The gospel is good news. But what is the good news in North American culture? Is it different in African culture? Latin culture? Asian culture? What is the good news in an oppressed country like Sudan? How about a communist country like Vietnam or China? How about the impoverished regions of India?
In the West we quickly think like consumers - e.g. how will this improve my quality of life? We see ourselves as consumers whose sole purpose in life is to satify our "needs." This cultural mindset permeates the church in such deep and unconscious ways that we are oftentimes unable to distinguish and accurately reflect the gospel.
In our culture (Western) the gospel becomes all about serving me, helping me, and making my life better (e.g. meeting my needs.) When many churches talk about "meeting needs" what they are really talking about is "satisfying the customer." Is that what the gospel is about and for? James V. Brownson in his book Stormfront says "It is almost impossible for most people in North America even to imagine any other way of living."
This runs so deep in us that we have difficulty seeing that this contradicts biblical faith. The gospel is not "good news that Jesus will make you happy, healthy, wealthy, and without need." The gospel is not "good news that you can be self-actualized and independently satisfied." I want to think much more deeply about this. I plan to blog about this in the coming weeks. What do you think about my observation?
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5 comments:
Hey everyone, this is a post from Mark Harris (he was unable to login). Here's what Mark says:
Glenn, I have been tossing an idea around my head for some time now and
would like your feedback. In American churches we seem to teach that church
attendance is the measure of spiritual maturity. In our city less than 10%
of the population attends church, so many believe that by attending church
they are really taking a stand. That view is encouraged further in most
churches because there are only a enough meaningful church tasks for about
20% of the people to do, so the other 80% feel very comfortable just
attending church and giving as their primary measure of spirituality.
What if we helped people view church attendance and giving are the very
least you can do? As a Christian you are to be discovering the "works God
prepared in advance for us to do." Christians are to spend their lives
fulfilling those works God prepared for us to do. In order to facilitate
this change in understanding, churches must realize that church attendance
is level one or entry level Christianity. Anyone can attend and give. Being
in a small group or accountability group is level two. This is where
transformation begins to take place individually and in groups. Serving
(doing good works) in Jesus' name in the community to believers and
unbelievers requires more training and commitment. This may be level three.
And doing good works in Jesus' name in the world requires the greatest
amount of training, the highest level of commitment and the deepest level of
obedience, maybe even obedience to the point of death. Churches will not
become missional nor will they produce missional disciples, when sitting on
Sunday morning is viewed as the pinnacle of spiritual success.
Mark, I think you are right on!!!
This post is from James Lee...
Glenn, I appreciate your reflections. You know the joys and challenges I face planting a racially diverse church. Your initial questions start to speak to those issues. I am also convicted because of my personal struggle to balance my beliefs that “the gospel transcends our cultures, ethnicities, and different economic groups” and the push to respond to the need factor.
I look forward to seeing how you define the gospel. I have heard many include all of the gospel readings while others focus on just the evangelism (Matthew 28), justice (Luke 4), or needs texts (Matthew 25).
Keep up the great work. With church leaders like you and the group at New Church Initiatives, I am sure that the Holy Spirit will produce more missional disciples through churches and Christians. Peace, James
Glenn- your words on this topic illustrate the long standing feud between western and eastern views of materialism as applied to Christianity, but I feel a more core issue may be of wealth regardless of culture. The highest ranking, powerful party officials in a communist country are just as much analogous in spirit to the Barn Builder in scripture as an Enron executive in western culture. I would propose that a powerful warlord in Africa has spiritually insulated himself from need as much as a powerful crime boss in New York. The poorest in all cultures are probably more open to the true Gospel than the wealthy in those same cultures. At this point in history, the USA or the west in general is wealthier across the board. Despite a leftist's protests, here in America even some of our poorest citizen's have enough material goods to be an incredible spiritual distraction and of course the desire for more doesn't help. In an African country (especially one in political strife) the ratio of wealthy (probably a very small percentage) to poor (probably the vast majority) is way different. So rather than local traditions or culture making them more open to the Gospel, I would posit that it is more their lack of earthly material distraction and ironically even a hopelessness of acquiring wealth that helps them seek spiritual hope. Here or in the 3rd world, earthly goods and comfort tend be a barrier to openness to spiritual truth. Israel's history illustrates this to some degree. Conquered, enslaved, starving or under siege- their earthly needs drove them to their spiritual need for the Lord. A few generations of good crops and military success, they get fat and happy- God goes out the window.
...I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Matthew 19:24
So east or west, the challenge of communicating the true gospel is how do we get it undistorted through the relatively thicker or thinner filters of relative earthly wealth.
Glenn- your words on this topic illustrate the long standing feud between western and eastern views of materialism as applied to Christianity, but I feel a more core issue may be of wealth regardless of culture. The highest ranking, powerful party officials in a communist country are just as much analogous in spirit to the Barn Builder in scripture as an Enron executive in western culture. I would propose that a powerful warlord in Africa has spiritually insulated himself from need as much as a powerful crime boss in New York. The poorest in all cultures are probably more open to the true Gospel than the wealthy in those same cultures. At this point in history, the USA or the west in general is wealthier across the board. Despite a leftist's protests, here in America even some of our poorest citizen's have enough material goods to experience an incredible spiritual distraction and of course the desire for more doesn't help. In an African country (especially one in political strife) the ratio of wealthy (probably a very small percentage) to poor (probably the vast majority) is way different. So rather than local traditions or culture making them more open to the Gospel, I would posit that it is more their lack of earthly material distraction and ironically even a hopelessness of acquiring wealth that helps them seek spiritual hope. Here or in the 3rd world, earthly goods and comfort tend be a barrier to openness to spiritual truth. Israel's history illustrates this to some degree. Conquered, enslaved, starving or under siege- their earthly needs drove them to their spiritual need for the Lord. A few generations of good crops and military success, they get fat and happy- God goes out the window.
"...I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."-Matthew 19:24
So east or west, the challenge of communicating the true gospel is how do we get it undistorted through the relatively thicker or thinner filters of relative earthly wealth.
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