WHEN THE WORLD ENTERS THE CHURCH: 1 COR 1-4.

Evangelicalism suffers from a serious malady. Not in doctrine, but in its prodigal absorption of the world’s values. And to this issue I would like to use the Corinthian church as the comparative template, hoping that churches might take heed of their cultural assimilation. We begin by saying the more subtle the error the more insidious. What we can’t detect is far more dangerous than a visible enemy. The true church is called to spend a great deal of time detecting doctrinal errors; this I say is right. But doctrinal errors are relatively easy to detect. The influence of culture on the church, however, often falls under the radar. Yes, the world enters the church in ways that are almost imperceptible. Because churches live in a foreign land they can easily adopt the ways of their indigenous host land without realizing it. Such it was true in Corinth, perhaps more than any other New Testament church. So lets exactly what cultural enticement snookered this ancient church and see if we can draw lessons from it.

Paul begins his letter by noting that divisions had sprung up in the Corinthian church. This topic takes up the first four chapters. The ostensible issue was that the people in the church were dividing themselves along the lines of their favorite teacher. One band followed Paul, another Apollos, Cephas, and the ones who claimed to follow only Christ. Coming out of a Hellenistic culture, this tendency would not appear all that unusual. The refined elements of Hellenistic culture, of which the city of Corinth was a part, divided itself up along the lines of philosophical schools of thought. Every group had their own teachers and every group prided itself on having the ultimate answer to life. So we have, for example, the Stoics and the Epicureans mentioned in the New Testament. The Greeks, we must mention, were all about the pursuit of truth and all about their favorite leader. Apparently this feature of Greek culture had seeped into the Corinthian church. The Greeks divided over things like matter verses spirit, essence verses existence, and being verses becoming. It shouldn’t surprise us that when heathens in Corinth came to faith, they carried into their Christianity this propensity to follow their favorite teacher. Christian teachers divided over different sorts of things like, how to interpret the Old Testament, how to present the gospel, what to do with the Jewish law, and the meaning behind the resurrection of Christ. Many Corinthians preferred the high theology of Paul while others were attracted to the eloquence and charisma of Paul’s successor, Apollos, while even others clung to the blue collar message of the fisherman, Cephas, who was called the rock. Each school followed their ‘guru’ to the exclusion of all others and it seems as if these ‘schools’ were no longer fellowshipping with one another. To Paul this was very serious.

What we can surmise is that Paul saw the Hellenistic influence and realized that the Corinthians had imbibed to a cultural norm that was detrimental to their Christian witness. For this reason Paul begins this epistle by contrasting the ‘wisdom of this world,’ i.e. Hellenistic philosophy, with the simplicity and straightforwardness of the gospel, which Greeks deemed foolishness. But Paul is not deterred. He puts on both gloves and the hat of a critic and takes the Greek culture to task. He sarcastically mocks the smug Greek disputers and wise men and labels them as the real fools. He will compare Greek wisdom with the Christian message (1:23) and will find the Greek answer to be wanting. In doing this he was well aware that he would be dismissed by the highly cultured Greeks as a wacky seed-picker just as he had been in Athens. Throughout the first four chapters of this letter, Paul constantly compares the bloody, earthy, physical nature of the gospel with the spiritual, theoretical, formless ideas of Greek philosophy. Paul admits that his message would be crude to Greek ears and that he himself, the messenger, would be written off as a rough and untutored bore. He possessed no eloquence, and lacked an impressive physical presence (2:1-5). Whereas the Greeks would see these things as barbaric, Paul considered these weaknesses as being in line with the message of the gospel. For the message he preached was not a highly refined philosophical construct, but a blood and guts, rough-hewn, historical account of a common Jew who claimed to be deity and then died on a Roman cross. Paul found comfort knowing that if anyone did believe this message it must be a work of God (2:5).

