If not change, our only choice seems to avoid it and not be tainted by the world around us. Did Hudson Taylor when he dyed his hair and learned Chinese succumb to culture or did he impact China with the gospel and change culture? So, the question is whether I can do that? I

Some people are so concerned about how eastern culture is penetrating Christians’ ideologies, but they fail to recognize how western culture has perverted the western Christian’s ideology already.  

Me?  I’m part of a church that is trying to do just what you’ve suggested.  As a community, we have an ongoing conversation about how to ensure that we live lives that affect culture, and are not affected by our culture (to what extent it is possible).

http://thejunc.com/new-to-the-junc/our-mission/

I like the MESSAGE Bible’s version of Roman’s 12:2. “Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without thinking.”  Our greatest challenge?  – moving thoughtlessly through an Americanized version of the faith.

I constantly ask myself if I’m bringing the kingdom to the culture or the culture to the kingdom.  The more aware of that we become and the more responsive to God in the process – the more we’ll change the culture.

I also agree with David Wellls that to be like culture the church is shying away from anything overtly Christian or religious in its interaction with culture. It is no wonder we have become ineffective and seemingly irrelevant.  The message of Christ is counter culture and the moment we shy away from being different than the culture around us, and attempt to fit in, we loose our authenticity and any hope of offering culture any viable cure or answer to what ails it.

We sometimes allow the pressure of cultural shifts and pundits to bully us into diluting truth and altering our personal convictions or moral code.  We are so afraid that if we state truth as presented in the bible that we will be accused of being bigots, loose our audience or popularity. For instance one preacher was hesitant to answer definitively when asked on national tv if there are many ways to heaven. He was hesitant to say Jesus is the only way by which one can receive eternal life. We need to stop being cultural chameleon’s! Culture is not supposed to be comfortable with theological truth.  They never have been. Hebrews talks about people who were persecuted and murdered for their faith. Loosing popularity or being bashed publicly for our faith may be unpleasant and hurt but it is a far cry from being turtured and murdered because of it.  There needs to be a wind of change in the church’s interaction with culture and it begins with each of us in our own sphere of influence. It is so easy to be tempted to be embarrased about what we believe as Christians because it is so foreign to current cultural trends. But with God’s help and a resolve to do so, we can stand up and be counted among them which are sanctified in our everday life. As you may tell you have struck a chord so I will just have to stop here untill next time. :D  Thanks again for the food for thought!

It seems a simple thing to “love not the world, nor the things that are in it.” It only seems costly to those who consider the things in this world, and the esteem of this world, of value. Once you realize your backpack is full of dirt, you can set it down pretty easily. It is much easier when you don’t have so much at stake to encourage you to stay with the world. The poor, the old, the wounded–these are blessed to have so little motivation to choose the world.

It seems (to me) more difficult to live a holy life conformed to God than to live a life that does not conform to the world. This temptation is the plight of even the poor, the old, and the wounded. We can come apart from the world, and still love ourselves, still indulge ourselves, still refuse to deny ourselves and take up our cross.

In the end, we do need to do both things. To walk away from what tghe world values and to be confoirmed to a life that is holy, loving, generous, unselfish. I can’t tell you why so few do so in every generation. But Jesus knew, and told us, that few would walk that path.

May God bless your labors, and the labors of those who added their responses.

I think the best way to change the culture is to walk it out amongst them.