Chapter 5: Native Culture to Kingdom Culture
““You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.””
The Standard:
American culture, like all beautiful cultures, is layered in ways that a writer could never fully deliver in text. However, the one thing that is true for all and is easily identifiable, is their understanding of what is acceptable or not. At least that used to be the case. For instance murder = bad. Hugs = good. There once was a simplistic moral code that we all seemed to know. Today in American culture, it appears it’s not so simple. Something has muddied the waters. Something is telling us to think differently about what morality is, what it isn’t, and most importantly - Who established it in the first place. So, If we are going to talk about loving our neighbors within American culture, It might be most helpful to discuss American Morality. My hope is that by doing this we walk away with a clearer picture of what exactly our culture is about.
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis unpacks the foundation of morality as he describes a standard that is greater than all of us. He says:
“[One man] appeals to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much that we cannot bear to face the fact that we [also] break it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we seek to find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to simply ourselves.”
So as we dive into the culture and take a stroll into the weeds, it is extremely important to note that what C.S. Lewis just articulated better than I ever could is precisely the opposite place that American culture begins. Two thoughts on why I believe that:
First, we have somehow been convinced that this standard of appropriate behavior is a matter of whiteness or privilege. Some would argue that everything down to our clothes is set by white privilege. It is one thing to say that race contributed to where fashion lands, but it is a completely different idea to point to fashion as oppressive. From togas to the tuxedo, decency is the manner and context in which we appear more than the appearance itself. My brother was a teenager in the ’90s when long hair (specifically the butt cut) was synonymous with 90’s rock bands. For him and his teenage appearance, that carried an attitude of defiance. When I grew my hair out (specifically the shag) in the 2000s, it carried an attitude of boy band sweetheart. Young Justin Bieber is the image here. All that to say that it’s not necessarily the length of hair or the clothes on our back, through it all, there is a level of decency or defiance that is associated with it. It may be tough to explain or put our finger on, but as C.S. Lewis wrote, it should be “obvious to everyone.”
Second, we must admit that we as a society have all abandoned this standard as individuals. Our unique qualities and things that make us who we are, reflect God’s diversity and even more so his generosity to give us free will. But where free will begins, The Standard must govern. So it’s neither the individual nor a culture that determines how the standard is applied, it is God alone that calls individuals into The Standard and allows Himself to become the culture. Upholding the standard as His Church will not be popular (Matt. 10:22) and it’s not ours to compromise (Rev. 22:18).
So first, the standard is not a white thing.
Second, the standard is a God thing.
American Culture Defying The Standard:
So what is the easiest way to understand our culture today? Put another way, if the Standard is the measuring stick, what exactly are we measuring? You could look at the same thing that has always taught us about culture - art. Look at the rigid lines of the Nazis and see the parallel to their culture. Look at the loosey-goosey lines of the ’70s and see the parallel to their culture. Now those are easy to visualize but it’s more than lines and symbols- it's all art. From Selfies on social media to what we listen to, you can define the most complex culture in a simple piece of art. Take music as an example, specifically but not limited to hip hop is one of the key illustrations of where our culture is as well as where we are going. It’s easy to point to this as problematic and it’s equally easy to call me old-fashioned for doing so. But let’s explore it just for a moment as a contributor to the problem, but let’s make clear up front that it is not the absolute problem, only a vehicle in which it is vividly displayed.
In a Ted Talk over Heroes and Villains, Christian Rapper “LeCrae” taught me that the hip hop, or R&B culture began as a cry of injustice towards the despicable acts of the drug war in the ’80s. What started as a story by victims of injustice, quickly became a story by villain’s within society. This is where it is arguably by no fault of their own. In the ’90s though, hip-hop culture continued to grow and black people in particular cashed in on this villain identity when the largest purchases of hip hop/rap CDs came from (you guessed it) the white suburbs. The new found platform for defiance became a culture and it was now thriving for both black and white people, empowering all to speak loudly about very real injustice, as well as very dark desires. To be clear, what began as an inner-city black thing, quickly became a human defiance thing. It was hijacked and from the ’90s on, could no longer be framed as a black thing. It may still be claimed that way, but it’s simply not true.
