CHAPTER 95
Counter-Cultures for the Common Good
Tim Keller
Tim Keller was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, which effectively reaches professionals from diverse cultural backgrounds. Redeemer’s Church Planting Center has helped start over 100 churches of various denominations in the New York City area and around the world. He previously served as a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary and authored several books.
There is no more divisive issue in contemporary evangelicalism than how Christians should relate to our broader culture. The various schools of thought battle with each other—from the Christian Right to traditional pietism to the emerging churches to the new monasticism. Below I outline a way forward that seeks to combine strengths of many of these movements while overcoming many of their imbalances and weaknesses.
Gospel—Rich and Sharp
First and foremost, we need a richer yet sharpened understanding of the gospel. Many look at the traditional evangelical gospel and complain that it has been individualistic. A classic street version of it was “Jesus died for your sins so you could have a personal relationship with him.” They argue that this older articulation of the gospel gives the impression that escaping this world into heaven is all that matters.
In the place of this older formulation, many evangelicals say that the gospel is “Jesus is Lord; the kingdom is at hand.” In this narrative, Jesus’ death doesn’t assuage God’s wrath against our sin so much as it absorbs the world’s evil and violence. In his death he defeats the powers of the world, shows the way of non-violence and service and calls us to join his kingdom community and work for peace and justice in the world. Those who speak in terms of kingdom and overcoming the powers, rather than substitution assuaging the wrath, want a gospel that shapes the practices of the Christian in the world. They see the effects of a more individualistic gospel on people who treat it as just a “get out of hell free” card that does not transform their lives.
However, this way of speaking often obscures the sharpness of the distinction between Law and Gospel that the Reformers expressed so well and which was at the heart of the Great Awakenings. We are saved by grace through Christ’s work, not through our own work. If the gospel is mainly a message to “repent of living for yourself and join Jesus’ kingdom program,” it can become just one more legalism. We must get to the place where we see both the richness and the sharpness of the gospel. We must preach the “sharp” classic gospel of atonement, justification and grace—for individual conversions. Yet we must also preach that the final goal of Jesus’ salvation is not escape from this world but complete renewal of the world, the new heavens and new earth. If our strategy does not arise out of our grasp of the gospel, then it will be just one more effort to control culture through some technique. We will then be just like everyone else. It is the gospel’s sharpness that makes it so rich, and so applicable, for every single area of life and practice. Only this understanding of the gospel equips us for both evangelism and doing justice and cultural renewal.
Light—Gracious, Radical Service
In Matthew 5:14–16, Jesus tells his disciples they are to be a “city on a hill” whose “good deeds” are a light that will lead non-believers to praise the Father in heaven. To be a city means to be a community. You can’t be a city on your own! It is not enough for Christians to simply live good lives as individuals in a society. Why then does Jesus call us a “city” rather than just a “fellowship”? Christians are called to be an alternate city within every earthly city, an alternate human culture within every human culture, to show how sex, money and power can be used in non-destructive ways and be reshaped by the gospel.
Yet Jesus’ call to us is not simply to be an enclave off to ourselves. The Greek words for “good deeds” usually mean not moral behavior in general but deeds of compassion and service. Early Christian bishops in the Roman Empire were so well-known for identifying with the poor and weak that eventually, though part of a minority religion, they were seen as having the right to speak for the local community as a whole. The early church was known to be more committed to and effective in help for the poor than was the Roman government or other cultural institutions. Unless that is true for us today as well, we should not expect cultural impact. If the church does not identify with the marginalized, it will itself be marginalized. That is God’s (poetic) justice.
Just as Israel was told to “seek the peace and prosperity” of the great pagan city of Babylon (Jer 29:4–7), so Christians should be well known as people who seek to serve others whether they believe Christianity or not. We are called to be a beautiful city of light inside every city. Citizens of the city of God should be the very best citizens of their earthly city as well.
Salt—Faithful, Cultural Presence
In Matthew 5:13, Jesus also calls believers the “salt of the earth.” Before refrigeration, salt served as a preservative. It kept meat “renewed” so it did not spoil. This metaphor is therefore a counter point to that of light. The light metaphor is grander in its promise: blind people can come to see! The salt metaphor, however, is more modest in what it holds out for us. Christian living (like salt in the meat) is quite important to keep culture from degrading, but here we are being warned not to necessarily expect fundamental social transformation.
Salt is a more negative metaphor as well. Salt in a wound kept it from festering, but it was also painful. This means that Christians are to stand for truth and guard orthodox belief and practice, but there will inevitably be opposition (cf. 1 Pet 2:12). Jesus is saying that Christians can influence and keep society from deteriorating, socially and culturally.
