Discipleship at the Level of Culture

[MUSIC] That spiritual war manifests itself in the physical realm through culture. And lies are spoken at the level of culture that shape the whole of society. And then we live within the framework of those lies. And we don't even know it. Just the air we breathe, the water we swim in. [MUSIC] Welcome to ideas have consequences. Both good and bad ideas have the power to transform cultures. Explore with us how biblical truth can create cultures that thrive and flourish. My name is Luke Allen and with me on episode one of this new podcast are my co-workers here at the Disciple Nations Alliance. The White Vote, Sean Carson, Darrow Miller and Scott Allen. We at the Disciple Nations Alliance exist to equip you with a biblical world view that transforms your life and empowers you to bring God's kingdom to your world. And on this show we want to do just that by breaking down ideas, exploring their consequences, and finding ways to take action and apply what we have learned. Again, welcome to ideas have consequences. [MUSIC] Great to be back with you, Darrow and Sean and Dwight. We're going to have a great discussion about this question. What does it mean to disciple at the level of culture? And how is this different from what most people have in their heads when they think of discipleship, kind of traditional understandings of discipleship? Well, I could start by saying what it's not. Okay. First let me say discipleship is incredibly important. And we are to disciple individuals, especially when people have come to Christ. We are to disciple them. And we are to disciple them in the spiritual disciplines. So when somebody comes to Christ, if you teach them to pray, to worship, to share the gospel. And to study the word of God, these are considered the spiritual disciplines. And part of what it means to disciple is to disciple individuals in the spiritual disciplines. So I think we need to say that because some of the other things we may say, well, people say, hey, you're not saying that. No, we are saying that. They're important. They're fundamental, but they're not sufficient as the way that I would say it. Because the great commission isn't simply about saving individuals. God wants to see nations transformed. And the great commission is about discipling nations. And part of that is discipling individuals in the spiritual disciplines, but that's the beginning, not the end of the process. When I think of the word just disciple, what does that word mean? And immediately I thought, well, it's to form the heart and the mind. And when we disciple someone, we're helping them form their heart and mind into something new, are changing, are reinforcing, but it's a formation. And I think that's why the spiritual disciplines are emphasized. Because hopefully if you're in the word and if you're praying and you're going to church, you're you are forming the heart and mind. But I think when we're getting troubles, we think that is discipleship. No, it's actually one small tool or a tool towards forming the heart and mind. So. Yeah, dear, I want to go back to your comment about it's essential or necessary, but it's insufficient and pick that up a little bit and just flesh that out. You know, when you say it's insufficient, insufficient for what? And I think this becomes a key question. What is what's the mission of the church? You know, what's the big goal? What are we here for? And you talk about the Great Commission and you know, that's a place in the Bible where we see this big picture of the mission kind of laid out. And you know, there, Jesus says you're to make disciples of all nations. And the object is nations. It's and I think when we think about discipleship, traditionally we think about people as individuals. And that's appropriate. You know, it's as you say, it's necessary to disciple people individually, but it's not what was the word you used, sufficient to disciple nations. In other words, there's a connection between the individual and the nation, between the individual and a culture. And God wants to influence all of that. And I think where we sometimes, you know, we don't, where we are thinking needs to be challenged as we understand the individual part, but we don't understand nation or culture and the connection between the individual and the culture. We kind of cut it off there. And so we need to have our thinking kind of renewed on that. What is the mission? Is it just to disciple individuals? It's essential, but it's not sufficient. If the goal is to have an impact at the level of culture or nation. Well, and again, I think this is a product of the sacred secular divide, where if what the church is about is spiritual things, then we translate the concept of discipling simply in terms of spiritual disciplines. If we are thinking from a holistic or biblical worldview, it's much larger than that. When God raised up Abraham as we see in the Old Testament, he blessed Abraham for what purpose? To be a blessing to the nations. And it's not just individuals, God wants to bless nations. And because of the dualistic paradigm, we have reduced that to saving souls for heaven. That's right. I think it's instructive to look at the continent of Africa, because Africa has been evangelized. And there's been a lot of discipleship going on in Africa, but not on the level of culture. And so you see Africa today is still, while one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest continent, on the planet in terms of natural resources, it is still very impoverished. Corruption is rampant, lack of faithfulness and marriage is rampant. So many things are rampant because evangelism has occurred and maybe discipleship in the spiritual disciplines has occurred. But discipling on the level of culture has not occurred because it has not been part of the church's framework to think in those terms. Hades been in the news recently. And I've just had an interview about worldview and Hades. And I've just written a blog on this. But Hades has been in the news. And someone said during the earthquake, what was it, 10, 12 years ago in Hades, a professor from the University of California, who specialty is Hades, said that Hades has been evangelized. 