Relocating To Elfland

If there’s one line everyone has heard from the Christ and culture debates, it’s “In the world but not of it.” The line gets quoted so often, you would think it’s a verse from the Bible.

I wonder, though, if the phrase as it stands needs some tweaking. Isn’t “in the world” kind of obvious? I mean, how many of us would argue that the church shouldn’t be in the world? Is there another spot in the cosmos we’d like to colonize? (It would make the New Atheists happy. . . .)

I don’t expect this to catch on, but if I could suggest a modification, it would be to change “in the world” to “for the world.” The church is not merely to be in the world; she is to be for the world. But she is to be for the world in such a way that she remains unstained by it (James 1:27), i.e., she cannot and must not be of the world, for the simple reason that her Lord is not (John 17:14).

“Not of the world” reminds us that we are a covenant people, that there is a real antithesis (as it’s sometimes called) between the seed of God and the seed of the devil. “For the world” reminds us that we aren’t just filling up space here; we are a commissioned people, on God’s own mission to restore life and light to His world.

All of which brings me to the vexed problem of “contextualization.” Tim Keller has given us a good working definition: contextualization is adapting the communication and practical embodiment of the gospel to a receptor culture by selecting appropriate practices, words, and/or concepts from the receptor culture and using these as vehicles for presenting the gospel. The idea is to stay out of two ditches as we engage a culture: Let’s not be stuffy traditionalists who keep saying and doing things a certain way because that’s how we’ve said and done them from time immemorial, and if the unbeliever doesn’t get it, that’s his problem, not ours (he’ll grow up to our level ifsoever the Spirit moveth). On the other side, let’s not dare to shave the rough edges off the divine Word; let’s not stop growing to maturity as God’s people out of fear that we may not be understood or appreciated; and let’s not forget that some cultural forms are more obedient to the gospel than others, which means that some cultural stuff flat-out needs to be changed (put another way, we need to think about building, shaping, and moving culture, not just adapting to it). I should probably add to this last point that our comfy Western culture comes in for critique by the gospel every bit as much as any “foreign” culture.

But here, let us be frank, things always turn out messy, despite our best definitions. Take, for instance, the issues of (a) preaching and (b) singing in worship. There are preachers who preach in such a way that it would take a supernatural work of God for anyone other than a lifetime insider to connect to their sermons. Their preaching mightily sanctifies the twenty people who find them comprehensible; no one else returns after an initial exposure. Such preaching is not of the world, to be sure, but neither in any meaningful sense is it for the world. It is arguably better than the watered-down, compromised, frothy, non-fat drivel served up in a lot of liberal and evangelical pulpits (do we even use those anymore?), but from another perspective, maybe not: drivel doesn’t give the world the gospel; insider sermons don’t give the world the gospel. Hmm.

More controversial still: song in worship. The number one turnoff I hear from people who visit conservative Reformed congregations (such as my own) goes something like this: “We liked [in some cases] the sermon; we just couldn’t handle the music.” There are a few possibilities here, which in turn lead to some questions. One possibility is that the music was old, stale, funereal, stuffy, and/or otherwise unpleasant – a grief to God as well as men. Another possibility is that the music was rich, excellent, even demanding, but the average North American (especially if he or she is young) has little appetite for anything that doesn’t lightheartedly entertain. This prompts some questions: Is Christian worship (including our singing) supposed to be for the world, or is it basically an in-house affair between God and His people? Is this a false dichotomy? Certainly worship is a meeting between God and His people, but what are we to do with the dozens of biblical texts that summon us to sing His praises before the nations, and that summon the nations to join in? Must the song of the church be outdated, difficult, or unpleasant so we can maintain the antithesis? On the other hand, shouldn’t the glory, majesty, grandeur, and holiness of God dictate our style rather than the inanities of pop culture? We are, after all, His people, worshiping Him – and who He is makes all the difference for us in everything, including music.

Let me offer a sidebar here about tradition: traditional language, symbols, forms, music, liturgies, etc. One of the things that drew me to the Reformed faith early on was the fact that it had roots. It had the humility and courage to look back, to love the past, honor the past, even submit to the past. In this, I felt (and still feel), it took the Holy Spirit seriously: we are not the only generation in which He has been working. Now that I’ve been in a Reformed context for a number of years, I would want to ask this question: don’t we tend at times to look back on a previous period or generation in church history and think the Spirit’s work was more or less completed there (things having largely declined ever since)? Even as so many contemporary Christian movements claim pneumatic priority for the here and now, don’t we often claim pneumatic priority for there and then? As much as our doctrine of the Spirit should teach us to look back (like children to their parents and grandparents), shouldn’t it also teach us to look ahead, simply because “God’s best” is never locked in a time loop (my thanks to a close friend who suggested this metaphor to me)? If we really believe in the maturing of the church over time, shouldn’t we at least be open to new forms, new sounds, new ways of expressing things, new emphases and nuances – all the while keeping our eyes firmly on the past to make sure we’re obeying the gospel and honoring the wisdom of our fathers? Isn’t there growth that doesn’t entail distortion and unfaithfulness?

