Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,  explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things.

Acts 17:1-8 (ESV)

As of late, I’ve been reading The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, where Lesslie Newbigin very clearly articulates the tension between the need to relate to society and the danger of becoming subject to society; in this respect, the phrase “in the world but not of the world” may easily come to mind. Christians have a definite responsibility to engage the world around them as well as the solemn warning to remain “unpolluted by the world” (James 1:27). The question that must be asked is this: how can Christians effectively reach out to their culture without bowing down to its idols?

Newbigin points out that society is—and always has been—subject to what sociologist Peter Berger has called “plausibility structures,”certain frameworks of belief and practice which determine the validity of the various ideas and truth claims one might encounter (8). For centuries, the reigning plausibility structure has been the modern, rationalistic metanarrative (which only recently has begun to exit Western culture, though it has by no means disappeared entirely). Given this, through some careful introspection Newbigin came to the eventual realization that, in his desire to make Christianity relevant and appealing to modern minds, he had begun to “domesticate” the Gospel, attempting to fit it ever so neatly into the dominant plausibility structure which acclaimed reason and science as the only legitimate means of discovering truth (3).

This sheds light on how much of modern Biblical “scholarship” has been, in essence, nothing more than an attempt to reconcile the radical Gospel message with the plausibility structures of Western society; instead of allowing the Bible to scrutinize us, we have scrutinized it, throwing out so many Scriptural truths simply because they are not “plausible” to us in our modern, rationalistic paradigm.

It hardly needs to be said that the domestication of the Gospel strips it of its very power and thus is not a valid way of fulfilling the Great Commission. It is impossible to make disciples with a tamed, neutered message devoid of any subversion or challenge to existing worldviews. Yet at the same time, sound doctrine, when preached into a vacuum, accomplishes nothing; it is ineffective to merely assert Biblical truths from the street corner without making a responsible effort to impact people’s lives with the Gospel. In fact, the very nature of the Gospel demands that it be used as a sword to cut others to the heart rather than bricks out of which one builds his theological fortress.  As Christians, we have a responsibility not only to preach the Gospel but to make disciples—the application and appropriation of that Gospel to the people around us.

Our goal, then, is not to domesticate the Gospel, but to contextualize the Gospel, just as Paul did. This does not mean we “clean up” the Gospel to make it less offensive to the culture around us; to the contrary, we allow the Gospel to critique and undermine the very idols so enthusiastically worshiped in our culture. This of course requires some tact, and engaging the culture is no easy task; as Jesus said, we must be “shrewd as serpents but innocent as doves,” meaning that we are to be clever and perceptive, yet also above reproach. Our aim should be to participate in culture with the purpose of subversion rather than syncretism; the Gospel radically transforms life as we know it, and thus we should strive to also be known as “men who have turned the world upside down.”

So how can we go about contextualizing the Gospel? First, we cannot allow our Gospel to be viewed through the colored lenses of our society’s plausibility structure. Instead, let us allow our Gospel to be the very lens through which we see and understand all such plausibility structures. In this, we much more equipped for evangelism.

In this respect, it is most helpful to think of the Gospel as the over-arching Biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption and restoration. God created a world which was good (creation) but has since been corrupted by sin (fall). Jesus came to atone for that sin (redemption) and is transforming the brokenness of this earth, until his eschatological return when everything will finally be set right again (restoration). When we think about our current cultural situation as part of this Biblical metanarrative, we can look at the values, institutions, and aspirations of our world and see the corrupting effects of sin in each area.

Communicating how sin has led to brokenness and devastation in our world is a good first step to proclaiming Jesus as the just judge and merciful healer, the agent of true change, and the rightful King who will make all things new when he comes in power. By showing the depravity and fallen nature of those around us, we demonstrate the need for Christ, and by drawing attention to the fact that our cultural standards are far less glorious than those of God, we undermine our society’s flawed system of values. Furthermore, by pointing out how good gifts from God (in creation) have been cheapened, corrupted and ruined (in the fall), we set the stage for God’s answer to the problem we’ve created.

We should ask ourselves three questions.

1. What are the values of our culture, to what extent do they reflect Biblical truth and how do they fall short of God’s standard?
    
2. What are the institutions or systems in our culture, how do they reflect God’s good creation and how have we corrupted them?
    
3. What are the aspirations and desires of our culture, how are they intended to be satisfied in God, and to what has our pursuit of satisfaction elsewhere led us?

In other words, Christians need to be able to demonstrate the difference between agape love and worldly “tolerance;” we must show how worldly standards of peace and non-violence fall short of God’s shalom. The idea is to see how we, as sinful human beings, are too easily pleased in certain worldly standards of “goodness” and how the infinitely good God has a higher, much more beautiful standard which is for our own well-being.

Also, we should show how the institutions of our society fall short of God’s purpose. We should treat marriage as a wonderful gift God has given us for our good—a gift which we have trampled upon, chauvinists and feminists alike. We ought to speak of government and authority structures as systems which, while corrupted by pride, greed and tyranny, were indeed intended for good, to protect the innocent and punish the wicked, with those in high positions serving the lowly.

In addition to this, we must recognize and display how our aspirations and desires are futile apart from Christ; we were created to worship, enjoy, and find complete satisfaction in God. After all, it is God who provides for us and sustains us; it is he—and ultimately he alone—who fulfills our basic human needs and desires for love, security and justice. Though we may try to seek satisfaction elsewhere, by other means (perhaps codependent relationships, the hoarding of wealth or global warfare, for example), we will eventually be left unfulfilled and empty unless we repent and believe in the Gospel.

And the Gospel? Simply put, it’s the overwhelmingly good news that Jesus triumphs in the end. It is the very answer to our broken, fallen world. It is the comforting fact that God, in his transformative power, is in the business of fixing our mistakes, restoring what we’ve destroyed. It’s the sobering message that though we have all rebelled against God’s rightful authority (and thus become his enemies) he has made a way for us to be reconciled.

This Christianity is no mere additive to our modern or postmodern plausibility structure. It is an entirely new plausibility structure which happens to be fundamentally different from anything we’ve ever experienced. We are not trying to force an oddly-shaped puzzle piece into a space in which it simply does not fit, nor are we trimming off the edges of our puzzle piece so that we can make it fit. The fact is that we’re operating with an altogether different puzzle. And what a puzzle it is! The humble are exalted, the exalted are humbled; the meek and mourning and poor in spirit are the very ones who receive blessing! Those who seek to be the greatest must serve the lowly. Those who seek to live must take up their cross and die.

Newbigin puts it quite well: “The Church…as the bearer of the gospel, inhabits a plausibility structure which is at variance with, and which calls in question, those that govern all human cultures without exception” (9). By taking a look at “gospels” of our culture, we may begin to demonstrate their utter failure to bring satisfaction, wholeness, peace, and justice to this world. And in doing this, we hope to lead a downcast, despondent and worn-out society to fall before the Most High God—the very One whose overtures they have so long ignored—in desperate and radical repentance. Let us be known, too, as men who have turned the world upside down.

°Reference: Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989)