(By David Giarrizzo)

[I’m borrowing the title of this post from the subtitle of Robert Spinney’s booklet entitled, Did God Create Sports Also?: Thinking Christianly About Sports.]

Last week was game 1 of the Phoenix Suns-L.A. Lakers match-up for the NBA Western Conference finals. I had a group of about 8 guys over to watch the game. We had the usual trappings of a game-night party: chips, drinks, bratwursts, veggies, and cookies.

Oh, and a devotional.

When I sent out the text-message invite earlier that day, a brother of mine responded by suggesting a half-time devotional. I thought it was a great idea, and I was reminded of the book by Robert Spinney about sports.

In just 21 pages, Spinney makes it clear that sports, while they can be used to glorify God and benefit us, they can also be misused and made into an idol. I found this quote to be the central theme of the book:

“We should not accept blindly our culture’s understanding of anything, including hobbies, politics, vulgar speech, or care for the elderly. Nor should we simply assume that our culture uses sports as God intended them to be used. We must think Christianly about the subjects of entertainment and physical recreation. Like work, marriage, child-rearing, and education, this area of life must be taken captive to the obedience of Christ and submitted to His lordship (2 Corinthians 10:5).”

Here’s an outline of Spinney’s major points:

1. Sports are a part of God’s good creation. They can both glorify God and profit our souls.
2. We can engage in recreation in such a way that it doesn’t glorify God and doesn’t bless us.
3. We misuse sports when they (not God) address our deepest needs and become our purpose in life.
4. Sports do not glorify God when they distract us from biblical behaviors and require too much time.
5. Our sports do not glorify God when they nurture in us an excessive and unhealthy competitiveness.
6. For many, sports expose how we behave when we love something and are deeply committed to it.

It’s not surprising any more that some Christians want little to do with professional sports today. These Christians may choose to abstain from following sports like they may choose to abstain from watching any television or going to the movies or listening to “secular” music, etc. But as I’ve written before, we must not equate abstinence to holiness. While we can all acknowledge that sports and TV and film and music have all been used and abused by a sinful society, we cannot say that God does not also use these same things to bring glory to Himself. In fact, God created sports and man’s athletic abilities, and we know that all things God created are good. Sports and art and other aspects of culture are gifts from God to mankind. We must remember to use everything God has given to us to glorify Him (1 Corinthians 10:31).

So be encouraged, brothers and sisters, as you enjoy the gifts of God through culture, always giving thanks and glory to the Maker of all good things. Like Eric Liddell, enjoy sports to the glory of God. Go Suns!

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” –Abraham Kuyper

(By David Giarrizzo)
Some people may view the work of engaging culture as no better than polishing brass on a sinking ship. But I would disagree with that estimation. I believe that the Bible is explicitly clear in setting forth our responsibility here on earth until Christ’s return: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20) This was a command set forth by Christ Himself to every generation of believers to follow. So with this as our foundation for engaging culture—to seek to make disciples of men—may we be fitted with the belt of Truth and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit as we engage our culture to the glory of God.

Having already considered wrong approaches that Christians take to culture, let us now consider a more biblical approach in our dealings with our culture:

A Right Approach to Culture…

• Stand on Scripture.
• Know the Times.
• Preach the Gospel.

Unfortunately, there is no simple “12-Step Plan for Successful Cultural Engagement.” The truth is nothing worth pursuing is that easy. What I’m proposing is a mindset, not a methodology. It is a philosophy that should encompass our understanding and actions regarding the world. And the actions that flow out of this philosophy should represent a life of devotion to God. Engaging culture requires time and sacrifice. Engaging the culture takes a heart that aches for lost souls. But before someone labels me as being overly simplistic, let us further consider these principles and the implications they have on both the person who seeks to counter the culture and on the culture itself.

Stand on Scripture.
Truly engaging our culture requires biblical discernment. But true discernment doesn’t come easily. A person who seeks to address the errors and abuses of popular culture must know the ultimate standard of morality, that is, God’s Law. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9) A proper knowledge of scripture is primary and essential to a right approach to pop culture.

“The culture is to be constantly judged by the Bible, rather than the Bible being bent to conform to the surrounding culture.” -Francis Schaeffer

When we are firmly established in the Word and confronted with a cultural text or trend, we should be quick to utilize a solidly biblical worldview that has been taught and trained to discern truth from error based on the authority of God’s Word. Calvin described the Bible as glasses which aid us in reading the world around us so that what we see we see through the lens of God’s truth. But this takes effort on our part; therefore we must follow Paul’s admonishment in 1 Corinthians 16:13: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”

Like trees planted by streams of water, may we ever find ourselves rooted in the depths of God’s Word if we are to be known as faithful evangelists. May we stand firm on God’s Word and use that two-edged sword to distinguish truth from error.

