Posted on 05/28/2013 6:58:35 AM PDT by xzins
For centuries, Christians thought culture would change if we just had a majority of Christians in the culture. That has proven to be a false assumption. Culture is defined by a relatively small number of change agents who operate at the top of cultural spheres or societal mountains. It takes less than 3-5 percent of those operating at the top of a cultural mountain to actually shift the values represented on that mountain.
For example, this is exactly what advocates in the gay rights movement has done through the "mountains" of media and arts and entertainment. They have strategically used these avenues to promote their cause and reframe the argument. They are gradually legitimizing their cause through these two cultural mountains through a small percentage of people in society operating at the top of the media and arts and entertainment mountain.
Mountains are controlled by a small percentage of leaders and networks. James Hunter, in a book entitled How to Change the World, highlights what sociologist Randall Collins says about civilizations in his book The Sociology of Philosophies. According to Collins, civilizations have been defined by a very small percentage of cultural philosophers who influence seven gates and supporting networks since our birth as a civilization.
Hunter summarizes, “Even if we add the minor figures in all of the networks, in all of the civilizations, the total is only 2,700. In sum, between 150 and 3,000 people (a tiny fraction of the roughly 23 billion people living between 600 B.C. and A.D. 1900) framed the major contours of all world civilizations. Clearly, the transformations here were top-down.”
What an amazing piece of information. Imagine that. Culture has been defined since the beginning of time by no more than 3,000 change agents, a tiny fraction of the population.
That is why we must realize that making more converts will not necessarily change culture. It is important to have conversions, but it is more important to have those who are converted operate at the tops of the cultural mountains from a biblical worldview.
Those at the tops of these mountains are expressing their liberal worldview through these cultural spheres. The more godly the change agent at the top, the more righteous the culture will be. The more ungodly, the more liberal we will become. It doesn’t matter if the majority of the culture is made up of Christians. It only matters who has the greatest influence over that cultural mountain.
Our Current Status in Culture
“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan” (Prov. 29:2).
For the last several decades, culture has become increasingly secular and liberal in the United States. But God has always raised up His change agents to represent His interests and agenda on Planet Earth. God is raising up His change agents for such a time as this.
We know that Jesus will return for a bride, that “He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). So, despite the trends we may see, I believe we need to operate from a victorious eschatological viewpoint. God’s current activity in the marketplace is part of this.
He is calling us in His church to “love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart, with all [our] soul, and with all [our] mind” (Matt. 22:37). This means applying God’s mind to the natural order expressed through the cultural mountains of society.
Changing culture rarely happens without the cooperation of other like-minded change agents pooling their resources and influence capital to make change.
William Wilberforce Solves the Slave-Trade Problem
William Wilberforce was a British politician and philanthropist who lived in the late 1700s and was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780 and became the independent member of Parliament for Yorkshire (1784-1812). He was a close friend of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.
In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an evangelical Christian, resulting in changes to his lifestyle and his interest in reform. He was 28 years old at the time and wondered whether he could stay in politics and remain a follower of Jesus Christ. His good friend John Newton, who was a converted slave trader and author of the famous hymn "Amazing Grace," convinced him to stay in politics to model his faith in the public sector. His life was dramatized in a 2007 movie production from Walden Media entitled Amazing Grace.
In 1787, Wilberforce came in contact with Thomas Clarkson and a group of anti-slave-trade activists, including Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Lord Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he soon became one of the leading English abolitionists, heading the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade until the eventual passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807.
The Clapham Group
Wilberforce was part of a small band of influential leaders in England called the Clapham Group. They were a small group of leaders operating in the governmental "mountain" of influence. Its members were chiefly prominent and wealthy evangelical Anglicans who shared common political views concerning the liberation of slaves, the abolition of the slave trade and the reform of the penal system.
The group's name originated from Clapham, then a village south of London (today part of southwest London), where both Wilberforce and Thornton, the sect's two most influential leaders, resided and where many of the group's meetings were held. They were supported by Beilby Porteus, bishop of London, who sympathized with many of their aims.
After many decades of work both in British society and in Parliament, the group saw their efforts rewarded with the final passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, banning the trade throughout the British Empire and, after many further years of campaigning, the total emancipation of British slaves with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. They also campaigned vigorously for Britain to use its influence to eradicate slavery throughout the world.
It was not a large group. It consisted of less than 20 leaders. However, these leaders were passionate about their faith, their causes and their commitment to those causes.
If we are going to have a positive influence in culture, we must rethink our strategy from "getting more people saved" to "getting more kingdom marketplace leaders operating in the places of influence." Both strategies are important, but cultural change will only happen when a small group of kingdom marketplace leaders operate at the top of these cultural mountains by solving societal problems and bringing a Christian worldview into their leadership.
