In our last blog post, we talked about the church living in a secular post-Christian society. We need to explore further the implications of what it means to be the church in such a secular post-Christian society.
In what is now regarded as a Christian Classic, H. Richard Niebuhr’s book Christ and Culture discusses the various stances that churches have in relation to the culture at large. One of the stances is The Christ of Culture in which churches “interpret culture through Christ, regarding those elements in it as most important which are most accordant with his work and person; on the other hand they understand Christ through culture, selecting from his teaching and action as well as from the Christian doctrine about him such points as seems to agree with what is best in civilization” (Christ and Culture, p. 83). In other words, this stance involves finding those elements of culture that are believed to fit with the Christian faith and then, in turn, operate with a Christian faith that is at home within society.
In some significant ways, though not every way, this Christ of Culture stance fits with a lot of Christianity within the United States. In particular, I’m thinking of the ways in which Christianity operated from the paradigms of modernism and Christendom. This includes the Churches of Christ that many readers of this blog likely have some affiliation with.
With that said, much of the Western world has undergone a paradigm shift in which the realities of modernism and Christendom have given way to postmodernism and a post-Christendom society. Add to this paradigm shift the realities of secularism, and we find ourselves living in the post-Christian society that I described in the previous post. The question we have to ask as we seek to plant churches and make disciples is how do we equip Christians to live with a Christ-formed faith (cf. Gal 4:19) in such a post-Christian society?
With such changes in society, we must learn how to live in a manner that is transformative rather than antagonistic. Becoming anxious or angry with people who embrace values and practices that are at odds with Christianity will only further the gulf between Christianity and society. Making enemies out of society will not do any good. There may be some people who see Christians as the enemy but we must love them anyway because Jesus teaches us to do so (cf. Matt 5:44). In fact, David E. Fitch wisely suggests that when we have such adverse reactions, we should instead “probe what it is about the enemy that creates such fear, jealousy, envy, or even disgust in our lives” (The Church of Us vs. Them, p. 34).
Of course, we don’t want to simply become accommodative towards society and so compromise our witness. So in making disciples, it will take intentional teaching and formation of faith to live, as I like to say, as faithful participants in the mission of God. That is, we must be intentional in learning how to embody the gospel in ways that do not make enemies. But is this possible? David Fitch rightly points out that there is a difference between “making enemies and revealing enemies” (The Church of Us vs. Them, p. 155).
Living as followers of Jesus will certainly put us at odds with the society we live in but like Jesus, we must see ourselves as servants among society. Christianity in society is about serving, with humility and love, so that society might once again see the truth, beauty, and goodness that springs from the good news of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God!
_________________________ K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
Over the last year and a half, I have slowly read through a book written by Charles Taylor called A Secular Age. This book is regarded as Taylor’s magnum opus. What Taylor does is tell the story of how secularism gradually developed over the last four hundred years and how secularism works in the Western world today.
Secularism works through what Taylor calls a “social-imaginary,” which has to do with the way people “collectively imagine” their existence (A Secular Age, p. 146). This is different from what we think of as a worldview in that the social-imaginary is not a carefully constructed set of beliefs but more like assumed beliefs, some of which operate below the surface of awareness. In our society, the social-imaginary includes the loss of transcendence in the lives of people (A Secular Age, p 294). The loss of transcendence means that people can easily live life without any awareness of God at work in their lives.
Let’s briefly move on from Charles Taylor and consider another aspect of the macro culture in North America. In the year 2022, we are living in a post-truth society. According to Lee McIntyre, this post-truth reality means our society is one in which all kinds of people are trying to make us believe in ideas whether there’s good evidence or not (Post-Truth, p. 13).
In his book, McIntyre mentions the Tobacco Industry as an example. For years cigarette manufacturers colluded to fabricate research in support of the claim that smoking cigarettes were not hazardous to health. The Tobacco Industry engaged in this disinformation campaign even though they knew there was conclusive research showing that in all likelihood the tar in cigarettes caused cancer.
