¹⁴ “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

Christ and Culture” is the title of a book by theologian H. Richard Niebuhr (1951). Considering the relationship Christians have with the world around them, he analyzed his topic around the themes of 1) Christ against culture, 2) Christ of culture, 3) Christ above culture, 4) Christ and culture in paradox, and 5) Christ transforming culture. His question was how do or how should followers of Jesus Christ live in this world?

Is our faith conditioned to some degree by the cultural lenses we all wear? We might, for example, ask whether there is legitimacy to “black theology” or an “African theology” or a “continental theology”? Is there an authentic “Christian theology”? Should we engage culture or isolate ourselves from it; enjoy culture (the benign part of it) or avoid all forms of entertainment except those overtly Christian? Or in the words of our passage today, what does it mean to be “not of the world, even as I am not of the world”?

These are not easy questions, but I think they should not weigh us down in endless deliberations. Jesus enjoyed aspects of the cultural milieu in which He lived. The wedding feast at Canaan is one example, and He even made some great wine for it. He hung out with tax collectors and their ilk. The world has wedding celebrations; the world has their “non-Christian” parties. Jesus obviously enjoyed the entertainment of nature, often using the birds, flowers and the weather to provide fascinating illustrations for His teachings. Scripture (the NT in particular) is relatively silent about the styles of dress, forms of media entertainment, and the specifics about outward lists of worldly do’s and don’ts. So Jesus wasn’t completely against the culture. Interestingly, along with the Scripture writers, He was more concerned about the moral and spiritual aspects of life rather than legal things and surface behavior.

But there were certain aspects of culture that were accepted as normal, which were in reality signs of rebellion against God. The Pharisees were held in high esteem and made an ostentatious show of their “good” works and rituals. When the culture condemned the woman supposedly caught in adultery (John 8), Jesus turned the culture of Judaism on its ear by not condemning that woman. He was above the lofty self-aggrandizements of the religious-cultural elite. Yet, Jesus was also “in” the culture or world of His day, but He was not “of” the world. And that is the difference we will look at next.

Lord, help me not be controlled by requirements of my culture today, but to mold my life after the “culture” of Christ’s grace and love.