman, God urges them to drink often and deeply of sexual pleasure.
- That God’s moral laws about sex are to protect it from harming humans. We all experience very uncomfortable vulnerability when we stand naked in front of others. We quickly cover up in locker rooms.
- That when a human exposes her nakedness, especially her private parts to another, the exposed human is vulnerable to enormous psychological damage if that nakedness is not valued, cherished, and loved. If, after the exposure of his nakedness the man or woman does not feel loved unconditionally, the internal rejection is psychologically traumatic. That is part of the reason rape is so emotionally devastating. It is the most profound of all violations of ones personhood.
- That God protects the inner recesses of our private souls and bodies from being irrevocably injured by the rejection of another human, by requiring that I only reveal that nakedness to one who has vowed before, God, the state, the church, my family and my friends, that we will both unconditionally love each other for life--entering the covenant of marriage.
- That having sex with one who is not committed life-long to unconditionally loving you but moves on is like two pieces of paper glued together and trying to tear those papers apart again. The soul gets torn deep down, so deep down that we might not even realize at the time. But the inner trauma of being intimately known but then rejected, shatters inner self-esteem.
- That the biblical view of sex might explain why the intimacy of sexual union is so emotionally, physically, and spiritually powerful--because God designed sexual union not only to be the richest of blessings for humans to enjoy, but as a type, the explosive pleasure of which points to the immense pleasure of that will one day be ours in our spiritual union with Christ our bridegroom. For this reason, we also might expect God's enemy to want to destroy the beauty of sex as designed by God.
- That it is Christianity’s high view of sex as precious, the ultimate expression of vulnerability, and of giving ones whole self to another, that lies behind its teaching that it be saved for marriage.
The biblical worldview of sex makes so much sense!
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- In your own words, why is separation from secular culture the wrong approach to protect ourselves, as Christians, from being shaped by it?
- Which of the four biblical approaches most stood out to you?) (seeing your role against the backdrop of the 4-chapter gospel, understanding that we are saved to be a blessing to our culture, recognizing that God designed us for this cultural moment, 4) understanding that it is the battlefield of worldviews, which shape our culture upon which we must fight.
- What would you say to a youth group about the biblical worldview of sex?
