“If you haven’t noticed, the culture wars are over. We lost.”[1] This was written by Larry Osborne, senior pastor of North Coast Church, a multi-campus megachurch of 11,000 members headquartered in Vista, a city in San Diego County, California. Osborne is one of a growing group of highly influential evangelical leaders and their followers who have abandoned the culture wars. Not only have these evangelical leaders and many of their followers abandoned the culture wars, many are trying to justify their actions by claiming overt resistance to an ungodly culture is non-biblical. Osborne’s book presents several ideas and arguments which ultimately become a pacifistic approach to cultural engagement by Christians. In Part I we shall examine four of these ideas and philosophies.
Some things aren’t worth dying for
Osborne titled Chapter 17 of Thriving in Babylon “Wisdom – Some Things Aren’t Worth Dying For.” In this chapter he states that lack of perspective is a sign of Christian immaturity.
Waiting is not an option. Compromise is a dirty word. Everything is equally important. There are no nuances. Everything is black and white. And immediate consequences are the only consequences that matter.[2]
Basically, Osborne is saying that immature Christians should “chill out” when it comes to many things in culture. Mature Christians must have perspective. To a limited degree Osborne is correct. Christians must pick their cultural battles wisely. They must know the difference between sin and things that are just personally offensive, and they must always keep the big picture in mind. This is good advice for the Christian culture warrior.
Osborne points to Daniel as a biblical example of someone with perspective. Unfortunately, Osborne doesn’t stop there. He called Daniel “a man of great forbearance” which he immediately defines at biblical tolerance. Using Osborne’s chain of reasoning, Christian maturity arises from having perspective which becomes tolerance in the “biblical sense of the word.” Osborne states that tolerance, rightly understood, is “allowing people the right to be wrong.” He also states that tolerance has wrongly come to mean that nobody is wrong.
Those who dare to claim that some behaviors are actually morally wrong are written off as intolerant bigots. And ironically, they become the one group nobody is tolerant of. While many bemoan the intolerance directed toward Bible-believing Christians, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Back when Christianity was the dominant cultural religion, we often used our power to shut down those who advocated opposing agendas.[3]
Humanism’s definition of tolerance begins with the denial of absolutes because no man or group can claim ownership of truth which is often the product of the free give and take of conflicting opinions. The humanist stance towards toleration results in moral relativism which is the antithesis of Christian belief. But the practical outworking in culture of Osborne’s understanding of tolerance effectively silences the presentation of biblical truth by those holding the Christian worldview. The truth claims of pagan religions are left unanswered, and humanism is left unchallenged as the humanistic cultural tsunami spreads across the nation.
Osborne’s stance on tolerance leads to an equally faulty understanding of compromise which he believes isn’t necessarily a dirty word. As with tolerance, Osborne makes some good points with regard to compromise. Yet, he attempts to link compromise with things that have nothing to do with compromise. He states that the wise “know what battles they can win and what battles need to be fought later.”[4] Neither of these statements are indications of compromise. Knowing whether one can win a battle or not is not the deciding factor as to whether that battle ought to be fought. Delaying a battle is not compromise either. These decisions should be determined by prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Christians must remember that God is holy and will not tolerate sin. What passes for tolerance and compromise in many of today’s churches is nothing more than accommodation to the spirit of the world by churches and their leadership. A. W. Tozer described this tendency in Christianity more than sixty years ago.
