Christianity and Culture (abridged)

Some thoughts burning in my heart.

I planned to write this later, in an extended form, after doing some readings and re-readings: A Christian Manifesto, The God Who Is There, How Should We Then Live? (all books by Francis Schaeffer, I highly recommend A Christian Manifesto), the larger, more extended book on a similar subject by Charles Colson, How Now Shall We Live?, C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity (although I believe The Weight of Glory may be more important here), and Eberhard Arnold’s The Early Christians: In Their Own Words. I encourage you to read them. I am going to study them and do an extended piece on this subject, but I feel a great need to share some thoughts. I have been preaching to my room for a while.

One of the saddest things in my life is meeting Christians who fail to understand that they have a duty to stand for and against something in culture, who think that Christianity is a personal thing and every other thing is different. O, the Bible does not say who to vote for: there are spiritual matters and there are political matters. On the other hand, there are Christians who have very liberal views and do not know that they are standing against Christ in the things that they stand for.

It is a process that began in the Age of Enlightenment: that division between heart and mind; a delineation of faith and from “fact.” The concept of what is secular and what is religious became very deeply ingrained in the mind of Christians. I can believe with my heart, but I do not need to believe with my head. Which totally goes against what Scripture teaches. Here is the greatest commandment according to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, “Jesus said unto him, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’” (Matt 22:37.) Your love is incomplete if it does not involve your mind. It is no mistake that Christians were great intellectuals and still are great intellectuals: Augustine, Aquinas, Abelard, Newton, Paul the Apostle.

Paul was going about debating with people in Acts of Apostles, quoting the poets of the pagans (which means he read them). He warned us against “vain philosophies, based on the traditions of men and the elemental forces of the world” (Colossians 2:8); he did not warn us against philosophy. Apostle Peter gave, by the Holy Spirit, a commandment to us (1Pet 3:15): “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” Be ready to give an answer for what you believe. That is a command. Christ received and answered questions from the Pharisees throughout His ministry on earth. When He was twelve, He went to the temple (Luke 2:46—47) “to listen and to ask questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.”

We are called not only to believe with our hearts, but also to confess with our mouths, to talk about our faith, to argue it, to show the reason for what we believe (with meekness and gentleness and respect, surely). Jude 3 says, “Contend earnestly for the faith.”

There is a war going on, brothers and sisters. A war in the culture, a war of philosophies, because if there are vain philosophies, there are profound, edifying philosophies, too. There are godly ideas and satanic ideas and they permeate society, permeate culture. They are everywhere. The sad thing for me is that many of my Christian friends, many people who are genuine believers (in some cases, even better believers than I am) do not know that they are in a war of philosophies, that every voice in the world has “signification,” as Paul puts it. And that some voices have bad signification. They don’t know and they have been taken captive by destructive ideas, by silly philosophies.

Take the American election as an example. You cannot be a Christian and stand with the Democratic Party: you are building away from Christ, standing against Him. Here is why. You look at the policies of that party and check them in light of Scripture. Are they just? Do they align with Scripture? Abortion? Thou shalt not murder. Taking from the rich to appease the poor? “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17.) That is the tenth commandment.

You see policies that contravene God’s law, and you stand with the same people. You are obviously against God. It is the same with Israel. You can, as a Christian, criticize some of Israel’s policies, but you cannot stand against Israel. You are spitting in God’s eyes. These are principles embedded in the Scripture, clearly stated. You may think, O, they were once God’s people, now I am. You are wrong. Read Romans 11. Let me quote two verses to you, “For if thou [you, gentile now Christian] wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these [the Jews themselves], which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? . . . As concerning the gospel, they [Jews] are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they [Jews] are beloved for the father's sakes.” (Rom 11:24, 28.)

Often it is blindness and a lack of discernment. Many Nigerian Christians are not trained in thinking biblically. We know what the Bible says but we don’t know how to think through Scripture. If it sometimes looks like I am arrogant (I am, God help me), it is probably because I can see, even if I struggle to do, where God would have that be and this be. Christianity is a total worldview, it is a way of seeing the world, and it should inform everything we see. How can you be a Christian and a feminist? How? I know a person who left the faith because they realized they cannot do feminism and follow Christ; that person knows more about biblical Christianity than many people I know.

It is not sufficient to know these things. It is important to stand for them in public. To be called an idiot, a fool, a moron, for standing for them. That is how we can be salt of the earth and light of the world. Not all of us are called to drag this and that on X, but I assure Apostle Paul would be dragging this and that on X if he were to be alive at this moment in history. Because Christ calls us to be “witnesses.” You don’t witness your values to yourself alone. You get up and witness. If you see injustice in any form and keep quiet, there is a punishment for it. God said to Ezekiel (9:4), “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.” Why? Punishment was to come upon Jerusalem. Those who were marked (for wailing and lamenting over the evil they saw in the land) were to be saved from God’s judgment. (Punishment is coming, I assure you.)

I would never have gone in the direction I went as a teenager starting out as a writer, if I had seen Christians who were loud about their faith. I would never have wasted my life, constantly bowing to stupidity and mediocre, devilish ideas. I would never have. I remember the first poet to visit me in Abeokuta. That evening, he told me how some poets had attacked him for issues relating to homosexuality and a magazine he was editing. I cannot remember the details precisely. Now I know it left a great impression on me. I also experienced it firsthand myself: people shut me up, gas-lit me, made me feel like faith was for idiots. It is why I overdo sometimes now. I would not cower before you. Let it cost me what it will cost me. I want awards, I want acclaim, I want money; but those be damned if I cannot stand with Jesus. Let each one of those things be damned if I cannot be unabashedly Christian. If I have to protect my reputation. Let it all be damned.

The Christians who came before me were not shy about what they believed. The second chapter of the Eberhard Arnold book I mentioned in the first paragraph is “State, Society and Martyrs.” That was where Christianity staked out its place. By saying “No” to Cesar. As Tertullian wrote in “To the Heathen,” “Christians are considered to be enemies of the State, enemies of the public well-being.” They were described as having a “hatred for the human race” by Tacitus; that was their offence. They were seen as hating the human race because they would not do the things that pagans did, because they did not subscribe to the cultural trends. They were not “humanists,” what is best for fallen humanity was not their measure. Their standard was Christ. Gaius Pliny wrote to an emperor that the deaths the state prescribed for Christians were justified by this fact: “Whatever it was that they confessed, their stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy certainly deserved to be punished.”

Punished they were. Unimaginable deaths. Carpus and Papylus were flayed and nailed and burned to death. Do you know what it means to be flayed alive, brother? Do you know what it means to be flayed, simply because you would not sacrifice to idols? They were not gentle in saying no. “Carpus said joyfully, ‘Away with the gods who have created neither heaven nor earth.’” As they were been tortured to death, a woman named Agathonica entered the arena, saying, “This meal has been prepared for me. I must partake in it. I must receive the meal of glory.” People cried out to her, “Have pity on your son.” She replied, “He has God who can care for him, for he is the provider for all. But I, why do I stand here?” Then “She threw off her clothes and jubilantly allowed herself to be nailed to the stake.”

I do feel we have become cold because we do not know what we have been called to. But that is the faith we were called to. That is what Christianity looks like. Horror. Their blood has purchased the peace that we enjoy. But don’t get comfortable, brother. I may not understand why God says no, I may not like to agree, I may feel shame, feel like an outcast and bemoan my fate, but whatever God says on any matter will have my assent. I may struggle to live it. We may struggle to. But let us not build away from Christ: it will come to nothing, what we build outside and without Him. It will all come to nothing. 🔷