Know the Times.
In 1 Chronicles we read the list of David’s mighty men, and there were those from Issachar who, as we are told, understood the times to know what Israel should. “Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command.” (1 Chronicles 12:32) These men in their day were able to look around at their cultural landscape and make sound judgments based on what they observed. They had a discernment based on God’s Word, and they were able to act upon their understanding of the times.

For us today this means taking an active part in our culture. Knowing the times involves being well-read in cultural texts, even well-versed in cultural expressions so as to speak the language when necessary. Dialogue with the culture can serve a noble purpose provided that it has a purpose. More specifically, in order to understand the times, here are a few simple ways to get to know the culture around us without engaging in the sins of the world:

• Begin by stepping out of the office every once-in-a-while.
• Find time to watch a recently-released movie.
• Read a book from the New York Times bestseller’s list.
• Tune to a secular radio station for a day.
• Visit a museum—art, science, or history.
• Watch the news (and feel free to talk back to the television like I do!).
• Become politically active; vote!
• And in all of these things, using the spectacles of Scripture, discern what is true and know what to do.

Preach the Gospel.
“…Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” 2 Timothy 4:2

For all of the world’s problems and the culture’s ailments, there is one important solution, only one cure: The Gospel. There are church groups in America that are preaching relevance and freshness instead of repentance and forgiveness.  But when the truth loses its truthfulness, its very substance is changed from truth to falsehood.  As I’ve said before, if anyone wants to be relevant, let him know his Bible better than he knows his culture. If God’s Word possesses the power of life, then what are some churches doing wasting time with preaching moralism? The Bible doesn’t call on churches or church leaders to have a chit-chat with popular culture over lattes, but to preach the Word!

Charles Spurgeon, a man who lived and died over a century ago, understood the importance of preaching the truth of the Gospel in his day. How much more should we be concerned with preaching God’s truth in our day? Here are Spurgeon’s words on the matter:

“We have a faith to preach, my brethren, and we are sent forth with a message from God. We are not left to fabricate the message as we go along. We are not sent forth by our Master with this kind of general commission – ‘As you shall think in your heart and invent in your head as you march on, so preach. Keep abreast of the times. Whatever the people want to hear, tell them that, and they shall be saved.’ Verily, we read not so. There is something definite in the Bible. We ought to preach the gospel, not as our views at all, but as the mind of God-the testimony of Jehovah concerning his own Son, and in reference to salvation for lost men. If we had been entrusted with the making of the gospel, we might have altered it to suit the taste of this modest century, but never having been employed to originate the good news, but merely to repeat it, we dare not stir beyond the record. What we have been taught of God we teach. If we do not do this, we are not fit for our position.”

May the God of all grace allow us to approach our culture in this way: by standing with our feet planted firmly on the Word of God with an understanding of our times and a desire to preach God’s Word amidst this world of fleeting pleasures.

(By David Giarrizzo)

Charles Spurgeon stated it plainly: “We have come to a turning-point in the road. If we turn to the right, mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.” Those words ring with prophetic urgency more than a century after they were written. Evangelicals must regain theological courage and conviction, or we must face the tragic reality that this may be evangelicalism’s terminal generation.
-Albert Mohler

In an effort to keep this generation of believers from being “evangelicalism’s terminal generation,” we as modern day believers need to be aware of the need to be active in our approach to culture. There is no proper place for us to sit and simply “culture-watch.” Every generation comes to the same essential fork in the road that Spurgeon alluded to—do we turn to the right or to the left? Do we remain faithful to God’s truth or abandon it? The sons of King Solomon came to similar crossroads and instead of maintaining the spiritual inheritance passed down to them by their father and grandfather, they led their generation away from God towards idolatry. (1 Kings 12) Shall we lead our generation in this way, or shall we seek to honor God in everything we do?