Over time, this spreading of disinformation and spinning of facts has helped create a culture where truth seems relative. Although we are now to the point where truth no longer matters as much as feelings (Post-Truth, p. 116). As a result, people may now add adjectives to the word truth and in doing so, seemingly claim whatever they choose to believe as truth whether it is true or not. For example, a part of our vernacular now includes phrases like “my truth” and “alternative facts” as a way of justifying a claim. Of course, what this accomplishes is making our own opinions, perceptions, etc… become a totalizing reality, even if it is self-deception.
This is why what we do as Christians, and not just what we say, matters more than ever. If we’re going to claim that the good news of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God is true, which I hope we do, then our claim has to be seen in what we do and how we live. Hence, the title of this message series on Philippians, Living Christ.
I’ll come back to the matter of what we do as Christians but I want to bring Charles Taylor back into the mix for a moment. The secular age we live in means belief and unbelief are in contest with each other. Almost everyone has some doubts about what they profess in terms of religion and spiritual life. For the most part, believers profess faith but have questions that raise doubts about such faith. Likewise, unbelievers profess agnosticism (perhaps even soft atheism) but have questions that cast doubt on their unbelief.
Taylor mentions the aesthetic awareness of beauty, the awareness of a need for ethics and morality, and the awareness of the creative capacity that humans possess as reasons why there are questions that cast doubt on unbelief. The awareness of beauty, morality, and human capacity evokes a wonder that cannot be explained by a secular framework of unbelief (A Secular Age, p. 596). In other words, beauty, morality, and creativity raise questions that cannot be answered in a life in which there is no God. Furthermore, as Taylor explains “there must be some way in which this life looks good, whole, proper, really being lived as it should” (A SecularAge, p. 600). Therefore, even in our day where moral relativism flourishes, people know that there is a right and wrong way to live… a good and bad.
If Taylor is correct, as I believe, then the fact is that even in a secular society, there are many skeptics who still have questions. Such skeptics may have reasons for doubting belief but even with their pervasive secularism they also have questions about whether there is more to life than just what can be observed in a science lab. I contend that this opens space for the church. Knowing that people still have a sense of right and wrong and wonder where that comes from opens space for the church to point to the existence and redemptive work of God. This opening is based on the way we live life, particularly by practicing what Paul describes as true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable (cf. Phil 4:8-9).
Although the church’s understanding of what is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable, is going to differ from the way other people understand, surely there are places where there is similar understanding. These are the spaces where God is out in front of the church, already working in the community. For example, believers and unbelievers alike agree that racism, poverty, and human trafficking are unjust realities. So when a local church works to address one or more of these matters, there is a portal for demonstrating what the kingdom of God is like. In doing so, this can become an opportunity to build relationships within the community and perhaps share the story of Jesus as an explanation for why the church would care enough to do something about racism, poverty, and human trafficking.
I’m sharing this with you because we are well beyond the days of leading with “The Bible says…” In fact, in a secular age where truth is now relative, our words matter not without actions that coherently express what we hope to proclaim with our words. At the end of the day, there isn’t any guaranteed outcome except the promise of hope that exists in the crucified, resurrected, and exalted Jesus Christ. Yet the way we bear witness to that hope is by our good works.
“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” – Jesus, Matthew 5:16 (NRSV)
_________________________ K. Rex Butts, D.Min, serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, DE, and is the author of Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God. Rex holds a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual Theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, and a Master of Divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. He is married to Laura and together they have three children.
We live on the frontier of the mission field – actually the far edge of it. Our family lives in the inner city of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, among a large Indigenous population. In 2011 my wife and I and our three children prayerfully moved into North Central Regina, and we have been living here ever since, living our lives for Jesus among the people. In this article, I would like to share several aspects of planting a church in this context that invites us to reflect on both the challenges and opportunities before us, as Christians in a rapidly changing world.