The salt metaphor also means Christians (like salt) must spread out and penetrate to be effective. We not only affect the world as a counter-cultural community (“light”) but also as dispersed individuals who take the Christian message and worldview into every circle and sector of society. The salt metaphor leads me to borrow a phrase from James Hunter that strikes what I think is the right balance in our relationship with culture. Hunter speaks of Christians’ faithful presence—not cultural absence, nor cultural “redemption.” We should not be as pessimistic about cultural change as some believers, nor as triumphalistic and confident as others.
Within and between these two metaphors of salt and light, we discern this balance which we name “cultural presence” rather than cultural absence, cultural indifference or cultural redemption. The salt image means we are to have Christian influence on the broader culture and “renew” it—invigorating and shaping it in some fashion. Yet the city and light images stress the importance of the church itself as a very distinct and beautiful mini-society. These metaphors hold out the possibility of bringing some significant Christian influence into a society, but they do not seem to hold out the prospect of any kind of “take over” or Christianizing of society as a whole.
Church—Word and Deed
We’ve said the gospel is both rich and sharp. We find in the Bible not only ringing calls to evangelize the world, but also strong calls to do justice and care for the poor. Many, however, fear that a renewed emphasis on mercy and justice ministries will displace vigorous evangelism and discipling in the way it did in mainline churches during the mid-20th century.
Distinguishing between the “institutional” church and the “organic” church may help here. The Dutch Christian leader Abraham Kuyper taught that the “institutional church” was the church in the world as organized under its officers and ministers, preaching the gospel, baptizing and making disciples. This he distinguished from the church as “organism,” by which he meant Christians in the world, who have been discipled and equipped to bring the gospel to bear on all of life.
The church’s gospel ministry includes both evangelizing non-believers and shaping every area of believers’ lives with the gospel, but that doesn’t mean that the church as an institution under its elders is to corporately carry out all the activity that we equip our members to do. For example, while it should disciple its church members who are film-makers so that their cinematic art will be profoundly influenced by the gospel, the church should not operate a film production company—that should be done by the film-makers themselves.
Becoming sensitive to this difference between the gathered, “institutional” church and the dispersed, “organic” church moves us beyond the argument over whether the church’s mission is primarily evangelism or renewing culture. More narrowly and formally considered, the institutional church exists primarily to evangelize and disciple people, but considered more broadly, Christians are called to resist and to seek to heal all the results of sin in the world—spiritual, psychological, social and physical. In Jesus’ name, they are to evangelize, counsel, shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, care for the sick and create a more just society for all.
The church’s gospel ministry includes both evangelizing non-believers and shaping every area of believers’ lives with the gospel.
Work—Vocation and Faith
One of the main ways the institutional church equips Christians to function as salt out in the world is by discipling them to integrate their faith with their work. Our faith informs our work in at least four ways:
First, our faith changes our motivation for work. For professionals, who are prone to over-work and anxiety, the gospel prevents us from finding our significance and identity in money and success. For working-class people, who are prone to what is sometimes translated as “eyeservice” and drudgery, it directs us to work as “for the Lord” (Col 3:22–23).
Second, our faith changes our conception of work. A robust theology of creation and of God’s love and care for it, helps us see that even simple tasks such as making a shoe, filling a tooth and digging a ditch are ways to serve God and build up human community. Cultural production becomes a matter of rearranging the material world in such a way that honors it and promotes human flourishing. A good theology of work resists the modern world’s tendency to value only expertise and those things that are difficult to do, and which therefore command more money and power.
Third, our faith provides high ethics for Christians in the work place. Many things that are technically legal but biblically immoral and unwise are out of bounds for believers. This should always lead them to function with a very high level of integrity in their work.
Fourth, our faith gives us the basis for reconceiving the very way in which our kind of work is done. Every vocational field is distorted by sin and idolatry. Christian medical professionals will see that some practices make money for them but don’t add value to patients. Christians in marketing and business will discern common practices and accepted patterns of behavior that accrue power, status and wealth without equitable benefit to customers and other colleagues. A Christian worldview provides believers with ways to analyze the philosophies and practices that dominate their field and bring renewal and reform to them.
City—Parish and Outreach
Probably nowhere will this comprehensive strategy bear more cultural fruit than in major global cities. Center city residents and the work they do have a huge impact on society. It has always been this way. Historians point out that by a.d. 300 the urban populations of the Roman Empire were largely Christian, while the countryside was pagan. This was also true for the first millennium a.d. in Europe—the cities were Christian, but the broad population across the countryside was pagan. When the cities are Christian, even if the majority of the population is pagan, the society is headed on a Christian trajectory. Why? As the city goes, so goes the culture: cultural trends tend to be generated in the city and flow outward into the rest of society.
