The Christian's Cultural Mission

Xiong Ju

I. Ideological conflicts

Ideological trends and ideas are the driving forces directing human history and determining human destiny. Human civilizations are in fact the historic marks of ideological conflicts. Darwin's idea of natural evolution is an example of this. Its impact is not limited to the field of biology. Rather its significance is far-reaching in other fields including physics, psychology, sociology, human values, and even in political system and trends.

Charles Colson, a Christian thinker and the founder of Prison Evangelism, points out, "True Christian belief is not just a relationship between an individual and Jesus Christ... It is more than believing a series of doctrines about God. True Christian belief is a way of thinking that understands and interprets reality. It is a kind of world outlook." In other words, Christian belief is not all about personal devotion or a passionate commitment. Rather it is built upon a theory that is profound, broad, harmonious and complete. This belief impacts every aspect of our mind and action. More, it impacts on every aspect of human society and culture. Our belief directs our thinking processes as well as our lifestyle.

Colson also believed that there have been only two kinds of world view directing the trends of history. One was the naturalistic world outlook and the other was the theistic world outlook as portrayed in the Bible. Colson's viewpoint may seem difficult to understand, but it is actually quite reasonable. Some may consider that it is power and determination that drive the progress of human civilization. Some may believe that the driving force is economic distribution. Some say it is human greed plus an invisible hand. Some claim that it is love. But behind all these ideas is a much more profound dominating idea. It is this idea that provides human life with its significance and livelihood. This dominating idea is what Colson called the "world outlook".

The late Wale Duran, author of A World History of Civilization, also said, "The biggest problems of this age are not conflicts between Communism and Individualism, nor conflicts between Europe and America, nor conflicts between the East and the West. The biggest problem is whether man can live without God."

The astronomer Carl Sagan was perhaps the best representative of the naturalistic world outlook. In a public radio talk show of Universe, his opening words were, "This universe was, is and will ever be." He also said, "As for our deepest significance, we are all children of the universe." Naturalism is in fact an antagonistic hypothesis. To a certain extent it turns nature into a supernatural entity and it rejects all other possible truth. Any extension of naturalism greatly impacts our ideology and actions.

The first chapter of Genesis states, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It also says, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." This nobility and status directly inherited from God provides man with a clear moral system. It also provides for man, as he lives in a state of constant struggle, a deterministic purpose for his life, and at the same time it graciously and lovingly provides man with inner springs of living water. Historically, this theistic world outlook has shown itself to be the other driving force of human civilization. It is the rise and fall of these two kinds of world outlook that determine the trend of human civilization.

Although not every Christian may live in complete accordance with the theistic world outlook, it is the duty of every Christian to clearly understand the difference of these two world outlooks. Otherwise, without realising it, we will always live under a split value system.

II. A Christian's cultural mission

We are all familiar with the Great Commission Jesus Christ gave to his disciples: Go and make disciples of all nations. This mission does not mean we are all to become social transformers. It is human hearts which are to be transformed. Many Christians who try to have social transformation and cultural reconstruction as their first priority end up in disappointment.

Does this mean, then, that Christian faith is purely a journey of the heart and has nothing to do with social morality? Without knowing it, many Christians and churches do hold this kind of attitude. For example, Mario Cuomo, former New York governor, is a pious Catholic. In a speech he gave to the graduates at the University of Notre Dame in 1984, he said he would not want to allow his personal beliefs to impact on his public policies. I think this is absolutely correct. But he went on to say that he would not want to promote the church's moral stance on an issue in public, even though he might personally believe that such a moral stance was correct and true; he would not seek public support for it unless there were other compelling reasons to support it. In other words, he did not want to use his leadership role to promote what he personally believed was the correct moral standard. His own beliefs were private and had nothing to do with other people nor with his public service.

A different example is former president Carter, who, along with his wife Catherine, in October 2000 announced his decision to leave the Southern Baptist Church. The reason for his departure was that the church was too conservative in its attitude to women and violated the general teachings and principles of the Bible. Although this is a very controversial subject and opinions in the church certainly vary, I nevertheless applaud for Carter for his courage in being a socially conscientious Christian, whether he was targeting the church or society.

