Influencing Culture

by Gabe Lyons

IN SHORT

It can be much easier to pontificate about the ideas of cultural influence than to actually do them. Many great thinkers and philosophers have developed strategies about how to influence culture. I am not naive enough to think that this Short shares a comprehensive reality of how cultures will forever be changed. I simply offer it as one way forward.

The fact is, none of us know what human creation will alter the world we live in next. However, our Christian responsibility is to be good stewards of all that God has entrusted to us and to renew all things. This alone, brings Glory to God.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Christianity has gained more conversions and lost more cultural influence in the last 200 years in the US. Is this a problem?

Chuck Colson explains the cultural mandate:
“God 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’s 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.”

Is the cultural mandate a new idea for you? How does this mandate shape your idea of calling and your personal pursuit of your vocation? What does our faith mean for our responsibility to public life – life outside the church, in our vocations, in our public institutions?

Gabe Lyons refers to the Gospel as the “full story” vs. the “half story” – how have you seen examples of this played out in the church in recent decades and how do you think this paradigm will define the church’s opportunity for cultural influence in the future?

What did you learn from the illustration about the advancement of the homosexual movement? What are your opinions on what we can learn from them?

What did you personally learn from this Short and in what ways will you implement this learning in your life and vocation?

END NOTES

1 Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God (Nashville: Broadman/Holman, 2004). 69.

2 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan) 657.

3 Psalm 145:9, 15-16.

4 Matthew 5:44-45.

5 Genesis 1:26-28. Amplified Version.

6 Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1999) xii.

7 Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004) 17.

8 Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996).

9 Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization (New York: Anchor Books, 1995).

10 Mark Galli, 131 Christians Everyone Should Know (Nashville: Broadman/Holman, 2000) 110.

11 Josephine Rich, Jean Henri Dunant, Founder of the International Red Cross (Messner, 1956).

12 Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004) 17.

13 Quote attributed to George Santayana

14 Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999) xi.

15 Michael Metzger, Our Terms for Cultural Renewal (Annapolis: The Clapham Institute, 2002)

16 Michael Metzger, Discerning The Postmodern Culture (Annapolis: The Clapham Institute, 2002) 16.

17 James Davison Hunter, The Trinity Forum Briefing: Vol 3, Number 2, To Change the World (McLean: The Trinity Forum, 2002) 4.

18 James Davison Hunter, The Trinity Forum Briefing: Vol 3, Number 2, To Change the World (McLean: The Trinity Forum, 2002) 10-11.

19 Paul Rondeau, Regent University Law Review: Vol 14, Number 2, Selling Homosexuality to America Essay (Virginia Beach: Regent University Law Review, 2001-2002) 447.

20 Paul Rondeau, Regent University Law Review: Vol 14, Number 2, Selling Homosexuality to America Essay (Virginia Beach: Regent University Law Review, 2001-2002) 445.

21 Corporate Equality Index. (Human Rights Campaign. 2006). www. hrc.org

22 Steve Inskeep and Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Openly Gay Bishop Consecrated by Episcopal Church. (National Public Radio, 2003).

23 John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1971) 155.

24 Tim Keller, Ministry in the New Global Culture of Major City- Centers (Part IV) (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2005) 2.

25 Rob Bell, The Catalyst Podcast (Atlanta: Catalyst, 2006) March.

26 Michael Metzger, Fine Tuning Tensions When Engaging The World (Annapolis: The Clapham Institute, 2002) 18.

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Comments

Ted Rodgers

When you refer to "social sector" in 'The Seven Channels of Cultural Influence' section of this paper, what exactly are you refering to?

Thank you.

Gabe Lyons

Ted, good question to clarify. Other people define these channels in different ways. But the way I differentiate the social sector from the others is that it is made up of organizations advancing social good exclusively as non-profits (NGO's) or foundations. These are usually organizations committed to community development, fighting injustice, defending the defenseless and helping those who can't help themselves. Their measurement isn't profit, but lives touched. This is a bit of a generalization, but hopefully it helps clarify it a bit more.

Ted Rodgers

It helps. Thank you, Gabe.

curtis taylor

In your quick spread over the 2nd Great Awakening, you say," They ( the preachers) initiated special invitations to capture the most possible conversions from a given audience in a limited time." May I ask, did 'they' or did the Spirit of God choose to convict and convert those hearers in such a manner, and in such numbers?