Christianity is so entangled with the spirit of the world that millions never guess how radically they have missed the New Testament pattern. Compromise is everywhere. The world is whitewashed just enough to pass inspection by blind men posing as believers, and those same believers are everlastingly seeking to gain acceptance with the world. By mutual concessions men who call themselves Christians manage to get on with men who have for the things of God nothing but contempt.[5] [emphasis added]
Christian resistance to worldly leaders – Attempting to impose their will on non-Christians
Osborne likens the evangelical efforts to resist worldly leaders and their humanistic and pagan cultural influences flooding America as imposing Christianity on non-Christians. “We’re no longer trying to impose our will on non-Christians. We’re trying to keep non-Christians from imposing their will on us—and our churches.”[6]
Daniel also had the wisdom to understand that godless people live godless lives. He never forced his righteous lifestyle on others even as he rose to positions of power, he didn’t try to impose his walk with God on those who didn’t know God.[7]
Back when Christianity was the dominant cultural religion, we often used our power to shut down those who advocated opposing agendas…We’d boycott non-Christian companies for making non-Christian decisions…I often wonder what would have happened if we’d had the wisdom of Daniel when we were in control…Whether Daniel was at the bottom of the food chain or near the top, he never tried to force his righteousness on others…and thus earned the right to be heard.[8]
It is apparent that Osborne is substantially ignorant of American history, the nation’s founding, and the role of Christianity in its culture until the mid-twentieth century. The Founders weren’t forcing anyone to accept a righteous lifestyle. The Constitution and laws of the land established boundaries and became a foundation for the nation’s central cultural vision.
From this misunderstanding of religion’s duties and rightful place in public square, Osborne and many other highly influential but pacifistic Christian leaders have generally withdrawn from any significant involvement in politics and government over the last three decades. To challenge this belief, Wayne Gruden published a pamphlet titled, “Why Christians should seek to influence the government for good.” Gruden presents a strong biblical basis for Christian involvement to “significantly influence law, politics, and government …according to God’s moral standards and God’s purposes for government as revealed in the Bible.” At the same time Gruden cautions that Christians “…must simultaneously insist on maintaining freedom of religion for all citizens.”[9] How is this balance achieved?
…the overarching moral suasion (influence or persuasion) of Christian principles under which our nation was founded made possible religious freedom for all faiths. Such moral suasion of Christian principles is not coercive as humanists would have us believe. The moral suasion of Christian principles provided the nation with a central vision and resulted in stability and unity by working through the individual as he voluntarily chooses the manner in which he orders his soul.[10]
Engage the culture by winning friends and influencing people
Osborne attempts to repackage Daniel’s humble nature as “service” to his wicked captors and masters. Therefore, “service” becomes the essential ingredient in constructing the “persuasive” paradigm for engaging culture.
He served his captors and wicked masters so well and loyally that he kept getting promoted. And with every promotion, his influence in Babylon grew greater…Yet I’m afraid that a modern-day Daniel would be harshly criticized. Many Christians would see him as a spiritual compromiser…Instead of avoiding or attacking the godless leaders of our day, we’ll need to begin to engage them in the same way Daniel did, humbly serving whomever God chooses to temporarily place into positions of authority.[11]
Osborne erroneously attempts to define biblical humility as “…simply serving others by putting their needs and interest above our own. It’s treating others the same way we’d treat them if they were someone ‘important’.” But Osborne’s definition of humility is not to be found in the dictionary.
Noah Webster Dictionary of 1828: Humility: In ethics, freedom from pride and arrogance, humbleness of mind, a modest estimate of one’s own worth. In theology, a lowliness of mind, a deep sense of one’s own unworthiness in the sight of God. Self-abasement, penitence for sin, submission to the Divine will.[12]
Merriam-Webster Dictionary of 1963: Humility: Quality or state of being humble. Humble: Not proud or haughty. Spirit of deference, not arrogant or assertive, submission, ranking low in some hierarchy of scale.[13]
Osborne’s definition of biblical humility is manifestly false, but it appears to be the core of much of pacifist Christians’ reasons for avoiding the culture wars. It is the seeker-sensitive model of Church Growth designed to reach the lost but modified for the culture at large. However, the Bible commands Christians to speak truth (with love and true humility) into culture as opposed to attempting to influence it through a fawning ingratiation and toady servitude to gain favor with ungodly leaders in a wicked culture. Christians are supposed to be salt and light to a lost and dying world. Although we are required to show Christian love, charity, and bind up the wounds of the broken, such must not be a weak substitute for truth. Writing over sixty years ago, A. W. Tozer anticipated the end-product of modern but misguided pacifist Christian efforts at an ill-defined and misplaced humility.