Post-Christendom. Recently we were having a Bible study with some younger adolescents. A girl who is about 12 years old, and whom I thought had a church background, asked if it hurt when Jesus was crucified. Imagine what the statement that “Jesus died on the cross for our sins” would mean to her. Little to nothing, given her question! The statement not only assumes a theological understanding of sin but also historical knowledge of crucifixion as an extremely painful form of execution.
Post-Christendom can be described as the decline in the influence of Christian institutions in society – to the point where things such as the church and the Bible are neither central nor well-known. In Regina, there is a neighbourhood called Cathedral, which is named after the large churches (Roman Catholic and United Church of Canada) that are in the area, as well as several smaller ones. The Cathedral area is over 100 years old. But contrast that with two of the newest communities in Regina – Harbour Landing and Grasslands – developed in the 2010s. These neighbourhoods have no property set aside by the City of Regina for church buildings or cathedrals. A lot has changed in the last 100 years, and that includes the removal of the church as a tall, central figure in our communities, to disappearing off the map. So, what are the challenges and opportunities of the Christian mission on the margins?
The challenge on this front is clear. Biblical knowledge is little to none. Gone are the days when the youth went to Sunday school while their parents stayed home, as that was one to two generations ago. Gone also are a Christian moral framework and worldview. So our task is to help people learn the contents of the Bible, and especially the large story of God and his mission in this world. The opportunity here is equally exciting though. We help people learn to read the Bible in a new way by emphasizing the character of God, his mission to love and redeem the world, and the invitation to participate with him in this grand adventure. What a glorious calling! In this missional way of reading the Bible, we are carefully observing God as he worked in the past, and listening deeply for how he desires to work in our lives now, all in eager anticipation for what he will do in the future to complete the story!
Residential School Impact and (Post-)Colonialism. In Canada, Indigenous peoples were for several generations forced to attend Residential Schools, run by various Christian denominations on behalf of the federal government. Among these schools, they were taught the English language and Christian teachings, but many also experienced physical torture, emotional trauma, and sexual abuse. So as one Christian Reformed Church leader described it, “They were offered a cup of cold water in the name of Christ, and it turned out to be battery acid.” So it is understandable that they would give us a long, cold look whenever we offer them anything of a Christian nature today. In fact, after the discovery of unmarked graves at a number of Indian residential schools in 2021, several church buildings on and off reserves throughout the country were burnt to the ground. The backlash against Christendom was swift and strong. Today the hostility to Christianity is palpable in many Indigenous communities and I sympathize with much of that anger.
Indian Residential Schools were a tragic marriage of Christianity with colonialism – European countries bent on empire. Unfortunately, the children of this marriage were not Hope and Dignity, but Despair and Poverty. Today many indigenous peoples, and other Canadians, want nothing to do with the church. If that is what the church is like, who needs it?
So, what challenges and opportunities do this legacy of Christianity married to colonialism bring? The big challenge here is to carry out the gospel mission in a context where many people are jaded and hostile toward Christians. This was a serious concern I had about 12 years ago when I was considering God’s call on my life to plant a church in the inner city of Regina. Would Indigenous people have anything to do with us? Would they even consider the Christian message? Would they even contemplate a friendship with us? We took comfort from one Indigenous woman’s wisdom. She told us that while ethnicity is certainly a factor early on in a relationship, people sense whether you have genuine love in your heart or not and once they get to know you this is what carries the day. We have found that often to be true and so, while we will never be insiders to the culture, we have several relationships of mutual love and respect.
The opportunity that this presents is very significant. Serving as a missionary from a position of weakness is very different from a position of power. As my Christian Reformed friend said, he was highly esteemed in Africa decades ago, as a white male Christian missionary. Now in the inner city of Regina, it is the exact opposite. Each of these words carries, in many people’s minds, a corrupting and coercive sense of privilege and power – white, male, Christian, missionary. So how do we proceed? This challenge is also an opportunity because it forces us to be creative. It requires that we dig deeper into the Christian story and reconsider how we tell it. No longer can we just construct a church building and sit back and wait for people to flock to it. Serving as a missionary requires that we go to the people, that we incarnate the gospel through our lives and actions, that we embody the message of sacrificial love and service to the world in real and tangible ways. The old question is relevant here: If our church disappeared tomorrow, would the community notice? Would they miss us? Would there be a serious hole? Our response to this opportunity lies in humility, self-sacrifice, and genuine love.
