{"id":3697,"date":"2010-08-31T15:03:54","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T20:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=3697"},"modified":"2010-08-31T15:05:01","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T20:05:01","slug":"passing-the-evangelical-torch-creating-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=3697","title":{"rendered":"Passing the evangelical torch: Creating culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evangelical leaders of previous generations are in the process of passing the torch to younger leaders, for whom there are at least 10 fresh challenges. We\u2019ve considered\u00a0the challenge of\u00a0Navigating Newfound Authority<\/a>,\u00a0Waging a New Bloodless Revolution<\/a>, Overcoming Spiritual Superficiality<\/a>; and now a fourth challenge:<\/p>\n

Creating Culture.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

New leaders will be faced with the challenge of combating what has become transcendent societal secularism. The culture gives no one\u2013 young believers, newlyweds, young parents, mid-lifers, or the aging\u2013help in dealing withthe hard work and hard choices that are necessary to live godly lives in a secularized environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Who teaches us values? Who leads the celebration for what is right and good? Who establishes the boundaries of decency? Who paints the living portraits of beauty?<\/p>\n

Today, the answer to all of those questions is usually someone who is not guided by the biblical view of life or the Creator\u2019s definitions of goodness and human flourishing. A rising generation of Christians seems to be attuned to cultural trends, but will the leaders among them influence the cultural waves or be carried along by them to an unknown destination?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Chuck Colson writes:<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe bear children, plant crops, build cities, form governments, and create works of art. While sin introduced a destructive power into God\u2019s created order, it did not obliterate that order. And when we are redeemed, we are both freed from sin and restored to do what God designed us to do: create culture.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0In How Now Shall we Live, Colson and Nancy Pearcey called this the cultural commission:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cGod cares not only about redeeming souls but also about restoring his creation. He calls us to be agents not only of his saving grace, but also of his common grace. Our job is not only to build up the church but also to build a society to the glory of God. As agents of God\u2019s common grace, we are called to help sustain and renew his creation, to uphold the created institutions of family and society, to pursue science and scholarship, to create works of art and beauty, and to heal and help those suffering from the results of the Fall.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0Os Guinness pins the blame not on the culture, but on the church:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>Much of the opposition to Christians has been brought down on our own heads through our sub-Christian behavior, as in the failure of Christians demonstrating love for their enemies in obedience to the call of Jesus,\u201d Guinness writes in The Last Christian on Earth<\/span><\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost a tough-minded understanding of \u2018worldliness.\u2019 Though we\u2019re getting better at recognizing and resisting philosophies and ideologies \u2013secularism, humanism, postmodernism\u2013 we are often na\u00efve about the shaping power of culture. But the real menace of the modern world comes in its philosophies \u2013 in things such as \u2018consumerism\u2019 and \u2018secularization.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making<\/span><\/a>, writes on his blog<\/span><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cCultural transformation is something that a lot of Christians talk about and aspire to. We want to be a part of transforming the culture. The question is, how is culture transformed? Does it happen just because we think more about culture, or because we pay more attention to culture? As I was thinking about cultural transformation I became convinced that culture changes when people actually make more and better culture. If we want to transform culture, what we actually have to do is to get into the midst of the human cultural project and create some new cultural goods that reshape the way people imagine and experience their world. So culture-making answers the \u201chow\u201d question rather than just \u201cwhat\u201d we are about. We seek the transformation of every culture but how we do it is by actually making culture.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In an interview<\/a>, sociologist Peter Berger observed that in the U.S. evangelicals are shifting from being largely a blue-collar constituency to becoming a college educated population. His question is, will Christians going into the arts, business, government, the media, and film<\/p>\n