This past summer I had to get rid of an uninvited resident in our home, which was a 3 1/2 foot snake. It had lived with us for 3 or 4 years. How do I know? I know because I counted at least 5 skin sheds in our basement. I discovered that mice were entering our house through a hole in our external wall that was meant for the utilities. Apparently a young snake also had crept through it, and once inside it began feeding on a steady diet of mice. It eventually outgrew the hole; consequently, it became a permanent resident. If you didn’t know, snakes have a foul odor, leave feces, and would make my wife sell our home if she knew we had one living with us. Sure, it was solving the mouse problem, but snakes present greater threats, such as Salmonella, viruses, and parasites. Snakes usually arrive through small cracks, but little snakes become big snakes, and once established they are difficult to catch and cause extensive damage well before it is visually obvious. A friend helped me to catch it, and later that day he released it into the wild. Afterwards, I had to remove all the insulation, thoroughly clean and disinfect the entire wall, and then install new insulation. The entire experience was nerve racking, costly, and messy to say the least.
Unfortunately, there is a serpent-inspired deception that often creeps into Christian organizations and churches. It’s the deception that Christianity’s focus should be on “culture” instead of making worshipers of the Lord (Jn 4.23-24), disciples of Christ (Matt 28.18-20), and proclaiming that salvation is found in no other name than Jesus (Luke 24.45-48; Jn 14.6; Acts 4.12). I bring this up because I recently received a disturbing email from an “Evangelical leader” explaining that at creation humanity received a “Cultural Mandate,” which she claims is found in Gen 1.28; consequently, the organization that she is president of was to embrace this mandate. First, it needs to be stated that this is patently flawed interpretation of what the passage actually communicates, or a complete misunderstanding of what the terms “cultural” and “mandate” emphasize, or both. Regrettably, I’ve seen this misdirection before in other ministries with which I was involved. This focus is how liberalism creeps into the church, and when established inevitably leads to more liberalism, which always causes damage in whatever Christian institutions it takes up residence, and the results are usually catastrophic.
First, it is necessary to address the assertion that Gen 1.28 reveals that God gave humanity a mandate that is culturally focused. Before doing it is important to define the terms “culture” and “mandate.” When used as a noun the word “mandate” means: “the authority to carry out a policy or course of action”; or when a verb as: “to give (someone) authority to act in a certain way.” And culture is simply defined as: “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.” With these definitions in mind, it is clear that God did not give Adam and Eve a cultural mandate in Genesis 1.28; he did not tell them to “go and act a certain way,” and to do so in a manner that would be “regarded collectively.” Instead, he gave Adam and Eve the “Human Commission” to procreate so as to fill the earth, and to properly manage it. How they did so was up to them, and they were free to fulfill God’s commission in whatever manner they chose, that is so long as they did not break the singular prohibition ordained by him. In fact, as humanity expanded they were free to fulfill this commission in different ways with different values and methods. Consequently, diverse cultures are the natural by-products of human communities and their collective free will. Consequently, God did not give Adam and Eve a mandate to produce a specific culture, and there is a simple reason why his commission did not require the creation of a specific type of culture. God did not focus on culture because it is impossible for humanity to live by the same cultural values and behaviors everywhere on this ecologically and geographically diverse planet. People in Alaska don’t and can’t act like people in the Caribbean, and people in Afghanistan don’t and can’t act like people in Boston, and people in Sweden don’t and can’t act like people in Venezuela—I think you get the point. Moreover, communities even have subcultures within them, and they often disagree about what is the best way for individuals to act within their greater societies. Furthermore, there is nothing in the Bible “mandating” that the world’s diverse people groups behave and act in the same manner. For example, the Mosaic Covenant found in the Old Testament was to a significant degree a “cultural mandate” that God gave to the Jews while they lived in the Promise Land—now to be clear, it was not just a cultural mandate. Nevertheless, God did not give this same covenant to the Egyptians, the Chinese, or the Africans. Were these gentile people groups obligated to obey the universal moral commandments that God has implanted within the human conscience (Rom 2.14-16), commandments that are also codified in the Mosaic Covenant (e.g., do not murder, do not steal, etc.)? Of course they were. Nevertheless, Gentiles were not expected to implement and abide by the Mosaic Covenant. Consequently, God has not given to humanity a cultural mandate, and to suggest otherwise is to invite misdirection, deception, and inevitably liberalism into Christian organizations.
Why am I so disturbed by this email, because it reveals that the same liberalism that I’ve witnessed time and time before has once again successfully crept into another Christian organization through its leadership. The frustrating question is why does liberalism and this type of deception continually slither its way into historically Christian institutions? It occurs simply because carnal leaders turn their attention from trusting God and focusing on his commission to the church to being oriented towards results and controlling human behavior. Leaders feel the pressure to produce results, and if spiritual conversion and growth are slow in being realized, then they feel the need to manipulate human behavior in the hopes that doing so will promote a specific type of growth that they envision and value. And once you start trying to control how people act it becomes necessary to control how they think. Once Christian institutions or churches begin to bring in leaders who approach ministry in this manner, then liberalism is the inevitable outcome. It occurs because leaders expect those under them to validate, accept, and disseminate their values, many of which are simply cultural or social in nature, and tragically are scripturally invalid because they are the products of poor hermeneutics. And people that don’t share or promote these same values are purged from the organization because they do not adhere to the new liberal orthodoxy. Inevitably, the cultural and social values of the leaders become the goal of the organization, even if they are contrary to the scriptures. Afterwards, a type of constriction begins, in which more and more biblically grounded people are squeezed out and replaced with those that are socially and politically minded. The end results are ministries that seek more participants regardless of their spiritual worldview or commitment to the scriptures. It is then that a tipping point is passed where the participants begin educating their leaders about what they will tolerate. When that occurs, then the leaders stop leading and become “community organizers” that move to the will of the collective culture of the organization. They become “servants” of the community rather than biblical leaders. Once this transition occurs, then liberalism has matured and is entrenched. The despicable truth is that liberals attract other liberals, promote liberalism, produce more liberals, all of whom advocate for greater liberalism, and they inevitably reject biblically grounded believers just as surely as snakes eat mice.
God did not give humanity a cultural mandate; instead, he commissioned it with the goal of global population and the responsibility to properly and efficiently manage the earth. God has not commissioned humanity to think, behave, and embrace a monolithic culture throughout the planet. And most importantly, culture is certainly not the focus of the church—its focus should be on the Great Commission. And a characteristic of all authentic believers is the Great Commandment, which is to love the Lord with all you are and all you have. If Christians genuinely internalized this command, then we will authentically live out the Lord’s love to those around us. And if the church and Christians passionately embrace the Great Commission and Great Commandment, then we will impact cultures all across our world. How will this impact look? That depends, but it will look differently in Mobile, in Moscow, in Mumbai, in Maracay, in Mombasa, in Marrakesh, and in Manila. And even though these cultures will have different behaviors, tastes, and laws, Christians within them will have the same fundamental beliefs, as well as eerily similar ethics, values, attitudes, and behaviors, all of which are grounded in the scriptures and biblical orthodoxy. Our focus should not be on emphasizing and creating a specific culture, but lovingly reaching people for Christ and discipling them so that they worship the Lord, glorify God, and reach others for Christ. But if we are misdirected by carnal and misguided leaders into focusing on a culture that they believe produces a certain type of collective social behavior, values, and political groupthink, then we are being deceived by serpents that have come among us, which is to the delight of the great serpent himself.
Monte Shanks, Copyright © 2017