If you look at the life of MLK, and the entire civil rights movement of the ’60s, it was about demanding that our black brothers and sisters be treated with the same unalienable rights that other people enjoyed. In suits and ties and socially civil, they demonstrated that they weren’t 3/4 human, but created in the same image of God that white people were and carried the same level of dignity. Amen! They without question could and can uphold “The Standard.” 20 years later, all that hard work was hijacked (call it a product of government conspiracies or whatever you want : LeCrae alluded to this but thats not the point here) all that hard work was hijacked by a new culture built on rebellion and we are being spoon-fed the lie that this new culture is what it means to be black - that’s my point. Hip Hop culture morphed into a Wild West / shoot em up / bad boys for life identity that both the black community, white community, and all of us romanticized. I was one of them. The anthem’s of my years that I spent not following Christ were all rap songs - because they said what I was feeling best. And if by chance they weren’t rap songs, they were probably some other explicit content in a different genre. Music said my deepest desires in the most authentic and explicit way. I remember riding with my dad and listening to a Pat Green song and him telling me I needed to be more careful with what I listen to. There was another instance I’ll never forget when my dad threw away my brother's Bone Thugs CD. Those things weren’t very cool of him to say or do, but he was right and i’ll never forget it. It wasn’t because Bone Thugs are black people, it wasn’t because Pat Green is somehow beneath us, it’s because there is such a thing as inappropriate content. There is such a thing as a standard and it’s up to us to uphold it, not re-establish it.
The Cultural Divide:
I think we need to speak up that the race war is not a race war, it is a culture war, one that ironically has the same ideology on both sides (pride and selfishness) and because we are lazy, we label it a race war. We shouldn’t be fighting for all black people just because they are black people, just like we shouldn’t do that for white people. We should be fighting for people to follow Christ, dropping their identity in culture, in a race, in sexuality, in all the crap that we are being told to latch on to and instead put on the things of Christ. When we become a christian, we surrender the right to be a victim and denounce the right to be a villain. You do have that right in American culture to do both of those things. You don’t have that right in Christian culture to do either.
After Trayvon Martin’s death, I felt the same way I do now and it began a long series of writing through deep confusion. I began asking questions that I’ve never asked before. I suppose that is what many would call White Privilege - I never had to ask these questions.
Years ago, I was involved in a non-profit that was geared towards young entrepreneurs and I had the platform to pull one black friend in particular aside and ask him some very pointed questions in an effort to understand this topic. I asked him in an admittedly dismissive way, “You really think racism is thriving in today’s culture?” And he told me something that I’ll never forget. He said it was the little things every day that produced the most bitterness for him. It was being at the grocery store and making eye contact with an older white lady and her quickly looking away to avoid him.
I realize that isn’t everything in a nutshell, but that moment of vulnerability from him was revolutionary to me. That is American culture, that’s not racism. Heck, my friends try to avoid me in the grocery store because NO ONE wants to talk to ANYONE. We are terrible at being personable. So when you layer that on top of decades of believing that people are out to get you, OF COURSE, he thought it was white on black, when in reality that's just Americans being sucky people. We have gone from a front porch society to a privacy fence society. The posture we enter in with produces the perspective we walk away with. So for christians, what’s our posture? White, black, turquoise? How are we entering into the conversation? Are we defeated before we begin? Are we living in fear? If so, we need to recognize it and either seek help or invite those living in it out. We are not meant to live in fear - God hasn’t given us that, but he gave us His power, His love, His perspective. That’s what real love is.
So for nearly a decade I have worked hard to alter my perspective in order to talk more appropriately about christian posture. I’ve met with many black pastors, as well as white pastors, to create more arms linked in a beautiful Kingdom display. I’ve tried to display the Gospel through diversity. But from black and white alike- here is the reality: they all have their own thing going. They all have their own way of entering into the conversation and frankly want to enter in that way. No one is going to merge just for the sake of merging. White people are welcome at the black church and black people are welcome at the white church, but frankly, few want to go.. I’ve been encouraged there with all that’s going on in the news.. Believers have the choice, and we simply choose where we want to go. We don’t need to force it. It will happen slowly as we draw near to Christ.