Technology. While there are other things we have learned, I am choosing to focus on technology here because we work with a lot of youth. Let’s be honest. Technology has changed our lives, especially for young people. It has impacted how we shop (Amazon), relate (social media), bank, read (Kindle), access news (youth source their news from TikTok), listen to music (Youtube, Spotify), and go to school (Zoom). To lose one’s phone, or go somewhere with no internet access, is the kiss of death for many people.
This immersion in technology has created several challenges. Most importantly, the advent of the smartphone with a reversible camera has had a dramatic impact on the mental health of adolescents (and adults as well). This development, in combination with social media, has created a context where people are able to get instant feedback on their public portrayals of themselves. Never before was this possible So a girl may be disheartened because her selfie did not get as many likes as her friends or boys may compare who has the most followers. Photos and videos are heavily curated, and some parents even hire professional photographers for their teens so they can publish the best possible pictures of themselves online.
The problem here is that people are invited to form their identity based on their online activity. So they are elated when a photo is popular, and then depressed when a Tiktok they have created tanks. Their online activity becomes an extension of, and sometimes even the very heart of, who they are. In some cases people take on an alter ego, an alternate personality, assuming a different gender or ethnicity in an online game or social profile. The question becomes, what is their real identity? Who are they really? And what do they base their value on?
The opportunity in this is to help people form their identity in Christ. This is not a trite statement. In fact, the Bible holds up Jesus Christ as the ultimate reality. In a world of disparate versions of reality – virtual (VR), augmented (AR), and mixed (XR) – we as followers of Jesus are invited into the kingdom of God, where Jesus is the ultimate reality (UR)! This requires that we live into this reality deeply ourselves and that we teach it, model it, and advocate for it with all our hearts. It calls for us to embrace the teachings of Jesus as words of life, as words that have both a descriptive quality about this ultimate reality (the upside-down kingdom of God) and an imperatival call to adoration and obedience. To quote Simon Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
To sum matters up, church planting is an exciting adventure that is filled with many rewards and much adversity. The dynamic nature of Canadian culture, and its various subcultures, presents many challenges and opportunities for the Christian mission. With each challenge comes a requisite opportunity. As God’s people, living missionally requires us not to fall into the pit of despair over the rapidly changing landscape all around us. Our task calls us to be creative, listen deeply to our friends and neighbours, pray fervently, humble ourselves, serve sacrificially, and most crucially, listen carefully for the Spirit to lead us in His mission. And so in our corner of the world, we attest to the fact that there is hope at the margins of society!
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Kevin Vance is a minister and church planter in the inner city of Regina, Saskatchewan. He works among youth in Regina and throughout the province to help them find hope and healing in Jesus Christ. He has a special passion for Indigenous youth and the reserves. He and his wife Lisa have been married since 1989 and have three grown children. Together they planted Gentle Road Church of Christ in North Central Regina in 2011, and dream about planting other churches in the toughest communities in Canada.
Tiffany has led a sinful, broken life. She is intimidated by “church” but searching for God. “I’m not good enough to be a Christian,” she thinks. “How can Christians accept broken me? Can God love ME?” The church wants to love and accept her but has forgotten how to speak the Good News of the Kingdom (Mark 1:14-15), minister at the heart of her brokenness, and guide her to become a disciple of Jesus.
Tiffany typifies many in the postmodern, post-Constantinian, and increasingly post-Christian contexts of North America, where the church has been marginalized and no longer sets the dominant values of culture. In this environment church attendance in the USA is projected to decline from 16.2 per cent in 2010 to 14.4 per cent in 2020 to 10.5 per cent in 2050 (Olson 2008; Kinnaman and Lyons 2007).