Paul next unleashes a dose of logic to show that Greek philosophy and Christianity were incompatible. While the Greeks would say no one could understand proper wisdom apart from Greek philosophy, Paul turns it around and says that no Greek could understand the saving gospel apart from the Holy Spirit. In other words the Greeks were too ‘spiritual’ to understand the saving beauty of Christ Crucified. Only a work of Spirit could cause one to see the gospel (2:10). Paul further explained that the deep things of God are given only to those low enough to receive them (2:14). The Greeks, who deified strength and self-sufficiency would hold this view in derision. No common ground existed between the two systems.

Paul moves forward in chapter three with an autobiographical account of how the Corinthian church began. His point is to show that teachers were not the important element of church building, only Christ and His gospel. What had brought the church into existence was not the teaching methods of the gurus, but the sinner’s resting upon the the person and work of Jesus Christ. To align oneself with a teacher, whether that be Apollos or Cephas, was only to move away from a certain foundation. In Paul’s mind, he and Apollos were mere bondservants of the risen Christ (3:5). As servants they had subservient roles under the Master Builder, Jesus. No role was superior to any other. Paul had planted and Apollos had watered but neither could save a single Corinthian soul. That authority belonged to Jesus alone. For the Corinthian church to be looking to human leaders for its identity was to simply ape the culture. This kind of partisanship would only detract from Jesus and His main message. Thus, the Corinthians must jettison all Greek ideals and stand solely on the ground of Christ crucified for sinners, which is the only foundation of the Christian faith (3:11).

In sum what Paul is doing here is challenging the Corinthians’ penchant for cultural assimilation. And in the apostle’s mind this is never a good thing. When the church adopts cultural values and makes them her own, this will most certainly start a glacial move away from Christ and His gospel. Because all cultures revile the gospel, taking any element of their value system into the church is to invite the serpent back into the garden. Thus, the church has one calling and that is to eschew the culture’s messages and preach the simple message of Christ crucified. The culture will, of course, despise the church’s message and will desperately try to absorb her into its clutching arms. In so doing the guts of the gospel will be ripped out. The church must ever resist this standing threat.

In writing to a largely American audience, we must ask, how has the American Evangelical Church fallen prey to the American culture? To do this we in the church must understand ‘our times’ as the children of Issachar did. In order to resist the enemy we need to understand the values of the enemy. So in the remainder of this article we note some of the values of our American culture which have quietly been assimilated in the church. Without getting too technical we will look at three American cultural values: specialization, freedom, and personal fulfillment.‍ ‍

In America there has been an increasing capitulation to specialization in every area of society. This phenomenon has increasingly seeped into the church. It began in the late nineteenth century with the advent of the industrial revolution and has only gotten worse with the advent of the technological revolution over the past seventy five years. It all began with the constant pressure to be competitive in a free market economy. Efficiency quickly became the one, indispensable virtue of the day. Efficiency expressed itself through the hands and feet of pragmatism and resting on the philosophic base of the ends justifying the means, pragmatism bulldozed its way over ethics. What was done most quickly and efficiently was considered to be the ‘good.’ In order to maximize productivity businesses turned to specialization. No longer was it productive to be good at many things. What was now needed was specialized experts at every stage of the task. This philosophy quietly overrode long held moral values and led to such abuses like sending young boys into unhealthy coal mines to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, in order to meet production quotas. In our modern day this drive toward efficiency has elevated specialized technology to be the new sacred cow. The upshot is that in every field of human endeavor, well-rounded, ethical people have been replaced by the anti-social, relativistic, specialized computer nerds so that humanity-based business paradigms have replaced by function-based Technocracy. What now matters most in American culture is whether or not something increases production. Take for example the medical field. Once upon a time there was the family physician who knew the names of your children and actually asked about Aunt Sally in Arkansas. Now patients walk into sterile rooms where they are met by a specialist whom they have never met, who hardly makes eye contact as he peruses the patient’s computer generated health summary. From this he makes medical decisions without ever once touching the patient’s body. Long gone is the traditional ‘handyman’ or ‘jack of all trades,’ and the days of Ol’ Mr. McCracken who was able to work on everybody’s car in the neighborhood. The new hero of our age is the specialist who knows nothing about many things but everything about one thing. This is the person that will help businesses achieve maximum productivity. But productivity is not a virtue in Christianity or the church. And when churches make productivity and specialization the priority, they soon find that the baby they birth looks more like Amazon than Jesus. William James the father of modern Psychology saw how this move toward pragmatism would alter the very nature of truth. Everything, including truth, only has ‘cash-value in experiential terms.’ If something produces, it is true. Goodbye Moses and Jesus.

