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.
CBN
These guys missed the fact the homosexual cultural high-water mark was reached and is now gone. JC Penny is going bankrupt ~ and Chucky Cheese will probably outlast them! The Boy Scouts may or may not wake up before they're down to nothing but Mormons ~ or, maybe not. The Mormons always count on being able to isolate themselves from everything else.
I do not doubt you are correct.
My point is that the people who are behind this are small in number. But they’ve been cunning enough to park themselves at all the important levers and switches of our culture.
Like any military operation, numbers alone don’t determine the outcome. tactics, terrain, morale, training, courage, and even luck all play a role.
On the cultural battlefield, we are being outfought.
Isn't that what we have in every country in the world now? In fact, is it not true that there have only been a very few brief moments in world history where that has not been true. This isnt one of them.
And remember how critically acclaimed “Brokeback Mountain” was? The media hailed it as not only breaking new ground, but as being a great movie, with great acting, great photography, great music, etc.
Some even thought that Brokeback would pave the way for more homosexual themed movies. But Brokeback did not start any new trends in that area.
Maybe the activists in Hollywood overplayed their hands with homosexual characters in TV shows.
One of those cancelled was the one about the male couple who had a surrogate mother carry their baby as they started their family. I never saw that show. But I’m sure hilarity ensued..........
Excellent article. I remember a paperback book from Moody Press, “Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave” by Dave Breese. He lists: Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Julius Wellhausen, Sigmund Freud, John Dewey, John Maynard Keynes, Soren Kirkegaard. Breese takes a more philosophical approach but these are modern examples of men whose ideas have influenced our society.
I disagree. I think Cal Thomas is right. It hasnt worked out not because Christians are no longer involved in partisan politics, but because they havent made more believers.
CBN was based on that idea. The problem was that CBN didn’t become an infusion of Christian cultural ideas. It became a series of Christian ministers/ministries doing their own thing. And poor Pat, now a bit worn if not senile, is prone to mistakes in broadcasting.
Outfought, outthought and comprehensively outmanoevered more like.
Spot on.
What would be the draw in an infusion of Christian cultural ideas that would make money?
Reagan was right about unilateral disarmament. If you leave the battlefield and discard your weapons, then you’ll at best have no impact, and at worst you’ll be roundly defeated.
As one man said, “The Gates of Hell will not prevail” doesn’t mean we are being attacked by gates. It means we are storming the gates.
Christians are not storming the gates. They’re out hiding in their homes and preparing for a backyard barbeque.
And, oddly, there is no leader(s) leading the conflict with the culture.
You have to have the desire to change the culture don’t you? What would do that?
The draw if properly done would be uplifting, soul-inspiring, heart touching truth.
How does one go about making believers in the 21st century? Especially on a large basis.
I absolutely agree with that, IronJack. You are right on the money.
I believe we have withdrawn from the battlefield.
How would that be presented to people that do not believe what you say is the truth? How would that make money?
Prior to pursuing the end of human enslavement, a few Christian leaders established America and our constitution of individual freedom for white men.
Christian leaders rose to end the slavement of human beings and Christian leaders eventually ended segregation and imposed bussing ending the freedom of association for total Federal control. They sought constitutional freedom for women which progressed to become anti-male. They progressed to install reverse discrimination and racist and anti-male and anti-family hate doctrines and agendas.
They were involved in improving conditions of prisoners and progressed to be against justice. They cheered the criminals and their crimes and gave no mercy nor care to the victims.
They moved to end mindless polution and progressed to become anti-property ownership and pagan earth worship.
The movement of human freedom and natural law Christians began in the establishment of the US has “progressed” to become anti-freedom, known as liberalism and globalism. It is now racist, anti human life and anti-love and anti-Christ. It promotes tribalism, envy, intolerance, criminals and crime, global fascism and global marxism, inequality before the law, immorality, disease and hate. “Christians” involved in this movement today have renounced their faith and freedom. They have installed the modern anti-Christ liberal agenda to undo the churches.
The issue I have is with the bolded phrase "It doesn’t matter if the majority of the culture is made up of Christians." It absolutely matters! If the majority doesn't like what the leadership is doing, they will find a way to get different leadership. To your point, I don't have a strong opinion re which group starts things off first. What I'm saying is that there needs to be a cultural influence coming from both groups, or else the influence of either will be short-lived. It's my view that focusing growing the "majority" should be today's priority. IMO we can't elect and sustain Godly leadership, without having the support of a statistically influential voting base.
Seen at a different angle, what really talking about here is whether Christians can have any hope to influence the culture, at least short-term. Is there a behavioral model that can reverse the course of the culture? I myself believe that the blood of Christ is capable of redeeming everything affected by the Fall. I believe that God has given us guidelines for how to behave, as redeemed individuals, in every area of life, and I believe that He rewards such behavior. Further, I believe that the effect of such behavior will be compounded by the number of repentant/obedient souls performing it, to ultimately effect a positive change in culture and politics and art and everything produced by man. So long as Christians are obedient, and increase in number (the majority) and influence (the leadership) they will positively impact the culture around them.
IMO we got into the position we're in, because some Christians have been raised to believe that "You don't polish the brass on a sinking ship!", quoting evangelist Dwight L. Moody in the 19th century. These Christians believe that the culture will not (and cannot) be redeemed by anything - not even by a wholesale repentance and conversion of the population. In their view, nothing short of the physical return of Christ will have any lasting impact on it, and thus the most a redeemed man can hope for is that the cultural rot might be delayed, making a future generation deal with it instead. Their view became the dominant one in Christian culture, and it caused multiple generations of Christians to abandon the culture and leadership of our country to others. And that's where we're at today. What good is it to ask people to repent and convert, and not prepare them for how to live afterward? The Great Commission commands us to make disciples, not converts. A man cannot repent of his old behavior, unless he has a new set of behaviors to substitute for them! And can those new behaviors be expected to "do" anything in his life? In his children's lives? In the culture around him?
Disciples must learn more than just how to make more converts. The "don't polish the brass" view says that living one's life for Christ in doesn't add up to jack squat statistically or sociologically, whereas living one's life for Satan has a statistically measurable, progressively successful effect on society in every era. What response should we expect to a Gospel message that asks people to repent and convert, but not give them hope (and instruction) for the life they will live afterward? I know what response to expect, because we're living in its aftermath today.
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