One of the important questions that has been raised is what is the relationship of Christ to Culture? Many of us were taught that Christ and culture were opposed to each other, as a result of this we accepted a legalistic list of things we could not do. We feared that  any exposure to the culture would contaminate our walk with the Lord.

Others have seen Christ and culture as things to put in different boxes, I have my walk with the Lord in one box and my living out from the cultural standards of the world. In this area we are told the Christian faith has no relevance to political and other cultural matters. So we see many Christians leading a lifestyle that is not influenced by their Christian faith. I have talked with people who can see no relationship between their Christian faith and the consumer society in which we live. When confronted with the need to use the worlds resources responsibly they respond by saying that I have bought into a social gospel. The social gospel as taught in the early twentieth century is something I do not accept, but I do believe the gospel has a social perspective.

I firmly believe that Christ came into this world to save it, and that includes the created order. If this is so then God cares about his world and the way we live in it. It is interesting to note how the prophets spoke to their cultures, they highlighted so many social sinsand this is relevant to us. The law of God as recorded in the Old Testament shows patterns for society which shows that God hates injustice. also,the Bible affirms humankind’s creativity, God gave us the arts for us to enjoy. Christ is the one who transforms culture, as we accept the Lordship of Christ over all areas of life, we will begin to see the relevance of the word of God to everything that we touch and do. We are shown guidelines for our family, work and daily lives, but we are also given standards of justice and equity that a holy God expects us to apply to our cultures.

Christians have retreated from cultural involvement, and as a result we wonder what has happened to our world, we decry the lack of moral standards, the lack of integrity and the fact that our governments are accepting more and more things which are contrary to the word of God. In many way we are reaping the fruits of allowing our Christian faith to be defined by being a religion rather than a worldview. We need to grasp again the importance of the Lordship of Christ for every area of life, we need to show to a watching world that submission to God brings forth the beautiful fruits of love,justice,creativity and integrity. The world needs to see the relevance of the Christian faith to the whole of life, and then it will see a message that will address the world in which they live, they may or may not like that message but they will acknowledge that what we are saying is relevant to today.