The thing to remember about specialization is that it has no soul. It is simply a pragmatic way of achieving an end. In American culture it has great ‘cash value.’ In the church, specialization, and its adoptive parent pragmatism, are Trojan horses that bring in boatloads of promise but pay out in Confederate money. These ideals permeate every level of American culture, and, not surprisingly, the church. Their influence is seen most glaringly in church leadership. Once there were pastors, elders and deacons who served with the single focus of care for human souls. In former days pastors could minister to their flock at every stage of life. But is it this way no longer. Such well-rounded shepherds have been supplanted by functionaries who specialize in everything from media, to security, to communication, to counseling, to administration, to small group dynamics, but nothing else. And what of the sheep? They are left dazed and confused as they look for that one person who can answer their specific question or meet their specific need. Little wonder are sheep getting frustrated and quietly exiting the back door of churches, unloved, unwanted and ignored, sacrificial offerings to the god of specialization. Of course, specialization is not evil in itself. In economics specialization has brought many people to ridiculously high standards of living. But a high standard of living is not the goal of the church. Sheep are not employees of an organizations that seeks competitive success. They are members of a vibrant community whose mission is to model human love and concern and to obey Jesus Christ. Churches exist to serve human souls not maximize hefty profits. The bottom line is that the culture cannot give the church anything to facilitate these goals. What the church needs is a radical shift away from a specialized, pragmatic business plan to one that puts people first no matter how it effects the bottom line.

Another cultural icon that has seeped into the life of the church is that of freedom. We as Americans live In a country that was built on the fight for freedom and it has become the cherished value among Americans to this day. It is our ‘right’ to go where we want to go and do what we want to do, as the Mamas and Papas told us. So it shouldn’t surprise us that personal freedom is a value that pervades the church. Like the culture at large, America Christians find it necessary to keep one’s options open. We fear being bound to anything that smells like commitment. As a result American Christians are generally aloof when when it comes to involvement in their spiritual communities. The reason lies hidden in our warped goal of liberty. We believe freedom is a right (America’s Declaration told us so) given to man to increase his wellbeing. We equate freedom with America fighting off the yoke of Britain. But that liberty was not a Christian concept but a secular philosophical ideal that flowed from the Enlightenment. Ever since then the American’s idea of liberty is the right to detach from commitment to an authority. Americans use our innate right of liberty to remain detached from all things, from duties, responsibilities, businesses, and churches. We get to choose what is best for us and we will cling to that choice unto death. But the fact there is such a thing called liberty assumes some kind of prior bondage. A teenager who gets his own car is free only because he was previously in the bondage of dependency on others. While the fathers may have said freedom was a right, the Bible says freedom is a gift given by the Creator. In other words, from the Liberator. Thus, freedom is not a freedom to detach but a freedom to attach to the cause of the Liberator, Jesus Christ. Or, to say it another way, true liberty is being freed from the harsh mastery of self-will to the loving mastery of Christ’s will. But submission to anyone but ourselves frightens us. We choose to light up a cigarette and follow the Marlboro man into the sunset. But this independent, ’do-it-yourself’ caricature of liberty is a death sentence to the community of faith. If liberty is simply doing what one wants, independent of all others, then there can be no common Lord, common faith, common baptism. Community falls apart, and there is no sense of a community larger than one self. However, when one begins to understand that liberty is based on a charter of freedom that comes from God, then one will most gladly limit his libertarian mind and gladly serve God and His people. But alas, so long as the secular view of liberty prevails in the churches, there will always be this unsettled, rotating door of congregants, who, like the Northern Lights, are in constant flux. Unfortunately many churches try to counter this trend by pounding people with the necessity of church membership, or by preaching the law of commitment alongside the fires of hell, but this approach will never work. The truth is that only when the Holy Spirit illumines our Christian minds and shows us to true meaning of liberty will the church prosper as it ought. And it is only by a steady preaching of God’s free grace of liberation from sins that liberation in Christ will take root.

