The Collision of Christ and Culture
The Collision of Christ and Culture
The opening celebration of the Olympics set social media ablaze last week. The scene included drag queens lined up at a feasting table with a blue-painted naked guy front and center. In the middle of the drag queens, a lady DJ with a halo-like crown stood as the focal point of the display. The scene looked as if it depicted Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, which created a worldwide outcry against the mockery of Christ and the Lord’s Supper. The architect of the hideous display said that the scene was a Bacchanal. The blue dude represented the god Dionysius, and the other characters stood for the festival. In case you don’t know, a Bacchanal feast is an orgy with terrible sexually violent acts done to each participant. Dionysius is the god of wine and pleasure, and the whole point of this feast is to get drunk and get very nasty.
Two Types of Tweets
One group in the Christian world called this scene out. The mockery that seemed to be there was appalling and blasphemous. However, in a PR cleanup, the Olympic representatives denied the intention of mocking the Lord’s Supper and said this was about a Bacchanal. Oh, well, was that all? Sadly, upon this revelation, the outcries of the first group generally ceased. Of course, some pushed back against this and called it a conspiracy. Many were willing to stand up for a mockery of Christ. Still, very few were ready to speak out against idolatry, wickedness, and sexual deviancy on display. Very few spoke out against the presence of drag queens on a prominent Western stage, the symbolism of the idols of drunkenness and sexual depravity to a dark degree, and even with a young girl involved in the feast. One thing can be said, the responsible people at least demonstrated their knowledge of history. Even young children were raped and sexually abused at these feasts. They made no attempts to hide or whitewash their intentions. This scene doesn’t include the celebration of death with the display of the beheaded Marie Antoinette.
On the other hand, a second group of Christians responded with statements like, “Love your enemies and show compassion to them,” “Christians should not be outraged,” or “It’s just a cultural celebration and nothing more.” Many of these Christians then argued that Jesus turned the other cheek. Still, others said that Jesus only got angry at the religious people misrepresenting God and not sinners. This group of Christians, as opposed to the previous group, chose to say nothing. They equated love with silence. However, the premise that undergirds this way of thinking is flawed. Christians should care deeply about the world's actions and the prevalence of evil. Love does not mean turning a blind eye to sin, but rather confronting it with the truth of the Gospel.
The Right Rejoinder
Both groups of Christians err fundamentally. Both groups ignore the massive elephant in the room waving its trunk around. The issue doesn’t involve defending Jesus’s honor or being loving and compassionate. The root issue is how we deal with sin around us. First, we need to ask how God deals with sin. Psalm 90 describes the Lord’s anger and wrath upon sin. Moses wrote this Psalm, and at the beginning, he praises the Lord for His nature and works. He is eternal, and He created the world. As the Psalm moves, we see that God is outside of time. He is transcendent. He also controls the timing of a person’s life. He has shortened the life of people on the Earth. Moses recognizes this shortening because of God’s wrath towards sin. Verses 10–11 drive home the point that God’s power and hatred towards sin have resulted in humanity’s years being fleeting.
In light of this truth, Moses calls us to weigh our days. We are to number them, not to try to live as long as possible. The purpose is to think about how we are spending them. A person who lives 33 years and a life that loves the Lord has lived a more fruitful life than the person who lived 80 years loving himself. Just look at the life of Jesus Christ! This numbering leads to wisdom. Wisdom is knowing the fear of the Lord and applying that knowledge to life (Prov. 9:10). In this, the child of God is evident. The ultimate satisfaction for the Christian is found in God’s love, which produces joy. As Christians live in this joy, their work and everything they do in life can be established and outlived because of the power and favor of God.
Psalm 90, when applied to this situation, teaches us that God hates sin. His hatred of it caused Him to shorten the life of humanity. Each person only lives a certain amount of years because of sin. If God hates sin this much, then so should we! For the crowd that responded to the assumed mockery of Jesus in the Satanic display but not the wickedness and rebellion against God in the form of the drag queens, an inconsistent application of Scripture exists. A massive push towards approving LGBTQ+++++ is underway in our culture right now. If Christians are being more influenced by the culture than the Word, then a desensitization occurs towards this grievous transgression. The same goes for heterosexual sin, pornography, nudity, and the couple sleeping together outside the covenant of marriage. When we are more in the Word than the news, then images like the opening ceremony of the Olympics will create disgust and hatred for the sin on display. Our outrage will be less about the honor and reputation of Christianity and more about the presence of wickedness in our culture. When the Word fills our minds and influences us more, we will hate the sin before us and call it out.
Critiquing the Critics
For the group that called to love, show compassion, and turn the other cheek, this is a gross mishandling of Scripture. Jesus didn’t act passively in the face of the world’s sin. His life on Earth confronted their sin. He called the religious leaders and everyday worldly persons out in their sin. He spoke the truth when He was before the court and Pontus Pilate! In the church's first sermon in Acts 2, Peter called those listening to repent for being the crowd that crucified Jesus. The proper interpretation of turning the other cheek in Matthew 5:38–42 involves one’s honor. Jesus’s message is to not seek retaliation and play the get-back game. Instead, do the opposite and not care about one’s honor. In the same context, Christ calls us to love our enemies and pray for those persecuting us. Again, the context is addressing the heart towards one’s enemies. We aren’t called to hate them but to love them. We aren’t called to seek their demise.
But love doesn’t mean we allow them to continue in their sin. It doesn’t mean we sit passively by and let them display their rebellion against God. The logic of those who say these things would have led to leaving Nazi Germany alone because it would have been “loving.” The principle is the same. That’s because true love for them, and for greater society, is not letting sin run rampant but calling people to repentance. When God’s people don’t address sin in the culture, rot and decay occur. When this happens, a culture incites God’s wrath. If we truly believe God is the same in the Old Testament and the New, then we have to come to the realization that God tears down nations for wickedness still. Letting our Western civilization revel in their sin means we are just fine with God destroying them and us with them. Now THAT is unloving and hard-hearted.
The Biblical Blast
So then, Christians must speak up. We must call out sin in the public square. We can’t let the fear of man stop us from identifying what is wicked and calling those who participate in it to repentance. We can’t sit passively by and let Western civilization commit suicide. We must engage with those around us in conversations about what happened and why the opening ceremony was from the pit of hell. A culture that celebrates death and sexual immorality is sure to fall. Let’s not care so much about our honor but seek to love the world by calling them to repent. We should be disgusted by what we saw and not accept it. We shouldn’t be tolerant of these things and let them happen in our silence. After all, they aren’t tolerant of the Word of God. True love compels us to action, not merely words. Fear stops us from speaking rightly, pointedly, and truthfully. But, being centered in the Word frees us to talk about truth in love. The Bible is sufficient, and it reigns true and supreme in times of collisions such as these.