I’m asking questions that have been asked many times before, and since it’s pointless to go over old conversations without attempting to contribute something new (however small), let me offer two proposals to conservative Reformed congregations that are trying to keep their worship “otherworldly” in the best biblical sense, yet who are sensitive to the fact that contextualization (including updating) can’t simply be damned:

First, we need to repent where our worship seems unpleasant to incomers because it’s . . . well, unpleasant. There are Reformed folk who seem to enjoy deathly somber, straight-laced, stuffy worship. The more out-of-tune and out-of-touch the worship experience, the better they feel about it. There will always be churches like this; the only mercy is that they self-insulate the world from their influence. There are other churches that really want something more – but you know, if I walked into a room where people sat in formal silence, sang old tunes like they were afraid they might be heard, listened for an hour to some guy prattle on in three hundred year old language, mumbled “amen” after multiple long prayers, and seemed kind of glad when it was over, I wouldn’t be uninspired – and I’m an enthusiast for Reformed worship! What in God’s name is wrong with singing great tunes lustily, shouting out amen, breaking a few gnostic canons here and there, and generally looking as if we think our God is enjoyable? Might psalms be more attractive to visitors if they were sung in four-part harmony, at full throat? Might sermons seem a bit more attractive if they occasionally answered questions the average Joe is asking? If they tied what we (on the inside) know to stuff the unbeliever knows . . . you know, as in, connected?

Second (to some of my more culturally aggressive brethren), we need to be patient with the fact that people and cultures aren’t yet where we believe they need to be (and will be, by the grace of God). Some day we may find ourselves in a time when you can preach for forty-five minutes on Aaron’s ephod, and an audience of thousands will listen raptly. This is not (I modestly suggest) that time. Some day it may be possible for entire congregations to sing the psalms of David and sound like Handel’s Messiah. We aren’t there yet. So if you want to use a contemporary popular tune, or lyrics arranged on this side of the rise of Middle English, the sin of presumption doth not cling to thee. Be at peace. Your congregation will probably enjoy it, and it can only help the poor soul coming in who’s never experienced anything like this before.

“I should like to encourage Your Grace, who are a young man, always to be joyful, to engage in riding and hunting, and to seek the company of others who may be able to rejoice with Your Grace in a godly and honorable way. For solitude and inwardness are poisonous and deadly to all people, and especially to a young man. Accordingly, God has commanded us to be joyful in his presence; he does not desire a gloomy sacrifice. . . . No one realizes how much harm it does a young person to avoid pleasure and cultivate solitude and sadness. Your grace has Master Nicholas Hausman and many others near at hand. Be merry with them; for gladness and good cheer, when decent and proper, are the best medicine for a young person – indeed, for all people. I myself, who have spent a good part of my life in sorrow and gloom, now seek and find joy wherever I can. Praise God, we now have sufficient understanding of the Word of God to be able to rejoice with a good conscience and to use God’s gifts with thanksgiving, for he created them for this purpose and is pleased when we use them. . . . It is my opinion that Your Grace is reluctant to be merry, as if this were sinful. This has often been my case, and sometimes it still is. To be sure, to have pleasure in sins is of the devil, but participation in proper and honorable pleasures with good and God-fearing people is pleasing to God, even if one may at times carry playfulness too far. Be merry, then, both inwardly in Christ himself and outwardly in his gifts and the good things of life. He will have it so. It is for this that he is with us. It is for this that he provides his gifts – that we may use them and be glad, and that we may praise, love, and thank him forever and ever.” (Martin Luther to Prince Joachim of Anhalt, 1534)

“One of the most effective evangelistic methods a church can use is exposing the unchurched to the authentic worship of God.” (Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches, p. 263)

Bernd Wannenwetsch on the idea behind his book title, Political Worship: Ethics for Christian Citizens:

“The expression ‘political worship’ takes into account the fact that in the proper sense every public service of worship in which a Christian congregation engages has a specifically political character, since it is the assembly of ‘Christian citizens’, ‘fellow-citizens with the saints’ (Eph. 2:19), in praise of the God who, in the words of the hymn, ‘ruleth on high’. Christian ethics recognizes that it is political when it considers the forming of the congregation in worship as the formation of ‘a public’ in its own unique sense: the particular political form of life which is determined by ‘the law of the Spirit’ (Rom. 8:2).”