Does that mean that all Christians must live in cities? No. We need Christians and churches everywhere there are people! The real problem, however, is that a Christian presence is represented by Christians and churches far better in non-urban centers than in the influential cities. Missiologists tell us that even in parts of the world where Christianity is growing rapidly, the church is not reaching secular centercity urban residents at all.
Movement—Ecosystems and New Churches
Why is it that major cities are not being reached by the church on any kind of scale? Because it takes a gospel movement to reach an urban cultural center. A movement is an interdependent “ecosystem” of churches and ministries that, once established, grows and propagates itself naturally without a single command center. The core of this ecosystem is a multiplying body of new churches that reflects all the “gospel DNA” values named in this article.
A Multitude of Ministries Working Together
Nevertheless, the institutional church cannot by itself constitute the ecosystem. Around this growing core of churches are specialty ministries that drill deep into the city and do things that the “institutional church” cannot do as well. There should be Christian schools for families and theological schools for leaders. There should be dozens of new for-profit businesses set up by Christians committed to conducting new ways of work in their field. There should be a dizzying array of non-profits and ministries that address virtually every needy population that exists. There should be a vibrant campus ministry in a city, supplying churches and the rest of the ecosystem with a constant stream of new young leaders.
Finally, a healthy ecosystem requires Christian business leaders, academics, theologians, pastors and other leaders to know one another and regard one another without suspicion and “turfconsciousness.” They need to think holistically about their city and find ways that various parts of the ecosystem can work together more synergistically. The reality is that most churches cannot “make the jump” to having this balance that enables them to participate in a transformative gospel ecosystem. The best way to produce churches with this kind of ministry is to plant new ones that have the “DNA” built in from the beginning.
Why New Churches?
New churches reach new people. New churches reach the non-churched far more effectively than longerestablished churches. Dozens of studies confirm that the average new church will bring new people into the life of the Body of Christ at six to eight times the rate of an older congregation of the same size. Why would this be? As a congregation ages, powerful internal institutional pressures lead it to allocate most of its resources and energy toward the concerns of its members and constituents rather than toward those outside its walls. This is natural and to a degree desirable. Older congregations, therefore, have a stability and steadiness that many people need. We must also remember that many people will only be reached by churches with deep roots in the community and with the trappings of stability and respectability.
New churches sustain new ministries. New churches also are crucial because within a few years, they become the source of Christian giving to other ministries in the city.
New churches reach diversity. Many new churches are the only way to reach the sheer diversity of the city. New churches have far greater ability to reach the constant stream of new generations, new immigrant groups and new residents that come to a city. New congregations actually empower new people much more quickly and readily than older churches. Thus, they always have and always will reach them with greater facility than longestablished bodies. This means, of course, that church planting is not only for “frontier regions” or “mission fields.” Cities will have to maintain vigorous, extensive church planting to even maintain the number of Christians in a region. We believe that one church, no matter how big, will never be able to serve the needs of such diverse cities. Only a movement of hundreds of churches, small and large, can penetrate literally every neighborhood and people group in a city.
New churches are the best way to renew the existing churches of a city.
New churches renew existing churches. Finally, new churches are the best way to renew the existing churches of a city. In a discussion on new church development, the question often arises: “But what about all the existing churches in the city? Shouldn’t you be working to strengthen and renew them?” The new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body. Often the older congregations are too timid to try a particular approach, absolutely sure it would “not work here.” When the new church in town succeeds wildly with some new method, other churches eventually take notice and gain the courage to try it themselves.
The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for reaching a city. Nothing else—not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, mega-churches, consulting, nor church renewal processes—will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting. This is an eyebrowraising statement. To those who have done any study of the subject, however, it is not even controversial.
Christ—Our Model to Identify and Yet to Confront
Is it difficult to both identify with your neighborhood and confront people about their sin, to both seek the peace of a city and evangelistic growth? Yes and no. In some ways the two support each other.
New converts have great energy and love to pour out into the needs of the city, and the ministry of justice and mercy makes the evangelistic appeal seem more plausible to non-Christian city residents. And yet, to “speak the truth in love” is a challenging balance if there ever was one.
Fortunately, we have the supreme model for this in Jesus Christ himself. There on the cross God was loving us and identifying with us in the profoundest way. He became subject to injustice, suffering, weakness and death—all the things that we face. At the very same moment, the cross confronts us about our sin. We are so lost that nothing less than the death of the Son of God can save us. On the cross Jesus gave us the most challenging statement of our sin and need for repentance, at the same time identifying with us and loving us as the ultimate neighbor. 