Two Principles for Engaging the Culture

This article proposes two principles that will help Christians better understand how to interact with the world as it is. The first teaches us the correct mindset, and the second shows us the correct tactic for engaging the battlespace that is 2023 America.

Why this matters

The church in the Western world is grappling with how to understand its role as a minority community in a self-consciously secular world.¹ Some flavors of the American church respond to this with a defensive impulse which stems from its memory of a different time. Whether this idyllic reality existed at meaningful scale outside of 1950s television sets is open to question.² However, that era is gone, secularism is here, the church has a minority status, and one theologian aptly likened this new world to an airplane flying blind without instruments, not knowing where it is or where it’s going.³

This is a confusing battlespace. How should the church react? That’s why these two principles about (a) the right mindset, and (b) the right tactics for engagement will be helpful.

Principle no. 1: the right mindset

The first principle is that this present world is both (a) God’s kingdom and (b) Satan’s kingdom at the same time. This world is a contested battlespace with constantly shifting battle lines. Jesus tells us it will remain this way until He sends His angels to cleanse the world. This means we should not expect or work towards a “Christianization” of society. It also means we’re not surprised, shocked, horrified, or angered when we see Babylon acting like Babylon. What else did we expect?

Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds tells us this story. He explained:

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. (Mt 13:24-26)

Jesus wants to talk about the kingdom. This parable is an allegory⁴ to explain all about it. This is one of the few parables where Jesus identifies the true referent for every character in the story; you have (a) the farmer, (b) an enemy, (c) a wheat crop, and (d) a bunch of weeds. The setup is simple; a farmer sows seed but it turns out bad!

This is bad, obviously. Something’s gotta be done …

The owner’s servants came to him and said, “Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?”

“An enemy did this,” he replied.

The servants asked him, “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” (Mt 13:27-28)

The field was supposed to be one thing, but now it’s a hot mess. The servants think they should go clean it up—why not go and rip out the weeds? What does Jesus think?

“No,” he answered, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.” (Mt 13:29-30)

Jesus says no. He says the field will never be cleansed until the harvest—Jesus will give orders to sort it all out then. But, for now, just leave it alone—let the weeds and the wheat all grow up together. If they try to pick out the weeds now, they’ll just rip out a whole bunch of wheat. Better to leave it.

In Matthew’s gospel, the writer then inserts a few other parables about the kingdom, but circles back to Jesus’ explanation of our story. This is an intriguing story, so much so that the disciples wanted to hear Jesus explain it once they had a chance to speak to Him alone (Mt 13:36).

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.” (Mt 13:37-39)

Jesus has now explained all the referents:

Pay particular attention to the field—what is it? Jesus says it’s the world, and this “field” boasts two crops which are growing side by side—the “people of the kingdom” and “people of the evil one.” This battlespace is simple—two opposing kingdoms, each with its own commanding officer, each with its own followers, inhabiting the same territory. This war will resolve when the “harvesters” arrive, whom Jesus identifies as angels.

He explains:

As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear. (Mt 13:36-43)

This “field” that is our world will remain a mess until “the end of the age.” The harvesters will fix the field when Jesus sends them. But notice that Jesus now calls the “field” the “kingdom”—He says the angels “will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.” The field is both the world and the kingdom. This suggests Jesus sees the world (i.e., His kingdom)—this present battlespace—as a territory mired in civil war. This war will end, and the kingdom will flourish, at the decisive moment in the future when He intervenes. Judgment is (in part) Him sweeping evil out of His lands forever.

“Then,” Jesus promises, “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” (Mt 13:43). Why? Because the “weeds” will be gone, and the “wheat” will finally be free to flourish in the field (i.e., “the kingdom of their Father”) without an invasive species choking them.

Jesus’ kingdom is here, right now. It’s in this world in the form of a dispersed community in exile in a hostile land.⁵ This situation will remain that way until the end of the age (cf. the parable of the net at Mt 13:47-50)—it’s why Jesus said this whole parable, the entire state of affairs it sketched, “is like” the kingdom of heaven. As one early Christian discipleship manual said, “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.”⁶

The sooner we understand that we’re pilgrims in an unholy land, the better prepared we’ll be to engage the world as it it—not the world we wish it were. If we face facts—that the world is Babylon, and Christ’s kingdom is a minority community in this hostile land—then we’ll be less likely to have a defensive posture. We won’t have an “Alamo” mindset, where we take cover behind walls, bar the gates, and deploy armed sentries on the walls. Instead, because we understand the true battlespace and have made the necessary mental adjustment, we do not angrily shut out the world and wait for Jesus. We sally forth to wave the Jesus flag and invite folks to defect from Vanity Fair and join His family.

Group A Christians who have not made this mental adjustment will often be distressed, angry, upset at the state of the world—things ain’t like they used to be. They react this way, in part, because they don’t fully appreciate the battlespace as it is. On the other hand, Group B Christians who understand their minority status in a hostile land are more likely to say, “Yes, but what else do we expect from Babylon?” and get on with the Gospel mission.

You see this immediately by how one reacts to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which many jurisdictions celebrate annually on 20 November. Group A will be outraged—what has America come to? Group B will shrug and move on. What’s the difference? The difference is that Group A doesn’t quite realize this is Babylon, and it always has been.

Principle no. 2: the right tactic

The second principle is simple—if we speak truth to the world in the manner of an Old Covenant prophet speaking to Israelites, then we’re doing it wrong.

1. Under the first covenant, the prophets spoke to covenant insiders with whom they shared religio-cultural beliefs and points of contact, calling them to be faithful to their covenant status. The prophets rarely evangelized unbelievers.⁷ The prophets often spoke to insiders about insider problems.
2. However, the new covenant situation is quite different. Now evangelism is an overt priority. There are few religio-cultural points of contact or shared sources of authority with unbelievers.
3. This calls for a shift in tactics. Rather than the denouncement approach which the Old Covenant prophets often used, this present battlespace calls for the tactic of persuasion.

I don’t intend to go any further along this line. Suffice it to say that angry denouncement will only work with people who already share your values. Unbelievers—those outside the New Covenant—will not respond to this tactic. This isn’t a revolutionary principle … in theory.

But do we make these principles real in local church life?

1. First, because each local church is a kingdom embassy in a foreign land, we aren’t surprised when folks in Babylon act and live like Babylonians.
2. Second, because we’re largely speaking to covenant outsiders (unlike the Old Covenant prophets), this means angry denouncement and appeals to scripture (“don’t you know the bible says?”) are ineffective.

These principles are complementary:

1. First, we accept reality as it is and get on with the job. We don’t get angry, defensive, frustrated with Babylon—because we already know it’s Babylon.
2. Second, we model persuasion and understanding. This does not mean compromise. It means we seek to understand why unbelievers think and live the way they do, so we can “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,” (2 Cor 10:5).

The principles are particularly difficult to implement inside the church. An Old Covenant prophet denounces “a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption … Why do you persist in rebellion?” (Isa 1:4, 5). A New Covenant evangelist asks, “Friends, why are you doing this? … We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them,” (Acts 14:15, 16).

Our posture is noticed—is it joyful confidence or angry defensiveness?