To non-believers though, there are simply two camps: The Racists & The Non-Racists. And we Christians so bad want to just jump into the non-racist’s camp and surrender all the other bigotry we didn’t even know we had.. But the non-racist camp is telling us to scream on social media “God stands with oppressed people” and “We demand justice.” And if we don’t, our silence is a knee on George Floyd’s neck. Statements like that are extremely dangerous. I’m now moving way beyond both music and racial reconciliation alone and into how we communicate as christian leaders in a culture fixated on social justice. That’s perhaps the most important thing we can discuss; Less “how we got here,” and more “how we move forward.” First, conservative is not synonymous with racist. Second, liberal is not synonymous with love. There are so many layers at play here and approaching the conversation in a binary way is the most irresponsible thing we can do. Now let’s address that other language:
The phrase “God stands with oppressed people” ..One of the most popular verses to quote here is from the Beatitudes, right? Or when discussing our role perhaps it's Micah 6:8. I’m not saying we don’t have a role in social justice. But by simply throwing out one liners like “God stands with all oppressed people” and rushing to the side of every publicized death with fists in the air, christians are playing a dangerous game. That is what politicians want us to do, not what God calls us to do. Politics wants us to pick a side. Can it be that black and white? Do we stand with all oppressed people? God stands with His people in oppression. Every verse that suggests this directly or indirectly is in the context of His people. So who are His people? Matt. 16:24 says this, “Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”” If you’re not His, then He is not standing with you. That is your choice, not His. That is not oppression, that is actually and ironically liberty.
Then there is the phrase "We demand Justice” …On what authority can we demand justice? God’s? It’s easy for me to quote Job 38, because I’m not living directly in this injustice, right? And maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t make scripture less true. Again, I’m not saying human evil isn’t a real thing or sticking my head in the sand about what’s going on, but do we trust in God’s justice on human evil or do we seek our government to provide it? Because legally speaking, factually speaking, black men have every right that white men have in this country. On paper we are the same. If you don’t believe me, here are the statistics for 2019 in the context of “Police Brutality.” And this might be hard to hear, but this is important because this is the driver of division in our country, this is the reason BLM exists, so it’s extremely important to look at what the facts say and what is being thrusted in the news as emotional bait.
In 2019:
406 white suspects were killed
24 of them were unarmed
259 black suspects were killed
14 of them were unarmed
5.9% of white suspects killed were unarmed
5.6% of black suspects killed were unarmed
You might say:
Per capita, more black people are killed than white people. So the US Census Bureau has the US population at around 328.2 million. 60% white (197 million), 13.4% black (42 million)
So with that in mind:
Police killed 259 black suspects (5.6 per 1 million)
Police killed 406 white suspects (2 per 1 million)
If you stop there, you are correct, but you have to keep going:
Black people committed 172,980 violent crimes (41.2 per 10,000)
White people committed 276,310 violent crimes (14 per 10,000)
So, black people are killed at a rate 2.8x higher (5.6/2)
And black people commit violent crime at a rate 2.9x higher (41.2/14)
So to boil what I’m trying to say down:
Say cops kill 1 person (justified or unjustified) for every 1,000 violent crimes.
If one group commits 2,000 violent crimes, 2 people will unfortunately get killed.
If another group commits 4,000, 4 people will unfortunately get killed.
So why run through all of that? Is it really necessary to do so for the Christian point of view? Yes! We cannot enter the argument with a posture of bitterness which derives from an argument that is built on a misconception. Furthermore, the solution is misheard entirely when it’s built on reforming legislation rather than redeeming man’s heart. Racial reconciliation is a one person at a time objective through relationships, invitations, love, truth, and ultimately sharing our lives with one another, sharing our perspectives. Everything else in our culture, especially music in the Top 40 Chart, leads us to believe the opposite and fuels that division. Rome is burning. Everyone has their own experience and as a product everyone thinks they have their own truth. There is a VERY popular book called Reading While Black… We are whole heartedly embracing different truths. Founder of Humane Tech said this about truth: “If we don’t agree on what is true or that there is such a thing as truth, we’re toast. This is the problem beneath other problems because if we can’t agree on what’s true then we can’t navigate out of any of our problems.”
Friends, if the tech world or secular society is saying that, what are the ambassadors of truth doing to speak louder?! The entire world is primed for revival and starved for truth! Let’s give them the truth! Give the people what they want!
Our mission as christians shouldn’t change because of what happened to George Floyd. Our mission is only affirmed that much more because of what happened to George Floyd. The world is hurting and we have the only answer.
