I rarely write an essay for academic purposes that I feel really pulls together my thoughts and presents my point of view well, so I’ve decided to share parts of an essay I wrote about the development of Culture in North America (my context is Canada, but I also discuss the USA) and its impact on the church from modern to current times. Please enjoy this excerpt of how we came to be the way we are.
The purpose of this paper is to share reflections on what the role of the church is in communicating the gospel message in the context of postmodern culture. Each historical period carried cultural traits that resulted in presenting challenges to Christianity as a movement and the church as an institution. This paper will explore some of those traits and their direct impact on the gospel, documenting how over time the culture of Christianity changed to meet the new demands of society.
MODERNITY
The period known as Modernity is marked with the beginning of the Enlightenment, which followed the Renaissance. In a similar way to the sudden flourish of art and expression, advancements in mathematics, science and logic became a status symbol of advancement. Intellectuals began to challenge the belief systems in place, in effort to liberate people from control by the government, who enforced laws and morality. The Apostle Paul wrote, “knowledge puffs up”; one of the limitations of human beings is that the more we are convinced that we possess facts and evidence, the more convinced we are that we are superior. As general society intellectualized, the church was faced with the challenge of needing to provide supporting evidence to many claims of the faith.
As Christians struggled to defend their beliefs, many began to privatize their practice of the faith. Another approach to the conflict that emerged was that defenders of the faith engaged in rigorous explorations of plausible explanations to difficult questions of the faith. This contributed to the development of theology. This portion of society was largely comprised of clerical people, but the concept that all believers must be equipped to defend their belief in Christ became a major proponent of Christian education. Advancements in industrialization fostered the emergence of a work force, where people now found themselves in communities where the main commonality was that they were working for pay. Increasingly, citizens begin to distinguish between the public life, where work and positions dictated one’s reception by others, and the private life, where one was free to express their beliefs. While the church suffered because it was no longer the center of the community, its members benefitted as the general understanding of Scripture and biblical teaching increased for the average citizen.
POST-MODERNITY
For the purpose of this paper, I will refer to the post-modern period as 1990s to 2000s and beyond that will be post-post modern, because the dominant culture of the last twenty years has presented us with even greater challenges that we must address in our present day. By the 1990s, reason, logic and science had eliminated the “wonder” of life; with nothing left to marvel at, society began to seek out ways to bring back the “soul” while resisting Christianity. At least in the Western world, the divide between personal and public increased, with people challenging moral judgment in organized ways; labour, gender equality, racism and civil rights movements gave voice to those who were typically marginalized by the dominant culture. Plurality emerged as the order of the day; people were encouraged to explore different religions and lifestyles in effort to bring back an aspect of spirituality to their lives.
The implications of these developments led to an overall attack on Christianity and the church, for being a leader in exclusion and moral judgment. Marginalized voices moved from asking for tolerance to demanding praise. Society moved to greater acceptance of nuanced sexual orientation and gender identity. This blurring of the lines that define male and female also impacted the division of labour in the home. The shift in gender roles moved towards greater criticism of men, in that they were encouraged to be more in touch with their feelings and expressive. I was an adolescent during this time period and attest from experience that TV and media taught us how to accept these things. Sitcoms literally gave us the scripts for how to have crucial conversations and handle awkward situations like people “coming out of the closet”, or dating outside of their race, or women wanting more satisfaction in their careers. The impact of this on the gospel and church is that this new script of how to cope replaced the Christian education that people used to receive on Sunday. TV programming became available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; this significantly increased the exposure young audiences had to this new indoctrination. Increasingly, church became a social community and attendance was habitual. This breakdown in community and promotion of isolation through consumption of media also lead to a desensitization effect where violence in real life increased.
There were huge changes in the operation of the church during this period in time, particularly in North America. In the United States, lines were drawn between conservative and liberal values. Within church structure, there was an increase in hierarchy and positions; presumably to create more roles for average church-goers to fill, in hopes to keep them committed and engaged. Evangelical worship became more secularized and open to creative endeavour; this created further separation between people who felt that this was a more authentic expression of liturgy versus traditionalists who did not want to see worldly aspects of entertainment brought into church practice. It is worth noting that worship overall became more feelings based, as people wanted to be touched and moved by religious expression. There was an increase in society seeing men of God as flawed humans. Their public failings may have shaken the faith of congregants, or else, caused them to identify with the shortcomings of the human being, and forgive. Perfect church leadership was beginning to show major cracks; the media contributed to this in that it trained us how to shame fallen leaders like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart.
The reaction of the church to the challenges presented by post-modern thought led to a softening of the gospel message, bringing the love of God to the forefront. The emphasis on sin and conformity to Christian values was placed on the back burner. By identifying with the humanity of all people, clergy began to give context to the struggles of the ministry, and the pressures of being an example. This message also helped in negotiating the increasing plurality of society through immigration. For example, Christmas became a time where various cultures celebrated similar religious festivals like Diwali, Eid, Kwanzaa and Chanukah. The Catholic church became more inclusive as well and changed the focus of their Outreach efforts to be more humanitarian in nature.
POST-POST MODERNITY
As an educator, I have always felt that there was an additional cultural shift beyond post-modernity that includes our current cultural framework. Building on the idea that knowledge has created disillusionment and a lack of soul, it was evident through TV and media that people were hungry for supernatural experiences and encounters that mean there are greater forces at work who guide people to encounter truth. The workforce has acknowledged that wellness of employees includes mental health and spiritual practice. Mindful practice emerged as a way to pray without focusing the intent on God or religion. That being said, there was an increased tolerance for all religions except Christianity, unless you live in the Bible belt of America.
