Culture Infects Church

One of the main complaints and arguments that I have heard over the past two years as the UMC struggles to navigate its approach to human sexuality is that people are tired of culture dictating belief and action to the Church.  The UMC, it is argued, only considers ordaining and marrying LGBTQ+ persons because the culture has gone astray and forced the Church into ideological submission.  I want to briefly address that argument but, mostly, I want to instead posit that culture's real power over the Church is convincing us that we need to split or compromise in order to be healthy.

First, we should acknowledge that it may be true that the UMC, as with other Church denominations, has indeed been pressured or convinced to liberalize its understanding of human sexuality by the surrounding culture.  Upon initial consideration, such a possibility, if true, seems heretical.  If we believe in and follow an eternal God, whose Word and and commandments are unchanging, then the doctrine and practices of the Church should never change according to culture's own changing landscape; rather, the Church should dictate to culture, encouraging it to progress towards God's intended kingdom.  While the argument makes obvious sense, history rarely proves the Church to have been the main mover.  In the early days of the Christian movement, Christian doctrine and practice disallowed holding government office of any kind, volunteering for the armed forces, taking a life if coerced into soldiering, swearing an oath (to one's country, for instance), and a number of other practices that many Christians now do without a second thought.  Over time, and particularly when Constantine came to power as the Roman emperor, Christianity was influenced by the surrounding culture.  Those who argue that the Church shouldn't be influenced by culture are often the ones who are most passionate about patriotism, serving one's country with one's life if necessary, and demanding that others, too, stand for the national anthem and pledge of allegiance.  Historically, then, making that argument consequently makes those people hypocritical.  More than that, we could say that the Protestant Reformation marked the height of Christendom--when the Church and state were tied together and the Church looked exactly like culture--and since then the culture has often moved ahead of the Church in positive ways.  Unless those arguing against the marrying and ordaining of LGBTQ+ persons, and use the unchanging freedom of God and Church as one piece of evidence or argument, also want to argue that we should return to legalizing slavery, fining and penalizing people who divorce, and demonizing, torturing, and executing Jews or other non-Christians, then we should stop declaring that any and all influence of culture on the Church is necessarily negative or evil.  All those practices and laws just mentioned were discontinued mainly by the pressure of a secular society and the Church followed suit.  Sometimes a secular culture helps the Church and its members reevaluate in prayer the words and model of our Lord and Savior, the Word of God.

Still, we can't possibly accept that every change and movement of culture will positively influence the Church's doctrine and practice.  We can and should believe that God seeks to first act within the Church but also acts within the bounds of culture when the Church fails to listen.  It would be ludicrous, however, to suggest that the Church always fails to listen and secular culture always succeeds in listening.  There must then be times when the Church should hold the line against the infection of culture because in doing so it follows God's purpose.

Ultimately, a Christian's hope is to listen when Jesus calls, "Come and follow me."  Further, Jesus commands and promises that we "be perfect" as our Father in heaven is perfect.  We cannot be perfect as God is perfect, of course, so Wesleyans (which United Methodists are supposed to be) have the correct understanding of perfection: to be perfect in love as Christ was/is--essentially, despite continuing to commit mistakes, at least our heart is full of the love of God for God and neighbor.  Therefore, the Church's purpose in establishing doctrine and practice is not to set truth, belief, or legalized behavior.  Jesus rarely prescribes behavior beyond loving one another as God loves, which often translates into caring for the "least of these," the oppressed, homeless, hungry, etc.  His famous "Sermon on the Mount" declares, "Blessed are the peacemakers, those who mourn, those who are poor,," and that we should turn the other cheek and other similar actions.  Far from legalized behavior on marriage and ordination.  Jesus's one statement on marriage, in context, has nothing to do with gay or straight and everything to do with not re-marrying.  Following Jesus in the perfection of love must, then, mean more about our heart than doctrine and practice.  The Church's doctrine and practice should only, insofar as it is possible, guide one's heart to love rather than anything else.  Hence why I love Wesley's concept of a catholic spirit as detailed in his sermon of that title: what we believe what behaviors we believe to be universally right matter little in comparison to whether we love God and love one another.  If our love be true, we can join hands and worship Christ together as we strive to live as disciples, upholding one another in spirit-filled prayer and accountability on our walk.  

