June 5, 2000
EDITORIAL:
Church/culture intersection clogged
___The intersection of church and culture is busy, hectic and dangerous.
___The proposed 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, which will be considered by messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting next week in Orlando, provides a glimpse of some of the traffic moving through that intersection.
___For the most part, the Baptist Faith & Message revision committee posted stop signs for issues that have wrecked other denominations' church/culture intersections. The committee took stands against abortion, homosexuality and women pastors, which it deemed encroachments of culture upon the church.
___"In an age increasingly hostile to Christian truth, our challenge is to express the truth as revealed in Scripture and to bear witness to Jesus Christ, who is 'the Way, the Truth and the Life,'" the committee wrote in its preamble to the document.
___"Our generation faces the reality of a postmodern culture, complete with rampant relativism and the denial of absolute truth," added Adrian Rogers, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis, Tenn., and chairman of the revision committee. "A pervasive secularism has infected our society, and its corrosive effects are evident throughout the life of our nation. Moral decay and assaults upon cherished truths dominate the arena in which we must now minister and to which we must now proclaim the gospel."
___Those explanations fit the current convention context. They express the view of culture voiced by SBC leaders, especially since the most conservative wing of the convention gained control a decade ago.
___Curiously, however, the committee proposed a compromise with culture. Their document's eighth article, "The Lord's Day," states, "Activities on the Lord's Day should be commensurate with the Christian's conscience under the Lordship of Christ." This language significantly softens the 1963 statement's assertion that Sunday should be marked by "refraining from worldly amusements and resting from secular employments, work of necessity and mercy only being excepted."
___The proposal applies "updated language" to the article, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a revision committee member, told the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. He conceded the new language is an accommodation to culture, since some Christians might have to work on Sunday.
___The Lord's Day article raises an important question: How did the revision committee decide which issues merit cultural accommodation and which do not?
___The article compromises the fourth of the Ten Commandments, which Christians and Jews historically have said remain inviolable and absolute for all time. The prohibition on women pastors, on the other hand, stems from an interpretation of the Apostle Paul, about which even conservative scholars have debated its applicability beyond the specific culture of the community in which his words first were received.
___So, why take a hard line on women pastors but not on Sabbath observance? Quick thinkers will point to the words of Jesus, "Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." But the committee has ruled out such an appeal, stating, "All Scripture is totally true and trustworthy," and removing 1963 language that says, "The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ."
___Skeptics have observed the difference between these issues is purely practical: Many mega-churches that wield considerable influence in the SBC have Saturday night worship services; none have women pastors.
___While that answer may be true, it dodges the real issue: Deciding how to relate to the influences of culture is agonizingly difficult. For some, it may be Sabbath observance. For others, it may be women pastors. For still others, it may be the style of music in worship. The list could go on and on.
___The Apostle Paul spoke to this struggle 2,000 years ago: "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some."
___Of course, Paul never compromised the gospel. But he expertly read and interpreted culture in order to help people accept salvation in Christ.
___As ethicist H. Richard Neibuhr noted, the church's challenge is to transform culture, not to oppose, dominate or withdraw from it.
___That entails extending grace, not condemnation, and building bridges, not barricades. It's harder than issuing proclamations and statements, but it pays far greater dividends. Rather than fear culture or embrace it blindly, we must engage culture, demonstrating the gospel in visible acts of redemptive love that will direct people to saving faith in Christ, not theological debate.
___ Marv Knox
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E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com
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