In just a few weeks, I’m releasing a book called Everyday Revolutionary: How to Transcend the Culture War and Transform the World. It’s all about living faithfully when we feel like outsiders in our own culture—a feeling that, increasingly, nearly all of us are familiar with. Today’s post is a bit of a teaser for what you’ll find in the book. You can pre-order a copy today!
–Pastor J.D.
For as long as Christianity has existed, arguments have raged about our approach to culture. Is culture something God created, a good thing we should learn from? Or is culture corrupted by sin and the fall, a bad thing we need to avoid?
The reason this debate has persisted for 2,000 years is that the Bible seems to pull us in two different directions at the same time. On one side, there are clear commands to be distinct and separate. Consider Revelation 18:4, which was a huge verse in my church upbringing: “Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues …’”
“Come out of her, my people.” Seems clear enough. And it’s not just Revelation either. Jeremiah said, “Do not learn the ways of the nations” (Jeremiah 10:2). Paul wrote, “Do not be conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2). Isaiah said, “Depart, depart, go out from there; touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her” (Isaiah 52:11). And God himself, through Moses, said, “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples” (Leviticus 20:26).
It’s tough to get any clearer than that: “Come out from among them and be separate.”
The problem is, the Bible doesn’t only tell us to “be separate.” It also tells us to stay put. For example, in Jeremiah 29, which was written during a period of exile, God told his people, “Build houses, live in them; plant gardens … seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile” (vv. 5, 7). The Apostle Peter essentially repeats that same instruction in his first letter to the church, encouraging believers to stay put, be a witness, and make a difference.
So which is it? Come out of her, my people?, or Settle in and seek the city’s welfare?
Some people might look at this and throw up their hands. It’s a contradiction! See, I told you the Bible couldn’t be trusted! Not so fast. Whenever you see an apparent contradiction in the Bible, that’s usually the place you’ll find wisdom. Revelation’s command to come out and Jeremiah’s command to stay put don’t contradict each other; they complement each other.
Here’s how: If we are to live in “Babylon”—in a society that doesn’t value what we value, doesn’t live how we live, doesn’t trust in God how we do—then we need to be both deeply integrated into life here, but also live distinct from Babylon’s sins and her man-centered ways.
If we can hold on to the tension between these two truths, we’ll go from being a cultural warrior to a gospel witness. We’ll learn how to live, as Jesus taught in John 17, in the world but not of the world.
Christians always tend to navigate toward one of two extremes. For some people, the “come out from among them and be ye separate” thing is what they do. I know, because I lived it for years.
Not of This World (And Proud of It!)
Revelation 18:4 was a huge verse for me in my Christian high school. I heard so many sermons on that verse. It’s like the pastor, if he didn’t know what to preach, just went back to this verse.
Christians should be different! That was the message. So we didn’t dress like the world: Our dress code was straight out of Little House on the Prairie, with an occasional fashion flair that we picked up from The Brady Bunch.
As boys, we wore our hair short, even though the style at the time for boys back in the ‘80s was long and wavy. And the men in our churches didn’t have beards. Sure, in all the pictures of Jesus in our KJV Bibles, he had long hair and a beard, but we just assumed that those pictures were drawn by liberals (because only liberals like art).
We didn’t get tattoos or wear earrings. Only gangs and pop stars did that. Only the lead singer of Wham wore an earring, and you don’t want to be like him.
We didn’t dance, because dancing was the devil’s foreplay. And we definitely didn’t listen to rock music, because that would make you want to dance—and we all know where dancing led. We were even forbidden to listen to Christian rock, because Christian rock was “mixing God’s message with Babylon’s rhythms.” If the beat got to your feet before the lyrics got to your heart, it was a sin.
You might think all of that is crazy. But I’m not making any of this stuff up. These are literal things I heard dozens of times. “Be ye separate” was the command, and we took it seriously. For us, social weirdness was proof of godliness.