When it comes to the issues of Christians and culture, I think that one of the biggest problems with American Christianity is that it doesn’t really know what to do. As with many issues throughout the history of the church, the church today can tend to fall towards extremes in its approach to pop culture. The pendulum swings from liberalism (in all its various forms) on the left to fundamentalism (in all of its forms) on the right. The one extreme tries so hard to relate to and converse with culture that it ends up actually conforming to it and having little to no impact upon it for the cause of the Gospel. All the while, the latter extreme seeks so carefully to separate itself from culture that it becomes a culture to itself and has little to no impact on the culture of the world. What the church needs to do is stay balanced.

Here we are reminded of the importance of biblical discernment. We should be cautious in both our actions as well as our reactions. Christians can be a very reactive group of people. And this reaction can be seen in both ends of the pendulum’s swing. From the most liberal to the most fundamental factions of modern evangelicalism, there are people reacting—and often wrongly—to popular culture. Instead of unbiblically reacting, we should find ourselves continually asking the question, “What does God’s Word say about this?”

Before I explain what a biblical approach to culture should look like, allow me to outline just a few of the unbiblical reactions that I have observed in different parts of modern evangelicalism.

Wrong Approaches to Culture…

• Attempting to avoid culture altogether
  • As the Middle Ages proved, Monasticism doesn’t work. If the goal of a monastic lifestyle is to flee the temptations of the world by living in a place of seclusion from anything secular, then the root problem of sin has not been addressed. Regarding man’s internal propensity to sin, the prophet Jeremiah writes, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). And David admits what is true of all of us in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” So there’s nowhere to go to flee from sin and its effects except to the cross of Christ where there is complete cleansing and forgiveness.
  • But there are also less drastic methods of cultural avoidance than monasticism. Though we have all seen it done (or have even done it ourselves at one point in our spiritual lives), throwing away an entire music collection does not make a person more spiritual or less cultural. Nor does abstaining from every movie with an R-rating. Nor does avoiding any beverage containing alcohol. Just because our culture revels selfishly in certain earthly pleasures does not mean that every pleasure that the world revels in is immoral. Complete avoidance of certain moral cultural texts and trends (like art) is not a biblical method of approaching culture. We need to be biblically-balanced believers in our consideration of culture’s use (and misuse) of that which God has created. (I hope to address this more in a separate, future post.)
• Holding protests against popular culture
  • We don’t need to hold rallies against popular culture in order to combat its effects upon us and our young people. Popular culture, by its definition alone, is not something to be protested or avoided. And in essence, much of the “protesting” that is done against popular culture is backed by fundamental, surface-level arguments and aimed at parts of culture that aren’t necessarily evil.
  • We need to be aware of our cultural surroundings but willing to interact and converse with them, at least to an extent, in order to get the message of the Gospel to those who need to hear it. And protesters care little for listening.
• Seeking to influence culture by conforming to it
  • This is a contradiction of ideas. One cannot influence someone if he becomes just like him. Proverbs 13:20 shows us that a person becomes like those with whom he regularly associates.
  • Additionally, we are taught clearly in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world.” What more needs to be said?
  • Christ asks a pointed question in Matthew 5:13—“What is salt if it loses its saltiness?” Answer: If salt loses its saltiness, it fails to be useful and may as well be thrown out to be trampled upon.
  • In earlier years salt was used regularly for preserving food. Like salt, Jesus implies, Christians should preserve the Truth and by that, seek to spiritually preserve our world. Like light in a dark place, may we shine the glory of the Gospel brightly for all to see.

Avoiding our culture, protesting our culture, and conforming to our culture are all wrong approaches for Christians to take. These are extremes of which the church at large should steer clear. In the next blog post, I will discuss the right ways in which we as Christians should approach pop culture and seek to affect it with God’s Truth.

(By David Giarrizzo)

The world outside of Christ is confused. As Paul informs us, the so-called wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s eyes. (1 Corinthians 1:20) Morally, our culture is broken to pieces; spiritually, it is dead. What we see is philosophical chaos and moral calamity. These thoughts are enough to make a Christian disheartened. But nothing in this picture is new. Since the fall of man, the ways of the world have always been foolish and the moral compass of popular culture has always been askew. Nothing more can be expected of a sin-ridden world which places no value on the written words of God.

And may we as Christians take heart, for while we are little more than refugees and nomads living amidst the rubble of a deteriorating society, we can look forward to the glorious city that awaits us. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
Hold me with Thy pow’rful hand.

But there is a practical lesson in this which we should apply to our lives. John Piper adequately summarizes this point:

Being Christian exiles in American culture does not end our influence; it takes the swagger out of it. We don’t get cranky that our country has been taken away. We don’t whine about the triumphs of evil. We are not hardened with anger. We understand.

