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Friday, October 23, 2009

How to Engage Culture

My friend Mark recently blogged about how Christians should engage culture. He brings up some great thoughts:
I've never minded addressing matters about which Scripture is clear, such as dishonesty, greed, sexuality, etc., but I've never felt I had a vantage point from which to comprehensively stand in judgment on all of culture. Quite often, I've known intelligent, sincere Christians who have stood on either side of some issues. If we are going to be divisive, it has to be about matters of good versus evil, which simply cannot be glossed over and replaced with Republican versus Democrat, or vice versa.
The conversation turned to how Jesus addressed culture in his teaching and preaching. I think that Jesus was bold in addressing the cultural issues of his day, but he never aligned himself with any political or religious party. Jesus spoke in parables that would sneak behind peoples' prejudices and open their eyes to a different kind of culture. I think it was Michelangelo who said the best critique is to create something beautiful. Jesus critiqued culture by creating a better, beautiful culture.

How do your sermons create beauty as a critique of culture?

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