I can’t help but wonder what we as Christians do, say or think that is particularly indicative of our specific culture or upbringing that is influencing us. What things from our culture are influencing us that are un-Christian? What things might influence us that contradict our faith? What things could we be learning from Christians from other time periods or other countries and therefore from other cultures?
We’ve got tons of Christian websites, Christian music, Christian movies, Christian political groups–in effect we’ve created an alternative to just about everything the secular world offers and slapped a Christian-approved stamp on it.
Why did I leave Facebook open on my computer? Then, slowly at first but quickly I realized why in a age by-gone we used to disconnect with people. The grim reality strikes that you cannot possibly keep up with hundreds of people even if you wanted to. It is not humanly possible to be close friends with so many people. Who has time for that anyways?
I knew I was going to be late for my train if I didn’t move quicker. I passed a man who had a loudspeaker telling people they were going to hell. Without pause, I kept walking; he was always on the same street. Many city blocks later, two men were trying to hand me a tract asking me if I had Jesus. They weren’t always there. I figured I had probably already missed my train, so I stopped to talk to them. I found out they were from Milwaukee and were down here in Chicago trying do some “outreach.”
“It is for a very different reason that religion cannot occupy the whole of life in the sense of excluding all natural activities. For, of course, in some sense, it must occupy the whole of life. There is no question of a compromise between the claims of God and the claims of culture, or politics, or anything else.” (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, pgs. 53-54)
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Why do we keep looking to our own fulfillment to gage whether we are living up to our purpose in life? Would not the author of life be a better judge of whether or not we are doing what we were designed to do? Perhaps when our happiness is rooted in the happiness of God we would find fulfillment. Oh that we would seek to not just understand the heart of God but that we would ask Him to give us His heart. Oh that we would imitate Him in every way and in every step.
Now, the numerous parallels and similarities between this song and the seventh chapter of the epistle of Romans written almost two-thousand years ago astound me. This seemingly secular (pagan) band and God’s word both agree about a common human experience–it is an experience I believe the evangelical Christian world refers to as “sin”. Should I throw this song in the recycle bin on my desktop because it never references God or Jesus, and doesn’t leave much room for hope in being redeemed from the nagging plague of sin? I don’t think so.