Cultural Engagement: What it is and why it matters

Introduction

This year at our Tuesday Night Bible Study we’ve been working through Dr Darrell Bock’s course, Cultural Engagement and Scripture.

Cultural Engagement is a trendy new term, so trendy that churches in the USA are starting to hire people to specialise in Cultural Engagement. It refers to the core idea that Christians must be prepared to reach out to other cultures in a way that is sensitive to difference so that our message is not garbled, lost or rejected out of hand.

This is an increasingly important project not only because of the multicultural nature of our nations, but also because our own Christian culture—our Biblical worldview, the way we live, work and rest as Christians—is increasingly different from the culture of the nations we inhabit. In other words, to even talk to our non-Christian neighbours, we need to practice Cultural Engagement.

Despite the term being new, the practice dates back to the very beginning of the church. In fact, you could say that Karl Fase’s Jesus the Game Changer 2, which we did last year in our Bible study, traced the history of the church’s continuing practice of cultural engagement.

And that’s why I wanted to go back to the beginning, to take a look at the origins of Christian Cultural Engagement, and to encourage us to really invest in this important practice.

Now, this sermon is actually a taster for a new series on Acts. Yes, I know we did Acts last year, but this year we’re doing a different take, looking at Acts as the polar opposite to Judges. In Judges the Holy Spirit gave people power, but didn’t transform their hearts, and the results were universally disappointing. In Acts, the Spirit transforms people’s hearts so that any expression of his power in them has world-changing impacts.

Let’s now look at the first expression of this power in these transformed people. Remember, the Holy Spirit appeared visibly so that this first church could understand that they were receiving the Spirit into their hearts. Let’s now read what happened straight after that.

Bible

Acts 2:5–13 NLT

5 At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. 7 They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, 8 and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! 9 Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, 10 Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” 12 They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other. 13 But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”

Language

Have you ever been in a foreign country where no-one speaks your language? Have you experienced that feeling of suddenly hearing a snatch of your mother tongue after days of labouring in a foreign language? It’s like cold water after a dry hike through the desert, isn’t it? So refreshing and encouraging. Even if it’s a total stranger speaking your language, it doesn’t matter—it’s wonderful to bathe in this familiar, secure, effortless form of communication and even communion. When I was navigating Tokyo’s labyrinthine streets or trekking the depths of Sham Shui Po and I heard even a word or two of English my ears would immediately prick up. In Silicon Valley, even the soft vowels of an Aussie accent would bring instant recognition.

The Gap

And that’s why the Holy Spirit’s first gift to the disciples was the ability to speak in the mother tongue of all the visitors to Jerusalem on that first Pentecost.

The gap between The Way—what eventually became known as Christianity—and traditional first century Judaism was so great that God knew he would need to do as much translation as possible.

In fact, Jesus was already the most powerful form of Cultural Engagement the world has ever seen. The Son of God, the second person of the trinity, came down from heaven—he came from the culture of the Godhead, the world of the eternal three-in-one. And, coming down, he became a human being, while still being God. He bridged these two vastly separated cultures: the holy, loving, giving domain of God and the rebellious, selfish, consuming domain of humanity.

But by the time of Pentecost, Jesus had gone, and all that was left were the disciples. So now being that bridge was their job.

What is Cultural Engagement

So what is this task that the disciples needed to do? Which the Spirit initiated with this gift of many languages?

To put it in the simplest terms, cultural engagement is taking the truth of the good news that Jesus has given us to share, and translating it into language and actions that our neighbours can understand.

There are several important observations here:

Acts 2:6 NLT

6 When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers.

First, we are the ones who have to do the translation. To put it another way, the burden of understanding our neighbours’ culture falls on us. We cannot expect them to put in the effort to understand the Bible’s message, what we might call Christian culture.

Acts 2:11 NLT

11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!”

