Are We Relevant or Not? Continuing the Conversation

 

By Joshua Remington

December 4, 2006

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”  -Leo Tolstoy

“I’m not asking that you take them out of the world, but that you guard them from the Evil One.” -Jesus

 

 

Wisdom is not so much knowing all the answers as it is asking the right questions.  Growth is born of asking questions, and struggling to answer honestly.  Jeannie Bland’s insightful article on Christian relevance brought us an opportunity for growth.  The many questions asked in this article demand to be answered:  Is the Church relevant?1  Have we allowed society to move on and become Post-Christian?  Can we be relevant to a Post-Christian world?  Should we be relevant to a Post-Christian world?  How would we even begin? 

Merriam Webster defines relevance as practical and especially social applicability.  So in asking about the relevance of the Church, we are actually asking two questions--Is the Church practical?  Is the Church socially applicable? 

 

Is the Church Practical?

The answer is obvious to those in the Church.  Everywhere you look you see hurting people; some of them are obviously hurting while others cover up their hurt with career obsession, pursuing pleasure, or with outward displays of cynicism and apathy. 

Some have found a way to suppress their pain through different positive means, but nothing can make the pain go away like being filled with the Spirit of God and becoming a part of a community of believers.  I will never be dissuaded from this because I know of the power of God working through the Church to turn lives around. 

How many people have you seen go from living lives full of pain to lives of victory and love?  Oh yes, the Church is practical in any era, in any land because it is the body of Christ.

Is the Church Socially Applicable?

This question is a little stickier.  How well does the Church apply to society?  One look at today’s Post-Christian society is enough to answer this question--not very well.  At worst the church is mocked and ridiculed.  At best it is endured once a week by people who would rather be somewhere else. 

When the unchurched do happen to turn their heads toward Christianity, they most often see is a Church that would offer them a different subculture, not a life-changing spiritual experience within their culture.  Much of the Church’s subculture consists of whitewashed versions of mainstream products—t-shirts that copy mainstream logos, bands that copy mainstream music, Christian diet books (!?), and the rest—nothing worth leaving mainstream culture over.  Unfortunately, the answer to this half of our relevance question would have to be no.  The current Church does not appear to be socially applicable.

 

Can the Church be Relevant?2

This does not mean that all hope is lost.  It is still possible for the Church to make herself socially applicable if she is willing.  In my opinion, however, it will take a drastic rethinking of the way we practice being the Church.  Currently we offer a Christian subculture, and anyone who wants to be a part of the Church must also conform to the subculture.3 

What it will take to make our churches socially applicable is to make them a part of society again.  Instead of offering a Christian subculture, offer an experience with Christ and a biblical community of love and interdependence. 

Many people desire to follow Jesus, but don’t want anything to do with Western Christianity.  Many find the biblical principles of the faith to be attractive, but they reject the subculture that, it seems, must accompany them.  If we were to stand for the Bible and allow the excess to fall away, the Church would find itself more and more applicable to today’s culture even in the areas where we stand in opposition to culture.  Truth is always relevant even when it is not popular.

This Post-Christian society is so, not because it has abandoned the basic principles of Christianity, but because Christianity has become something that attempts to compete with culture rather than work within it.  As Christians, we need to reassess what it means to be in the world, but not of it.  My hope is that this article will provide more opportunity for discussion of this important issue.  There are still many questions to be answered. 

 

 

ninetyandnine.com

 

 

Ó 2006, Joshua Remington

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Joshua Remington is an alumnus of Urshan Graduate School of Theology, and is currently working with Turn Point Church in Clermont, Fl.  Even while attempting to be relevant to culture, he does admit to being part of the Christian subculture to the extent that he can (and does) sing many of the Veggie Tales Silly Songs.

 

Footnotes

1.      In discussing the relevance of the Church to culture I am speaking only from my own limited experience.  That is, with the Church (primarily Apostolic Pentecostal) in American culture.

2.      For many of the ideas in this section, please see John Burke’s No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come as You Are Culture in the Church.

3.      Please remember that the Christian subculture does experience variations from church to church, and, while it is easy to pick out the cultural demands of other churches, it is often harder to see the same kinds of demands in our own church.

 

 
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