In the last twenty years, mainstream culture has moved far left in that liberal politics have become the dominant voice. They set the moral code and tell us who to love and who to hatehate; they promote shaming and “doxing” people with differing opinions, that is, exposing details about where they live and how they can be found in real life so that people can make their lives difficult. As leftist politics dominate the culture, they are worse than the church ever was in the sense that their technological tools can be used to destroy individuals who decide to voice anything that is contrary to the dominant culture’s message.
The tolerance that began in the 90s, where one side listened to other voices for better understand has stopped now that the margins rule, and to be fair, a large proportion of this movement is successful because guilty white people have identified certain people of colour and gender fluid individuals that they have made into poster-children for the cause.
Christianity has moved away from the gospel as John the Baptist would proclaim it and now hides in a framework of love and grace, to minimize conflicts between people and God. Mega churches have proven that taking sin, evil, hell and holiness out of the conversation will lead to success in increased membership and financial reward. Again, the media is the leader of distributing the left’s message to society on how to behave, what to accept and what to reject. Social media turns its participants into weaponized mouthpieces for various causes.
Concerning social media and the church, now the average Christian can livestream their own sermons, gain followers and preach to others without anyone validating the message. They create online experiences that exploit the individual for consumption by the masses. The ability to stream and record and replay has never been more powerful, as it enables people to filter out what they don’t want to hear. This ability to filter, customize and select content means that the user can create false truths by simply choosing to eliminate other perspectives. People are easily offended and expect dire consequences to be applied to anyone who transgresses society’s moral code.
Churchgoing has changed dramatically to include online platforms. Not only do churches stream services to accommodate those who may have to work or miss out a service, but there are people who intentionally watch this content and believe that it is sufficient to replace the act of going to church. Online church going reduces the attendee’s ability to interact with other Christians. It is a normal part of community that people should disagree and learn to forgive each other. By simply following the hashtag on Twitter, #churchhurts, one can read countless stories of how the church has hurt people to the point where they may even turn away from the faith. While it is true that this data is not entirely reliable, it does provide some idea of the perception of church in North America, and why so many do not attend.
One of the advantages social media provides is that there is more access to information than ever before and it is reasonable to expect to connect with those who are developing and sharing the content. This gives ministries like deliverance a chance to directly meet the needs of those who seek it out. For those who attend church, social media can be used as a means to stay connected to the community throughout the week, providing a more immersive experience where congregants can interact without much effort. This can contribute to a greater sense of community.
To meet the challenges presented by an increasingly egocentric society, the church began to tailor the gospel message to be more focused on the individual believer. One’s personal experience with God became the center of God’s redemptive work on earth. This displaced the church to “secondary status”. Sermons were aimed at building personal discipleship, and less about the church as a collaborative body of members.
In the mid-nineties, a new approach to church planting saw a rise in the amount of people starting churches that did not own their buildings. Instead, the church would rent out a public space, like a movie theatre, and host service there. One of the reasons this was successful was that it helped people who had negative experiences with church hit a reset button, and start fresh in a neutral place that was familiar and associated to leisure time. Another feature of this approach is that the church focuses less on Christian education and more on getting people involved in activity-based “serving”, so that everyone feels implicated in the life of the church. There are also social justice campaigns aimed at raising funds for various causes. This is a feature that young people of the millennial generation are attracted to. While many of the social and community actions are “feel good”, in an attempt to win those young people, the effects are not lasting or contributing to membership. Mostly, this kind of short-term action helps to alleviate the conscience and provide a fake sense of accomplishment quickly. Once young people see this, they tend to move on to new churches or fall out of attendance altogether.
RECONCILIATION AND THE GOSPEL
This new approach to church planting is instrumental in the church’s attempt to reconcile with the general population. I believe that there are some things that the church can do in order to reconcile with those who have been hurt by the institution. Because there is such disdain associated with the buildings, it certainly is a reconciliatory measure to have churches that meet in various public spaces and homes. This places emphasis on the gospel and not the institution.
I believe that the best way to support new believers is in a small group format that is led by a mature Christian. It is important to have a leader who is not easily put off by conflict or resistance. This person has to know how to mentor, even in resistance, in a way that is loving and challenging. I believe that Christians need to encounter conflict in the church in a way that allows them to practice forgiveness and realize that it is possible to love people even when they don’t agree with you, or receive your love. Too many churches around me are either overinvolved with the lives of congregants or so hands-off that congregants barely know their pastoral team.
I believe it is important to listen to people’s church hurts, and provide appropriate contexts for them to share their stories and receive prayer for forgiveness. This is the kind of inner-healing work that I have been doing with individuals for the last thirteen years. I find that churches at large are willing to help people with food and resources, but stop short of dealing with the social and emotional issues that often keep people isolated from participating in community. When the church is willing to abide with people while they are going through spiritual and inner transformation, I believe that authentic love will be cultivated and members will trust each other. Everyone has to be willing to be a little more open and live a little closer to each other if the relationships we build are to be lasting. When people feel cared for and sought after, they are more likely to become contributors to the community in similar ways, and in this way, the gospel and God’s love begin to proliferate in a deeper way. I am continuously aware of that my stance for delivering the gospel must be framed in reconciliation and the desire to see those who have been hurt by history’s legacy brought back to their first love. This awareness is crucial if we are to continue reaching all people with the gospel message.