Don’t get me wrong there is truth in the “Not of this world” mindset. We are made for more than this brief earthly life. We are made for love, to fall deep into God who is love. We are made for Heaven! However, we can’t take this to mean that we are to live isolated from the world.
Yes, it’s true that God had set His people apart from other nations in the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s also true that they were not to mix with foreigners. But Jesus taught us that those walls no longer exist in the new covenant. The disciples preached the Good News first to the Jews, but then to Gentiles as well—that includes most of us.
Evangelizing the Culture
I bring this up, because one of my posts last week had me thinking about the fact that many Christians hold very closely to this NOTW mentality and are cut off from the current events of the world. The problem with this is that if we don’t know the culture than we can’t evangelize it. This means that instead of running away from the world, we must engage it, confront it, and transform it!
For example, there are a lot of bad movies, and a lot movies out there that encite, and in fact glorify sinful thoughts and behaviors. If watching these kinds of movies leads you to be desensitized to these things or even to practice them yourself, then you should probably limit yourself. But sometimes the movies we judge to be bad can actually get a message across to the people who are of this world. Like my article from last week about Friends with Kids, although it contained lots of crude humor and obscene language, it also showed the value of marriage and the family addressing head-on the self-centered, individualistic culture of our time. When Christian film-makers attempt to do things like this they go overboard and put themselves into the Christian movie category which cuts them off from the mainstream, of this world group.
The same is true for music, fashion, politics, etc. Every facet of our culture has been degraded and demeaned. The only way to fix it is from the inside, by showing a better way to live. As Christians if the only model we are showing is that of seclusion and separation, than we are never going to change the world. We have to show people that there is a better way to live, and that this way of life brings joy and peace to ourselves and others. It’s easy to focus on the things we say no to as Christians, but how can you shine light on the yes behind each no. We say no to abortion and birth control, because we say yes to the value and dignity of every human life.
Now, I’m not saying that you need to join a gang to “save” them, but it could work. What I am saying is that we need to be courageous enough to stand up to the culture and not run away from it. We are not of this world, but we are in it. (Jn 15:19; Rom 12:2) So we must take advantage of the opportunity to do something about it. Christians need to evangelize the culture!