“We understand.” We see our culture through the lens of Scripture and we understand why it is the way it is. And when we consider the root problem of our world—its sinful hatred of God and suppression of His truth—we should likewise consider the solution: Jesus Christ. And how can we consider Jesus Christ and not consider his commands? We are called to be more than static wanderers who do nothing more than wallow and wait for the King’s return. Even as temporary residents here in this world, we are to be busy with the work of the Father. We are called to be faithful to our Lord’s Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). The fields are white for harvest (John 4:35) and we should be tending to them diligently.

A discerning Christian understands that this world is only a shopping mall fully stocked with charming vanities that can easily entice unsuspecting cultural customers and make them worshipers of idols and pillars of salt. As Christians, we must recognize the dangers of the world while we simultaneously seek to confront and persuade those on the road to Hell.

Therefore, for Christians, culture is not something to be wholly avoided, nor is it something to be wholly accepted . Instead, we should find ourselves acknowledging culture for what it is and discerning the truth from the error in our own minds and in our conversations with others.

I very much appreciate the inspiring sentiment of Al Mohler, a man who seems to have his finger on the pulses of the American culture and the church:

To contend for Christian truth in the face of this culture is to discover what it means to be a member of a cognitive minority; that is, a minority which quite evidently thinks and lives differently than the larger culture. To confess the truths of God’s Word in late twentieth-century America is to take on a counter-cultural posture; to stand against the stream and to press against the grain.

At the same time, we must reach out and minister to the casualties of our cultural rebellion. The Church of Jesus Christ is comprised of sinners saved by grace. With the message of grace, we must reach out to those whose lives have been ruined and warped in the course of our cultural decay. Only the Church has the honest and truthful answers concerning the most basic issues facing our society. Our challenge is to match truth to compassion, and mercy to confrontation.

I look forward to discussing this subject in more detail in future posts, particularly the relationship between the Church and culture today in America.

(By David Giarrizzo)

Culture is not inherently evil. In fact, God created men and women as people of culture. As Augustine understood, words (“signs”) are a basic part of humanity as well as a basic part of culture. Relationships and the verbal and physical communication between humans is a natural part of being human, and likewise a part of culture. We were created as cultural beings.

Furthermore, because Jesus was fully God and fully man, he too walked this earth as a cultural being, but one without sin. Without going into depth of detail, allow me to briefly mention how Jesus himself lived within the confines of a specific culture and he took part in it:

• He learned a trade and worked as a carpenter where he would have designed and constructed objects that were known and used in his Jewish culture.
• We assume that he dressed no differently from those around him; he fit in normally with the other disciples.
• He attended the wedding at Cana (…and even made the festivities better!) and he visited the tomb of a dead man named Lazarus—both were cultural experiences in his day.
• He interacted and dined with sinners like the woman at the well and Zacchaeus the tax collector.

I like how Kenneth Myers puts it in his defining work on popular culture, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: “Popular culture, like the meat offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 10, is a part of the created order, part of the earth that is the Lord’s, and thus something capable of bringing innocent pleasures to believers. But not everything that is permissible is constructive.” (1 Corinthians 10:23)

In other words, when that which is an “innocent pleasure” created by God for man’s use and enjoyment becomes something that is abused, overused, or idolized, a love for the created thing takes the place of the Creator God and this then becomes the sin of idolatry. While money isn’t evil in and of itself, 1 Timothy 6:10 reminds us that it is a “root of all kinds of evil” and craving such a base thing as money has led some to wander away from the faith. Additionally, we should remember that the sin of idolatry is not limited to loving just one aspect of our culture, but it takes many shapes: materialism, greed, conformity, covetousness, gluttony, drunkenness, the fear of man, etc.  1 John 2:16 says “For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world.” The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of possessions are all distinguishing traits of worldliness. And these desires are what clever marketing strategies aim to produce in us consumers; in fact, they make a profit off it.

In a helpful little book edited by C.J. Mahaney entitled Worldliness, Mahaney defines worldliness as simply, “a love for this fallen world.” “More specifically,” writes Mahaney, “it is to gratify and exalt oneself to the exclusion of God.”  We see this love for a fallen world in action in the story of Lot’s escape from Sodom. Genesis 19:26 records one worldly woman’s demise in one sentence: “But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” It is the looking back with a longing eye towards a fallen world that is destined for destruction that signifies the worldliness in our hearts. When we think twice about forsaking all this world has to offer to follow Christ; when we hesitate about leaving this cursed earth for a New Jerusalem; these are moments when we should find ourselves falling to our knees in repentance and asking God to forgive us for our worldly inclinations and give us minds set upon Christ and that world which is to come.