You continue that when the evangelists moved on shortly there after this resulted in a learning vaccum (my term) among the newly saved, yet spiritually ignorant Or at best inexperienced not knowing much about the love of Jesus that just gave them eternal life.. Thus, if I follow your meaning, these babes in Christ who lacked " ...the depth of the message of Jesus." , were left behind to fend in the Faith on their own, and were powerless to effect any real cultural change in their environs. Is this a bridge point you wish to use to bring forward about gay intolerance in the " Old Guard Church" today?

I may have missed in my glossing over Un Christian, so I ask during your three years of research, did you compile any audio and video interviews with any Christian former gay and lesbian groups such as Exodus International?

Katerina Ilic

Perhaps you would like to read this Orthodox Christian treasure--a real how-to

in terms of changing ourselves---if we want to have any hope of changing the world

around us.

"Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives"

http://www.stherman.com/Catalog/Spiritual_Counsels/Elder_Thaddeus_Book.html

Jerry Miner

Hey Gabe, I think this is background for the message you delievered at CAT East back in October. You had a diagram of the seven cultural areas. Do you have that somewhere for download.

Craig Bertrand

There is no "Cultural Mandate" in Genesis. Considering there is no New Testament basis for domionism I suppose it is the best Abraham Kuyper (Francis Shaffer, Chuck Colson, etc) could do. It says that we humans have dominion over animals ie the natural world. Not over each other.

People have dominion over each other via business, government, etc in the Babylonian system.

Jesus came to Inaugurate His Kingdom not fix up Babylon! We are ambassadors here and we do serve here ie widows poor and orphans those outcast by society. I am not for a Kumbaya--My-Lord Christianity but there is another option then the 2 stories you give as options here.

Lets think about it. Jesus is our example.

He did not try to change laws or overthrow the oppressive roman empire. Yet the Kingdom He started (like a mustard seed) continues to grow. Rome fell. Now if He thought that His time was better spent discipling others then what makes us think we could do it better that the master?

Why paint the walls on the Devils castle when our King had no place to lay His head?

Bob Pietrs

Gabe,

I'm just curious, are you a member of a local church? If so, which one?

Thanks

Mike Dodaro

The thing that seems to be missing in most current discussions about influencing culture is some awareness of how important development and tradition is in the creation of great art, science, polity, community, and most everything that has lasting influence. The Catholic Church understands tradition and how important it is in church polity and doctrine, but it is also important in every other area of human life.

The renaissance was not inherently about innovation. Renaissance artists looked back over two millennia to the Greeks. They took everything of great value in history to build their art and science. J. S. Bach worked in a tradition of music and added innovations that became the core of western standard practice. The Irish monks were preserving the best literary works of their predecessors, not throwing out tradition.

Christian musicians, who have destroyed the best choirs and church music and substituted loud noise, are talking about influencing culture. Most of what is going on seems to be kids who grew up in Evangelical churches and always wished they could be like everybody else who now have made church into a reflection of pop culture.

There are times when breaking with tradition takes courage and intelligence. We live in the reverse situation. If there is to be development of a great Christian culture, it will require intelligent understanding of the best culture of the past and the courage to buck the trends of mediocre invention.

Michael Cranmer

Gabe can you answer my questions concerning your organization and its cause:

Do you agree and support the LGBT and its cause?

Do you agree and support the Planed Parenthood organization and its cause?

Do you agree that the church is a local assembly of baptized believers organized to carry out the commission to evangelize, to teach, and to administer the ordinances of believer’s baptism and the Lord’s table, and how does your cultural mandate accomplish this?

What is your degree in?

Madeleine F

Craig,

Although Jesus did not try to overthrow the Roman Empire, he did question and break with cultural tradition/ideology that was a product of worldliness and not from God. I think his anger at the moneychangers in the temple and his consistant treatment of women as equal inheritors as God's children both speak volumes about how we too must question and actively struggle against the dynamisism of sin in the world.

Business and government, when used correctly, are not about dominating people. It's about serving them, protecting them, and providing services which outside of a larger framework could not occur on the same meaningful scale. Of course, when in the wrong hands the power that comes from both business and government is Babylonian and worldly, so why not take it back and lead by serving and conduct business in a Gospel-centric way?