Jesus was a master at engaging people within their culture, whether they approached Him as friend or foe. He related to people without typical cultural filters. Even His primary followers had different backgrounds and livelihoods. A classic example is Jesus engaging a woman of questionable character at Jacob’s well near Sychar in the region of Samaria. It was culturally inappropriate for a Jewish man to engage a Samaritan woman in conversation.

It’s been said that history is a wonderful teacher, but a terrible master.

In this guest article, Trip Kimball uses history as a teacher. It’s a scholarly look into three significant ways that Christians throughout history have responded to the changes around us —  both good and bad —  to give us a better understanding of how to respond to today’s cultural shifts in a biblical way.

— Karl Vaters

Culture is dynamic. Fluid and fickle. Culture changes over time, sometimes with extreme pendular swings. Popular culture is reflective of shared beliefs, values, and social norms.

Each swing of culture has its own trends, like currents within the ocean, as movements within the larger cultural context.

People tend to respond in one of three general ways to pendular swings in culture: to reject, embrace, or engage each swing. Only one of these approaches is effective in bringing helpful change or productive dialogue.

These pendular swings of culture have one fixed point — human nature. They all pivot on self, our basic nature. Not our identity but our being, our innate essence centered on self-preservation.

On the surface self-preservation makes sense. It’s expected, natural. But when the self is corrupt or fragmented it’s not so good. At its basest level, self-preservation is bound to cause conflict. These conflicts disrupt our shared experiences, resulting in culture clashes.

These culture clashes are very noticeable in cross-cultural missionary experiences, but they also happen across and within sub-cultures.

1) Rejection of Cultural Shifts

Rejection is the preferred approach of those who oppose a culture shift, especially when it impacts them personally. It’s not just resistance but rejection — an unwillingness to accept or consider a cultural change.

Rejection of a cultural shift is a defense of what was, an attempt to turn back the tide of change. On the surface, to those who are opposing the change, it seems gallant and right. But it takes on a sense of righteousness. And indeed, it may very well be a righteous stance.

It’s not hard to find exceptional examples of resistance to evil. The prophet Daniel and his three cohorts (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) refused to worship anyone else but their God, the Most-High God,  the Living God (Daniel 3:12–18, 26; 6:10–23, 26).

Their stand would cost them their lives, but God intervened.

Lessons from History

Taking a righteous stand against evil requires a willingness to die for righteousness’ sake. And God doesn’t always intervene.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a modern-day example of this. He was a Lutheran pastor/theologian who stood up to Nazism and paid for it with his life. His testimony is an example of resisting an evil trend.

Not all resistance to cultural change is so righteous or wise. The Jesus People Movement and the Charismatic Renewal of the mid 1960s and early -70s (parallel moves of God’s Spirit in America) were largely resisted and condemned by the established churches of that time.

The resistance proved foolish and fruitless. It reminds me of what Gamaliel warned Jewish leaders about when they considered contending with the followers of Jesus; …if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it — lest you even be found to fight against God (Acts 5:39).

This is as a lesson to consider when attempting to resist/reject present cultural trends. The resistance of Bonhoeffer and others in the German Confessing Church did not stem the tide of Nazism. That took a world war. And yet the Nazi mindset and influence lives on.

The Jesus Movement and Charismatic Renewal did prevail and reshape the practice of Christianity during the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and -70s. It powerfully impacted American culture, then sadly faded. What was once a powerful cultural influence morphed into the present common approach to culture.

2) Embracing Cultural Shifts

The flip side of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the German Confessing Church’s resistance to Nazism is the German Christian movement. This movement was composed of fanatic Nazi Protestants, a politicized church subculture that was devoid of the Spirit of God.

This movement embraced the political-cultural wave of Hitler’s Nazi regime. They reshaped theology to buttress their nationalistic beliefs, distorting the gospel into their own racist image.

Another spiritual movement in America during the 1970s and early -80s was a hybrid smorgasbord of Eastern religions and amenable philosophies. These quasi-religious groups became known as the New Age movement, a full embrace of the countercultural social revolution of the Sixties.

It epitomized what became known as the Me Generation of the Seventies.

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