Let me conclude with this clarifying reminder: Living in our culture and participating in the good things that God has created does not constitute the sin of worldliness for a believer. But it’s when that appreciation for our culture becomes a warm affection for the world around us that we are in danger of sinning. Where are our thoughts? What are our cravings? The answers to these questions will show us just how loving of the world we really are. Whether it’s a desire for more food or drink, money or power or sex, worldliness is a sin that can breed in the lives of those under the unknowing influence of popular culture. May we never forget the admonition of Romans 12:2a—“Do not be conformed to this world.” And may we always remember Lot’s wife.

Do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world—

the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—

is not from the Father but is from the world.

And the world is passing away along with its desires,

but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

-1 John 2:15-17

(By David Giarrizzo)

We live in an age where moral and spiritual standards are often determined by whatever is popular in the world around us rather than what is true and right in the eyes of God. There is nothing permanent about popular culture besides, maybe, the memories of it and the lasting impression it can make upon us. But culture is no true authority in life because it is dynamic and ever-changing.

Consider this simplistic simile: Culture is like the ocean. Culture is like the ocean because it is widely encompassing. Just as every land mass on earth is surrounded by water, each person on earth is surrounded by culture. And just like a person can easily be lost at sea and perish beneath the powerful strength of the ocean’s waters, so a person can be swept up, dragged along, and drowned by the culture in which he swims. Culture is like the ocean in that its waves can all appear so different, and yet they are all the same exact substance. Culture too comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, but ultimately, as Solomon reminds us, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:2-9). The ocean, as strong as its force can be, is fluid. We can build sturdy platforms like oil rigs and piers that stand strong amidst the ocean’s changing currents. Similarly, culture is fluid in that it moves and rolls and changes to take the shape of whatever is fashionable or feels good. But when culture is crashed against the pillar, the rock, the mountain that is the Truth of God, culture naturally must yield because it holds no permanence or power like God’s Truth.

The kind of disregard for absolute truth and embrace of moral relativism that we observe in our postmodern society today is not original to the 21^st Century. We can read about similar sin thousands of years before Jesus was born. In the Old Testament, the book of Judges illustrates in great, graphic detail what happens to a society when it begins to forget the Word of the Lord and stray from the commands he has previously set in place. In Judges we see how Israel was unfaithful to her God and everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). Judges 2:11-13 describes the state of affairs at the time:

And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger. They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.

The Lord had long commanded his people, Israel, to remain separate from the wicked people that surrounded Israel—the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. But instead of obeying God and avoiding relationships with God-hating nations, Israel played footsy with these people. Naturally, as the Israelites began to cozy up to the people of the neighboring pagan nations, they began to be influenced by them and their culture. The Israelites fell in love with their women, married them, brought them into their land and homes, and started families with them. Slowly, the Israelites began to adopt various aspects of pagan culture that directly impacted their relationship with God. Instead of abiding by the laws of God and standing on His covenantal truth, Israel was disobedient and did not put full trust in God.

If we take a step back and look at the end of the book of Joshua, we read this stirring account of Joshua speaking to the people of Israel:
“…Choose this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

And the people of Israel responded in faith and obedience: “The LORD our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey.” (Joshua 24:14-24)

Just a few pages later, in the second chapter of Judges, we read that it was the generation after Joshua’s generation “who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10) What a sobering thought it is to think that in the time it takes for one generation to live and die, another generation will follow that could throw away the practice of godly living for the pursuit of worldly passions. This is an example of sacrificing the permanent for the popular. “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Popular culture, like the ocean, bears a strong power in this age. But there is no power greater than the power of God’s salvation which He sovereignly affects in our hearts through His enduring Word.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23)

May history never accuse this generation of Christians of exchanging the permanent for the popular. May we never abandon the Truth of God for temporary notions. Let us learn from the Word of God and the story of the disobedient Israelites: While the ever-morphing world around us may entice our emotions and strain on our senses to do what is right in our own eyes, God remains the same yesterday, today, and forever, and He demands our love and obedience. In the midst of the crashing waves of culture, may we always stand firm upon God’s permanent Word.

“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell shall endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”

-ed. John Rippon, 1787