Anything beyond joining hands to together strive to Christian discipleship in a catholic spirit leads to a politics of power and control.  And this is how culture has, in my opinion, most poisonously infected the Church.  I have seen this play out in my churches: one as it navigates the UMC's minefield on human sexuality; the other as it generally interacts in making church decisions.  Politics of power and control lead to factions, and factions destroy the Church. (Indeed, Wesley defines "schism" biblically, as the creation of factions, rather than the splitting away from the church.  If there are factions in the church, there is already schism, and it becomes one's godly duty at that point to leave)

It doesn't require a rocket science to inform us that our culture today operates within a politics of power and control.  There are, first of all, only two main political parties.  These parties have such a wide tent that we can hardly tell where one platform begins and ends.  If you were today to ask me what being a Democrat or Republican means, my answer would be so general as to be meaningless.  Especially recently we have seen these parties completely reverse on particular issues simultaneously.  Take what we call fiscal responsibility.  When President Obama occupied the White House, Republicans railed against fiscal irresonsibility, of allowing the deficit and debt to grow; now that President Trump occupies the White House, Democrats now champion the cause while Republicans are mostly silent on the issue. Trump ran his campaign in 2016 on policies, certainly, but mostly on a cultural concept, that if he is not elected then "they" will ruin the country as "they" have already been doing.  Now the Democratic frontrunner in the primaries, Biden, has a similar campaign strategy: Democrats cannot allow "them" to win because "they" will continue ruining the country.

What our current climate tells us is that policies and ideas rarely matter nowadays.  Civility and integrity have also flown out the window.  What matters today is that "we" win and "they" lose.  There can be no other explanation for how the parties could so suddenly and completely rotate 180 degrees or for why the rhetoric on all sides seeks to exclude and target rather than engage in serious, meaningful dialogue. 

The same can certainly be heard in our churches.  I know that I've heard it.  "If 'they' get 'their' way, we'll no longer be living biblically."  Try to narrow down exactly who anyone means by "they" and you either fail or come to understand "they" to be everyone who disagrees.  Our church lives have been reduced to a political battle for power and control. 

Our ideal resolution in most cases is our own comfort.  If we know that our own doctrine and practice are affirmed as "biblical" by an authority beyond ourselves, then we need not ever question our faith or understanding of faith.  More than that, I'd argue that if our own doctrine and practice are affirmed, then we need never do the hard work of seeking the Spirit within ourselves.  Why bother submitting ourselves entirely to Christ if we already know that our particular belief system and way of living have been affirmed as "the" way?  Truth indeed becomes power because we have established the truth and we therefore have power over others who disagree ("they" need "us" in order to be saved) as well as having power over God Himself, for we have now set the boundaries into which God can enter our lives.

Of course, there are a great many people who are politically pure who, as Republicans for instance, have remained as pure Republicans and therefore take issue with some of the actions and policies of current White House and Congressional officeholders that are at odds with Republican ideals, rather than blindly lending support to anything a "Republican" happens to do or say.  There are, likewise, a great many people who are able to believe particular theological doctrines but still joyfully join hands with other Christians who believe and practice differently.  Yet the great majority of persons nowadays, I fear, have succumbed to the cultural norm of dividing into "them" and "us," and act accordingly, with great rage, fear, rudeness, and general unChristian behavior towards others.

To combat the poisonous infection with which the Church has become ill, I encourage all of us to remember and seek after what the Church and Christians are most meant to: Christ.  It is our duty as disciples to indeed disciple, to follow, and to be perfect in love as our Father in heaven is.  What that means for us is that we need to put aside divisions rooted in doctrine and practice.  If we want to keep divisions alive for the sake of our mental comfort, then I suppoooooose I'm okay with Christian and non-Christian.  But who is a Christian?  Anyone seeking the will and spirit of Christ to live within them.  Paul says that it is not he who lives, but Christ, the Spirit, who lives in him.  Does it require certain doctrines or practices for Christ to live in us?  Or faith alone?  I'd argue faith alone, and the type of faith that is "meet for repentance," as Wesley says, so that we do no harm to ourselves or to others, so that we indeed love God and neighbor with all of our heart and soul.

Let us seek first and only the spirit of Christ to live in and for us.  That will cure the cultural infection we are poisoned with so that we no longer assert our power and control over others, the very thing Christ says he came to relieve us from.