The Christian faith, based upon the New Testament, teaches the complete antithesis between the Church and the world…It is no more than a religious platitude to say that the trouble with us today is that we have tried to bridge the gulf between two opposites, the world and the Church, and have performed an illicit marriage for which there is no biblical authority. Actually, there is no real union…When the Church joins up with the world it is the true Church no longer but only a pitiful hybrid thing, an object of smiling contempt to the world and an abomination to the Lord.[14]
The American church of the 1950s was not a “spiritual Camelot”
Osborne believes that much of the perceived cultural deterioration that supposedly motivates today’s Christian culture warriors is a result of their looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.
Consider how many Christians look back at the 1950s and the days of Leave It to Beaver as the golden era of family values and godly culture…While they were indeed good times if you were a white middle-class suburbanite, they were hardly the glory days of family values and godly culture if you were a black family living under the last vestiges of segregation and Jim Crow.[15]
For instance, the glory days of Father Knows Best, family values, and stay-at-home moms weren’t all they were cracked up to be…once again, as in Roman days, a powerful church is not always a faithful church. It draws people for the wrong reason.
Frankly, if those days were really a spiritual Camelot, someone needs to explain to me how they produced a generation of sex-crazed, free-love, dope-smoking hippies who grew up to be self-absorbed boomers.[16]
Much like the humanistic progressives of today, Osborne disparages the American church of the 1950s which he claims were not “the glory days of family values and godly culture.” Rather, he describes it as a powerful church but not a faithful church.
Here we have two classic examples of assumptive language in which it is taken for granted that the results are caused by what precedes the results. In the first example of assumptive language, Osborne claims that the glory days of family values and godly culture couldn’t have existed because there were other segments of society that were suffering. In the second example of Osborne’s assumptive language, the church was culturally powerful; therefore we must assume that it couldn’t have been spiritual. As evidence of the lack of spirituality of the 1950s church, Osborne’s assumptive language points to the rebellious Boomer generation as being caused by the 1950s church. But Osborne lost (or perhaps never had) his much coveted historical perspective as to the reasons for the rise of the Boomer generation.
The history of the 1950s church in America and the cause of the Boomer rebellion have been written about extensively. Those well-documented and authoritative histories emphatically do not support Osborne’s conclusions reflected by his assumptive statements.
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In Part I we have examined four ideas and philosophies that foster Christian pacifism in the culture wars as championed by Osborne and others. In Part II, we shall glean the essences of the two opposing views of Christian cultural engagement and examine those in comparison to the role of the church in the German culture of the 1930s.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon – Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom matter in a godless culture,” (Colorado Springs, Colorado: David C. Cook, 2015), p. 136.
[2] Ibid., p. 169.
[3] Ibid., pp. 174-175.
[4] Ibid., p. 185.
[5] A. W. Tozer, God’s Pursuit of Man, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers), p. 115.
[6] Osborne, Thriving in Babylon, p. 136.
[7] Ibid., p. 173.
[8] Ibid., pp. 175-176.
[9] Wayne Gruden, “Why Christians should seek to influence the government for good.” Booklet adapted from Wayne Gruden, Politics – According to the Bible – A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2010).
[10] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 224.
[11] Osborne, Thriving in Babylon, pp. 150-151.
[12] “humility,” Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language 1828, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1967, 1995 by Rosalie J. Slater), p. 12.
[13] “humble, humility,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, 1963), pp. 404-405.
[14] A. W. Tozer, God’s Pursuit of Man, pp. 115-116.
[15] Osborne, Thriving in Babylon, p. 36.
[16] Ibid., pp. 195-196.