I can't disagree strongly enough. The only way this would "work" is if the author is talking about a autocratic monarchy imposing their cultural will onto a powerless majority.
Turns out gay sex doesn't sell ~ it's all rather dull, and the characters are mostly one dimensional. Once all the gay jokes are used up in the first 5 minutes, there's nothing else to be concerned with.
We don’t need more Christians; we need the kind that keeps the ancient apostolic faith, within the Church founded by Jesus Christ. The privatized DIY American model is hopelessly inadequate and defective.
Within that spiritual movement, I think you come up with one answer. When you try to translate the benefits of that movement to the culture and politics, it seems to get a little hazy.
Hunter summarizes, “Even if we add the minor figures in all of the networks, in all of the civilizations, the total is only 2,700. In sum, between 150 and 3,000 people (a tiny fraction of the roughly 23 billion people living between 600 B.C. and A.D. 1900) framed the major contours of all world civilizations. Clearly, the transformations here were top-down.”What an amazing piece of information. Imagine that. Culture has been defined since the beginning of time by no more than 3,000 change agents, a tiny fraction of the population.
I both agree and disagree.
I have thought many times (out loud) that it would greatly benefit conservatives if they owned one of the major broadcast networks.
At the same time, a great revival could spawn such a move by some leader or leadership group.
short answer: Because our culture has fallen under the control of a tiny clique of rabid, militant gay atheist secular humanists with an agenda.
My tagline......
And we don't have this?
I believe the author is absolutely correct.
The vast majority of people do not have strong, determined opinions. They simply follow along with cultural currents. Those currents are heavily influenced, indeed almost determined, by very small numbers of people who influence those who produce the culture, who in turn influence us all.
Some fight against cultural drift if they think it necessary, and others influence its direction. But most people merely drift with the current.
What a bunch of garbage. Christ’s influence over 2000 years is what has driven our culture. It has constrained what types of government are acceptable, along with the respective laws that are compatible with Judeo-Christian ethics.
In contrast, look at the middle east, driven by Islam. The outcomes are inevitable, it’s not by chance that the western world thrived while the ME languish. It is self-evident, yet people do not understand the impact that religious philosophy has on culture and prosperity (or lack of).
4 But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
5 And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.
6 And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.
7 And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.
8 And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
9 And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
10 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
14 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
15 And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria:
16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.
17 And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.
18 Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.
Or as Yogi Berra summarized this chapter: It ain't over til it's over.......
Cal Thomas, in his book “Blinded by the Might” came out against the religious right ideas of Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, a movement that he had been part of. He decided that identifying Christianity with a political party and with politics did irreparable damage to Christianity that should be a matter of folks becoming believers.
All of that, Thomas said, would result in a more Christian culture rather than a forced Christian culture.
In retrospect, I can’t say that it has worked out that way. NOT having powerful voices and organizations involved at the political level has resulted in nothing good that I can see. In fact, the culture has gone rapidly backward.
I must admit that at the time of Cal Thomas’ comments, I thought he had a point. The reality though, is that Reagan was right about unilateral disarmament. If you both leave the battlefield and leave the weapons to your enemies, then they are going to steamroll you.
And that’s exactly what’s been happening.
Exactly . . . we don't need more EC (Easter/Christmas) and Cafeteria Christians . . . we need keepers of the apostolic faith.
Unless they are all of the exact same mindset, all you end up having, is lots of folk arguing about how they are right and the others are wrong.
The problem is reasonably simple. The majority of evangelical Christians do not vote, do not run for office, do not get involved in the local grass-roots meetings of the political parties.
Many Christians have a “it’s all gonna burn” so why get involved, or politics is “worldly” and attempting to participate is “unGodly”. What they do not realize is that part of Paul’s instruction in Romans 13 to “submit to the governing authorities” is to not just obey the laws of the land, but in our system of government, participation in that government by its citizens is a requirement for it to function properly in a Godly way.
Our form of government obviously did not exist in the 1st century, but part of being a good citizen in our country is to participate in it: vote, run for office, be involved. The early American settlers were very involved in the colonial governments.
It doesn’t have to be a “theocracy”, but abstaining from all participation leaves the field to the purely secular-minded, to the relativist moral mindset.
If we, as Christians, refuse to participate in our government by not voting, not running for office, not being involved in the structure of the political parties, then we are disobeying Paul’s instruction to “submit” (at least in our form of government). From local government to state to the national level, Christians abstaining from participation guarantees that secularism will prevail at every level.
Why should we expect anything other than what we have today when only 30 or 35% of Christians even register to vote, let alone vote at all?
Thankfully ‘Modern Family’ hasn’t been cancelled.
Tell that to the Boys Scouts.
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