Personal fulfillment may well be the most potent ideal in American culture. We are a nation built on the ‘pursuit of happiness.’ The American life has always been marked by fulfilling one’s dreams. Unlike cultures of yore, American culture is optimistic and ever looks forward to those halcyon days to come. Our history does nothing to squelch America’s bullish view of the future. With resources abounding, empty arable land stretching for thousands of miles, an enviable ethnic mosaic, a stable republican government and the security of a wide ocean, have conspired to make the American experiment a unique 250 year period of prosperity. The downside is that generations who have not been part of laying the country’s foundation want to feed off the bounty but pay nothing. America is rapidly becoming a nation of handouts and entitlements. Everybody deserves to be fulfilled whether or not they have earned it or not. No wonder that messages like ‘having your good life now’ or ‘doing it your way’ or ‘you deserve a break today’ find such fertile ground in America. While most cultures in the history of the world have struggled with day to day survival, Americans rarely struggle at all. We have become a people who expect life to be easy. This is the core feature of the American Dream, a dream given not earned. And how this message has been uncritically imbibed in the American Church! But this precious god of entitlement is antithetical to the whole drift of Scripture. The Bible teaches us that life on earth will be difficult and it can only rightly be faced with hard work and diligence. Fulfillment in life comes not from unbridled indulgence of the flesh, but diligence in the present fueled by a real hope of the world to come. The Bible always pushes Christians to look away from an over-expectation of life here because the world is a broken place where ultimate fulfillment is impossible. Once again the exhortation of the Bible, “Love not the world, nor the things of the world” clashes directly with the world’s ‘get all the gusto you can get.’

The church needs to re-discover the strength of having this future hope. This belief, however, is constantly under siege by the world. Christians are daily inundated with messages that say prosperity, success, joy and satisfaction can be had now. It is a hard message to tune out. And it accords with our fleshly natures. So there is no surprise that personal fulfillment has settled comfortably in the American church. Programs, music, worship services, various ministries, are often designed for one end: to make people feel good about themselves. Making someone feel better about oneself is the surefire way to get them back into the doors. This drives the entire worship service experience. Preaching is often a performance by a polished communicator who flatters the audience with niceties. The theme of many messages centers around ways to make one’s life better. The music is visceral, upbeat, and happy. God is always our Buddy, and hell, sin, justice, and the like are themes that are taboo. And Christians, eager to find a little more kick and meaning in life, soak up these vapid message like a mop in a flooded basement.

Sadly, prospects for a massive change in American churches is not likely. So long as people in America have everything they want and see their neighbors prospering more and more, the more likely it is that the message of fulfillment will thrive. The only hope for a reversal is that there might be a sobering work of repentance instigated by the Holy Spirit. And this, sadly, will most likely occur only if America falls into a period of economic and social darkness. Though the author does not hope for this dark prospect, he nevertheless believes it to be the best hope the American church has to forsake her pompous quest for self-fulfillment.

As in Corinth, the modern church will be ever vulnerable to the powerful influences of the world around her. Only God can save the church from assimilating the values and ideals that surround her. Careful vigilance by each individual soul will be required to detect areas where cultural assimilation is taking place. What is needed is not more pulpit pounding but more solid gospel preaching that produces grateful saints who are willing to serve the one and only Savior of sinners. Moral suggestions, practical tips devoid of the cross and showy presentations must be abandoned in favor of the radical power of Christ crucified. Only then will the church be able to ward off the blandishments of the world and stand firm in the faith once given to the saints.