He goes on to say (all of this is found on p. 7):

“In my view, the political understanding of worship holds the key to an understanding of its meaning for Christian ethics in general.”

When I participate in liturgical confessions of sin, I sometimes can’t help feeling that we’re all being rather insincere. With great solemnity we “bewail” how sinful and unworthy we are; the rhetoric of our self-deprecation is forceful. But then we rattle on to the next part of the liturgy; no one thinks of spending the rest of the day in mourning. And we never speak of ourselves this way in everyday life. Something doesn’t add up. Do we really think we’re as bad as the confession made us sound?

I don’t think I’ve read a better description of why we need such penitential prayers than this from C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves:

“All those expressions of unworthiness which Christian practice puts into the believer’s mouth seem to the outer world like the degraded and insincere grovellings of a sycophant before a tyrant, or at best a façon de parler like the self-depreciation of a Chinese gentlemen when he calls himself ‘this course and illiterate person.’ In reality, however, they express the continually renewed, because continually necessary, attempt to negate that misconception of ourselves and of our relation to God which nature, even while we pray, is always recommending to us. No sooner do we believe that God loves us than there is an impulse to believe that He does so, not because He is Love, but because we are intrinsically loveable. The Pagans obeyed this impulse unabashed; a good man was ‘dear to the gods’ because he was good. We, being better taught, resort to subterfuge. Far be it from us to think that we have virtues for which God could love us. But then, how magnificently we have repented! As Bunyan says, describing his first and illusory conversion, ‘I thought there was no man in England that pleased God better than I.’ Beaten out of this, we next offer our own humility to God’s admiration. Surely He’ll like that? Or if not that, our clear-sighted and humble recognition that we still lack humility. Thus, depth beneath depth and subtlety within subtlety, there remains some lingering idea of our own, our very own, attractiveness. It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realise for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely we must have a little – however little – native luminosity? Surely we can’t be quite creatures?”

“The only thing worse than dying is living a boring life.” (Mark Driscoll, Radical Reformission)

“Every church service is a liturgy, if it has various elements in some arrangement. That is what liturgy is. Liturgical churches are churches that have thought about those elements and their proper order. Nonliturgical churches are those that have not. It is no compliment to say that a church is a nonliturgical church. It is the same thing as saying it is a church that gives little thought to how it worships God.” (Robert S. Rayburn)

“Christian worship is the voluntary and loving response of those who have been consciously delivered from the guilt, thraldom and penalty due to sin, and consciously restored to the favour and fellowship of God. There will exist a consciousness of freedom of access to the source of all needed help and blessing; but this freedom will always be accompanied by a deep sense of personal unworthiness. There will be a constant feeling of thankfulness for deliverance from the allurements of the unbelieving world. There ought also to be an assurance of ultimate victory over all the difficulties, dangers, temptations and trials which are all a necessary part of the discipline which the Christian must undergo in this present world.” (Roderick Campbell, Israel and the New Covenant, p. 252)

This will sound weird, but stay with me. I believe we don’t take the “small stuff” in life seriously enough; and the reason we don’t take it seriously enough is that we don’t see it as small enough.

Interpreted: I think most serious Christians experience moments when they look at their lives and say, “I’m just wasting my time on a lot of small stuff. My everyday life is consumed with things that really don’t matter.” But isn’t it in the everyday stuff (washing your car, emailing your boss, eating a tuna sandwich, waiting for the bus, sanding a porch rail, combing your hair, watching a ballgame, tickling your three-year-old) where you make or break the business of glorifying God in the world? It’s here, not in the prayer closet or the pew, where a lot of people screw up the whole business. The “small stuff” is vastly important.

But of course it’s only vastly important if you believe there really is such a thing as glorifying God in the world. It’s only if you see what a massive project God’s kingdom is, what a big deal His covenant is, what a lot God is up to in the long ages of His world, that you begin to see how tiny your life is; and precisely when your life gets shrunk down to this size, you see that you are part of something huge and eternally important, something that transcends your small life quite infinitely. And so everything you do matters. Not because it will be the most important thing ever in this world, but because it’s part of the most important thing ever.

Okay, got that off my chest. Back to the small stuff.

“There must be someone in this world – which rejected God and in this rejection, in this blasphemy, became a chaos of darkness – there must be someone to stand in its center, and to discern, to see it again as full of divine riches, as the cup full of life and joy, as beauty and wisdom, and to thank God for it. This ‘someone’ is Christ, the new Adam who restores that ‘eucharistic life’ which I, the old Adam, have rejected and lost; who makes me again what I am, and restores the world to me. And if the Church is in Christ, its initial act is always this act of thanksgiving, of returning the world to God.” (Schmemann, For the Life of the World)