Martin Luther believed that the world was contaminated by Satan and that for this reason Christians should distance themselves from it. Calvin, however, believed that the world was created by God and it could still become the kingdom of Christ. For this reason it was the duty of a Christian to work at making the world into a place where God's laws could be observed. He was the first Christian after Augustine to focus on the cultural mission. He applied Biblical truth to worldly life. He admitted that Christianity was not a religion of social activism, but he also believed that Christianity provided strong incentives to responsibility and a sense of mission toward time and society. History offers plenty of other similar examples. After the great Englishman William Wilberforce believed in the Lord, he spent forty-five years of his life fighting for the abolition of slavery and other social benefits such as seeking to raise the literacy level of the Indians and fighting against powerful opportunists. Because of that he became one of the bright stars of British history.

The first large-scale Christian reformation in America happened in the 18^th century. At that time, many Christian leaders, headed by Jonathan Edwards, were highly educated individuals, including the principals of Yale University and Princeton University. The reforms had a great impact on the American Revolution. The second reformation occurred in the North in the middle of the 19^th century and led on to the abolition of slavery. The third reform came at the turn of the century from the 19^th into the 20^th providing the moral basis for President Roosevelt's New Deal. During the human rights movement in the sixties, Christian belief continued to be the source of Martin Luther King's moral power. All of these are testimonies to the Christians' cultural mission.

In the field of ideology since Calvin's time, Christians like America's reformer Abraham Kuyper, Oxford University's professor C.S. Lewis, Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer and founder of Prison Evangelism, Colson, were all Christian intellectuals who understood the importance of cultural mission.

Our faith is not just our own private affair; it is more than individual experience and sensible actions. It is closely related to the environment in which we live. First of all, cultural mission refers to adopting a Christian outlook to everything around us and, rather than seeking a prestigious social status for ourselves, establishing ourselves under the Lord's sovereignty and Christian love. Secondly, cultural mission refers to establishing channels of communication and demonstrating to the world that Christian belief is not only reasonable but also that it meets the needs of human beings. Thirdly, cultural mission refers to changing our social environment based on the moral standards of the Christian faith.

Colson said that his ideal of promoting cultural mission became stronger when he once heard a well-respected pastor telling his audience that their mission was to be prayer, Bible study, worship, fellowship and testimony while they awaited the second coming of Jesus Christ. Colson claimed there was nothing wrong with these aspects of mission. But if a believer focused on nothing but these things, he would be neglecting his duty of saving the cultural environment around him. His beliefs and his morality would be limited to his own self-separation from society. If this were the case, our lifestyle at school or at work could be very different from that of our life in the church. He believed that the greatest mistake Christians have made in recent years has been to fail to realize that Christian belief is a complete life system, controlling every aspect of one's life.

Christianity and Culture is a very controversial subject. From Biblical and historic standpoints, Christ declared that his kingdom did not belong to this world. He seemed to have denied the entire Jewish religion and civilization. Christians at that time also despised Roman civilization and sought only a heavenly kingdom. The theologian Richard Niebuhr, has made a very careful analysis of the relationship between Christianity and culture. Actually Christian belief and culture do not need to be mutually exclusive; rather Christian belief can become a driving force in the transformation of culture.

III. Looking ahead

In recent years evangelists have begun to abandon their mentality of standing outside of society with its resultant public impressions of prejudice, subjectivity, irrationality and even anti-reason. They are seeking to apply what they believe to be the truth to a multi-cultural society with its chaos of value propositions, providing men with new hope and new direction. Some Christian thinkers point out optimistically that evangelistic movements over the past twenty years have come to realize the importance of striking a balance between heart and mind. Alister McGraph called this "the evangelistic renaissance".

In the field of science, scholars who have been promoting the concept of "intelligent design" have also managed to extricate themselves from the dead-end of the earlier creationism and have created powerful shock waves in fields of scientific research . Accordingly we look forward to seeing cultural mission moving forward on all fronts and in all aspects so that Christian truth may effectively impact this age of knowledge. For us Chinese Christians challenged by the vast missionfield of atheism, cultural mission should also become our duty.

In publishing this series on ideological conflicts, Behold aims to analyze and examine, from the points of view of social systems, education, laws, lifestyle, science, psychology, politics and evangelic psychology, the historical trace marks of these influential ideas, conflicts between different world outlooks and their impact upon society. We hope to examine lessons from history and to change our own attitudes so that we may better impact our social culture. Perhaps this is also a necessary subject for those who speak of "the salvation of cultures".