Feeling and lamenting are not bad things. I would have never been listening the way I am now if it weren’t for Trayvon. And Lord I do so honestly pray that he is now with you. However, how long are we going to act surprised and buy into the news hysteria? Our brothers and sisters without Christ are looking for answers. We have the answer. We know the problem. Why are we surprised? White people posting “This is the last one we will stand for” does two things: 1. Nothing and 2. Suggest that previously we stood for this? Here’s the bottom line for me, I don’t want to ever make a result of the Gospel, the point of the Gospel. If I make something a condition of my faith in God, then that will be the object of my faith, right? That will be what I treasure and yearn for most. I hear a lot of hurting voices around me right now. When we engage with the logic of culture, we are communicating hopelessness. God is serving up softballs and we are distracted by a person in the stands. I don’t want to build a foundation of diversity (in any definition) to display the Gospel. I want to build a foundation of the Gospel to display the Kingdom. It’s the most minute twist of perspective but in my opinion it’s what has divided Christians the most as of late.
The Driver of Division:
The best way to reveal the gospel and to illustrate The Standard starts in our home. The family should be the most important thing that we fight to protect. That starts with men submitting to the one true King and leading from a place of victory. That starts with women modeling what it means to be “in Christ” by how they trust their husband’s lead. That starts with children learning to submit to the one true King by learning to obey their parents. The family leads culture through the Church. The culture cannot lead the church through the dismantling of the family- you with me? Never before have we seen such an interwoven attack from minorities linking arms under the banner of defiance like we have recently. In the Black Lives Matter organization alone they wrote this about what they believe:
We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.
We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.
We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.
We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.
We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.
We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).
Before I go further, I address the idea of being “for the statement” Black Lives Matter and not being “for the organization” in later, but here we will spend more time on the culture that is being pushed whether we know it or not. With that said, if you were to have a conversation with a black person who has felt racial inequality, they will most assuredly rebuke you if you try to lump what they are going through with those in the LGTBQ+ community. Because them being black is not a choice, it is who they are. However, as you see in the language that is leading our culture today, BLM places them all in the same minority group, along with anyone willing to either live in defiance or celebrate defiance of traditional orthodoxy. This is not a race issue. This is a Bible issue. This is an upholding of the Truth, or rather inability to uphold truth issue. They, They being the organization Black Lives Matter, say they are pro-family but in the same breath they say that they want to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.” First off, it’s not western prescribed, it is biblically prescribed. Second, the reason for this is because there is a lack of men/fathers leading in minority communities so there is a natural demand that is being met in unnatural ways. That’s not condemnation, that is a fact. Regardless of how we got here, we need to minor on frustration and major on reconciliation. We need men discipling men. We need women discipling women. We need children to stop idolizing thugs (of all colors). We need christians to speak up about this.
Native Culture to Kingdom Culture:
Bringing all of this full-circle; if we can’t stand for decency because we’re being told that there is an excess of white influence, if we can’t agree on the Standard because our emotions won’t allow us to look at statistical evidence, and if we can’t rebuke one another because our culture ultimately trumps our faith, then we can’t call ourselves followers of Christ.
We cannot play identity politics and allow intersectionality produce the loudest voice- Saying that this person is more of a victim than another person. Let’s be clear, scripture isn’t oppressing people, it is freeing people and inviting them to voluntarily oppress their flesh. Every compromise we make only gives way to the next trait to be justified by the same cultural logic. This is most visible with the ‘+’ in LGTBQ+, which openly affirms that there is no end in sight to their inclusion. We have no business playing identity politics and for our children’s sake we cannot afford to sit quietly.
Our hope is in Christ alone as the supreme savior of the earth and all those within it. In the same breath, what kind of world will our children grow up in while we wait? Hannah More said this, “I do not wish to retreat from culture into a religious sphere, but rather to advance with the wisdom and truth of religion into the cultural sphere.”
If we choose to enter into the conversation of culture, we must move beyond integration and into acceptance. Integration is forced, while acceptance lovingly takes all of our past, all of our failures, and welcomes us with open arms. There’s no room for holding on to the past. However, in the same way, we must move beyond tolerance to love. Tolerance allows one to remain the same, love calls one to more. And authentic love will move us all beyond native culture and into a kingdom culture. Native culture may be given, but Kingdom culture is received.
1 Thessalonians 5:12-22 says this:
“Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who labor among you and preside over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them most highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, admonish the undisciplined, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient toward all. See that no one pays back evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good for one another and for all. Always rejoice, constantly pray, in everything give thanks. For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not extinguish the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt. But examine all things; hold fast to what is good. Stay away from every form of evil.”