A Little Too Into This World
There are others of you, though, who aren’t anywhere near that. You’ve deeply integrated your life into our society. Your danger isn’t being too weird and too different, but looking far too much like Babylon. Your values in your job are Babylon’s values. Your goals for retirement are the same as Babylon’s. Your understanding of right and wrong is shaped by Babylon. You don’t challenge the world with your online presence; you mirror it.
Your approach to relationships and romance is more influenced by pop culture than by the Bible. And I can prove it.
Let’s take one of our culture’s leading singers, the newly engaged Taylor Swift. (Congratulations, Taylor!) I’ll bet you’ve got her approach to romance and life in your blood. For example, if I were to give you a line from one of her songs—even without hearing me butcher it by trying to sing it—I’ll bet you could finish the line. Songs like …
“Cause baby now we’ve got …”
I heard you. If you didn’t sing “bad blood,” you’re one of five people who hasn’t heard the song.
Here’s another one:
“I knew you were trouble …”
I’m guessing that I got you again. The correct answer was, “when you walked in.”
Last one:
“Been here all along, so why can’t you see? …”
That’s right: “You belong with me.”
My point isn’t that we should burn all of our Taylor Swift CDs (or whatever the twenty-first century equivalent of that is). I’m not picking on her. I’m just asking you who should be framing your approach to love—Taylor Swift or Jesus?
Try to finish this line, from 1 John 3:16: “By this we know love, that …”
This is the Apostle John, literally telling you what love is. Are you struggling to complete his thought? You aren’t alone.
(Here it is, by the way: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”)
Who shapes your view of life, and how distinguishable are you from the world?
A Different Conductor
In his book The City of God, St. Augustine said that Christians, citizens of the kingdom of God, should be most distinguishable from the world around them in three primary areas—money, power, and sex. If you want to know if someone’s really distinct from Babylon, these are the three areas to look at:
- The City of Man, he says, sees money as a tool for acquisition and self-promotion. Get all you can, keep all you can, spend all you can. Sure, give a little so you look good and get a tax write-off, but otherwise, it’s for you! The Christian, on the other hand, believes money is a stewardship from God to bless others and advance his kingdom.
- In the same way, The City of Man says power is to be grasped and leveraged for yourself. Power is the currency of self-promotion. The Christian, by contrast, believes power is something God entrusts to us to serve and build up others. You’re evaluated, in God’s eyes, not by how high you climb, but by how high you lift up others.
- Finally, The City of Man says sex is whatever you want it to be: You write your own rules, and if it works for you (as long as it’s not hurting anyone), it can’t be wrong. The Christian says sex is a gift from God to be honored within his design. For the Christian, sex is about loving self-giving and glorifying God more than stingy self-gratification.
As Tim Keller notes, “Roman society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its bodies. They gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body. By contrast, the Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave practically everybody their money.”
You’re supposed to be different from the world. Not because you don’t have earrings or tattoos or because you wear denim skirts and never listen to the radio. Your whole life is supposed to scream that you’re from somewhere else! People should look at you and say, “You ain’t really from here,” because you’re so out of sync with the rhythms of Babylon.
Think of it like this: Picture a huge marching band at halftime—every single person moving in perfect sync, lockstep motion. But then you see one guy in the middle doing his own thing. He’s got the same uniform as everyone else, but he’s moving completely differently. When everybody goes left, he goes right. When they duck, he jumps. When they stand still, he shakes. He looks totally out of rhythm, and you’re tempted to think that he just can’t keep the beat—until you notice he’s got AirPods in. And you find out he’s listening to a local radio station and they’re playing “I Don’t Wanna Wait” by David Guetta and OneRepublic. Turns out he’s perfectly in rhythm; he’s just tuned into a different conductor.
That’s the Christian life. To the world we look odd, even out of step, but we’re actually just following another conductor. We’re perfectly in rhythm with the music of another City.