Second, we are translating Jesus’ message, not our own. We must therefore be careful not to throw in all sorts of confusing preferences that come from us rather than Jesus, such as: a distaste for alcohol, or the perception that homosexuality is worse than adultery, or a preference for a market economy. Because we are acting as Jesus’ ambassadors, we have to be very aware of who Jesus is.

Acts 2:13 NLT

13 But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”

Finally, even if our translation or cultural engagement is successful, it doesn’t guarantee a willing reception of our message. We need to recognise that we are not called to force people into the Kingdom of Heaven, but to call people to it. Some people will respond positively to our message, but most won’t. That’s not our fault, it’s their’s. Even Jesus was rejected, how much more will we be?

Why Cultural Engagement matters

Given these complexities, it’s tempting to just give up and enjoy our cosy community, right? So why is it so important to continuously engage with people who belong to the radically different cultures of the world?

It matters because humans are designed to live in harmony with God, not in rebellion. So humans living in rebellion are estranged from the kingdom, and suffering as a result. Most of the time people know that things aren’t right, but they’ll happily blame the government for it, or that horrible person at the office, or their spouse, or that bad product, or whatever. But we know that the core problem is sin, their: their rebellion against God.

But even explaining the problem of sin is difficult in our modern Western culture. Dr Bock points out that one way we can explain sin to our neighbours who don’t even accept God’s existence is to describe it as “dysfunction.” Our society is very familiar with the idea that most of us are struggling with a dysfunction of some kind or another. People are open to exploring how they might repair their dysfunction in a way they will not explore their sinfulness.

Imagine an IT company that thought everyone should understand how their technology worked. You might get an ad like this.

But IT companies know that people aren’t techies and don’t want to be.

So you get ads like this.

Now, this doesn’t tell you everything you need to know. But it starts a conversation in a place where most people are comfortable.

What should we do?

So how do we apply this?

Well, we just spent a whole semester studying that, so I don’t think I’ll be able to do that justice in the few minutes remaining.

Instead, let me explain how studying Cultural Engagement changed my life. Sounds like a big deal, right, “changed my life?” But, you know, I go into every Bible Study, every sermon, hoping that it will change someone’s life somehow. So I’m glad our last semester of study has changed my life.

Here’s how it changed it:

Dr Bock explains that one of the keys to cultural engagement, what makes it “engagement” rather than “accommodation,” is the act of “challenging” the people you are engaging with. Coming from a Christian perspective, and engaging with people in our culture, we’ll always have plenty of challenges to make. But the key to a successful challenge—one in which you maintain your relationship with your neighbour, rather than destroying it by offering up a challenge—is to only offer a challenge once your neighbour knows that you genuinely care for them.

So showing care and compassion to your non-Christian neighbours is a key part of Cultural Engagement. Dr Bock worked through various ways we could do that: through a Church ministry or mission (this is the traditional Christian approach), through our own workplace (living out Christ in that context), or through non-Christian organisations that were serving the community.

Now, when I heard that, I realised that I had only been thinking about options 1 or 2 there: Christian ministries or the workplace, and since I don’t belong to a secular workplace, I only had one option, a Christian ministry. Realising that I could join a secular “ministry” or “mission” opened up a world of opportunities. I can recommend checking out Volunteering Gold Coast online for a huge range of opportunities to serve the community.

The point is that we live out Christ in that community, showing the members who are working alongside us, and the people benefiting from their work, the love of Christ. That care and compassion then paves the way for the necessary challenge.

So, I encourage you to think about how your workplace is an opportunity to care for people and, ultimately, to challenge them. Or to think about joining a group where you can do that.

Let’s pray,

Lord, thank you for giving us the power of your Holy Spirit. But thank you even more for transforming our hearts, bringing us back into relationship with you, healing the dysfunction we had deep in our core relationships with ourselves, the world we live in, and one another. Help us to love those around us who are trapped in dysfunction, in rebellion against you, help us to engage with them in sensitive, thoughtful, listening and caring ways.

In Jesus name, Amen.