80% of Haitians are Roman Catholic. 20% are Protestant and 100% are Voodoo. And there are, I am sure, Catholic seminaries there, there are Protestant seminaries there, there are Protestant Bible schools there. People are taught some of the basics of the faith. And some are taught Baptist theology, Baptist doctrine or Lutheran doctrine or Catholic doctrine. But no one has taught them worldview. They haven't discussed the concept of discipling at the level of culture. So what is in the heads of Haitians? It's Voodoo. It's Voodoo culture. It's Voodoo mindset. And that's why Haiti today is so poor and so chaotic, even though evangelism is taken place, and certain levels of spiritual disciplines have taken place. But there hasn't been the concept of consequently the discipline. the Cypalling of Haiti at the level of culture. - Let's flesh this out a little bit. You know, it's easy to say that, but what practically does that mean? What does that look like? How do you disciple a culture? - Can I read something from Ken Myers? - Yes. - He says that discipleship at the level of culture, is a work of alternative in cultureation to present a new way to understand life in the world in which we live, that is a new way to understand what is real. And this new way of understanding life is incarnated in alternative cultural forms that are sustained across generations and when possible, shared with our neighbors. So as we talked before about culture, Cypalling at the level of culture is presenting a new culture, a new way of-- - A new reality. - A new reality, right? - Not a new reality, but the reality. - True, thank you. - And because people live in worlds of illusion when they deny God, when they deny there is a creator, they live in a world of illusion or maybe delusion. And so it's bringing them to reality. What is real? That's what we're talking about. Women are not inferior to men. They're not objects. Women are made in the image of the living God. That would be an example of discipling at the level of culture, changing the mental paradigm about women. So they begin to be treated as the image of God and not simply objects to be used and conquered as they are in so much of sexist society. - And then even to go beyond that, Darryl, to take that example of women, that idea, that biblical idea, the reality of who women are. And to, I love that quote from Ken Myers, but to create practices, to create a culture, if you will, a value and a culture around that, in the places where we can influence cultures in our businesses, families, where are you creating culture? Where do you have influence in shaping a culture? And how can you bring that idea into the way that that culture is shaped and created? - Remember again, that institutions, economic, political and social institutions, are downstream from culture. They're not upstream from culture. Can you expand on that? - Yes. - Culture is derived from worship. What is the nature of the God that you worship? I was sharing these things in Kenya a number of years ago with a group of pastors. And I read from Deuteronomy 11, I think it is. Let me see if I can find it. Deuteronomy 10, verse 17, "For the Lord your God is God of God's and Lord of Lord's, "the great God mighty and awesome, "who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes." That is God's character. He does not show partiality. He doesn't accept bribes. And as I shared this with this group of Kenyans, mostly young pastors, one of them said to me, well, Darrow, what you're saying is bribery is an act of worship. Well, it is. It's an act of worship, but not of the living God. It's the act of worship of a pagan God and this young pastor caught it and made that very profound observation. And then he said, what you're saying, Darrow, is doing justice is an act of worship. It's an act of worshiping the God who is just. So you're moving from what is the nature and character of God to culture? Do we create a culture that is just? Then you move that from the culture to the level of institutions. Are the institutions that you're building just institutions? So there is a moving from the cult, the worship. What is the nature of the God or God's worship to the concept of culture in a very practical way? Is it corrupt? Well, that's a reflection of gods that can be bribed. Okay, so culture is corrupt. So now you have corruption in these institutions, in economics, in social and political framework. They are run by corruption. So we are to disciple nations, not just wind souls for heaven and to disciple nations is to bring God's character, the living God, his character to the forefront of our nations and let that shape the culture and thus the institutions that flow from that culture. - Hi friends, hope you're enjoying the episode so far. I just wanted to encourage you to take a minute after this episode is over to let us know what you think about this new podcast. The best way to do that is by leaving us a review on the podcast platform that you're currently listening on. While you're at it, if you haven't already, please give this podcast a follow. So that next time an episode comes out, you'll be notified right away. - Yeah, Darro, and how, you know, if you have a vision for forming institutions and shaping them in the worship of the living God, that's very powerful because let's take an educational institution, the reformers, you know, the Puritans in our country set up Harvard and Yale in these schools to be places that reflected the worship of the living God. And then everyone who goes through those institutions is shaped by them. They pick up the values, what's important, what's not important. They just pick that up from the institution, whether they're Christians or not. And in some sense, that's what it means to disciple at the level of culture. It's to influence people in the reality of the living God through the institutions of a society, whether they're believers or not. But you have to have an intention to do that, you know, to say this is important to shape a culture that honors God, that fears God, that reflects his reality. - And in one sense, we can say that discipleship is pre-evangelism. - Right. - As Christians, we think that, oh, we need to start with evangelism. Not necessarily, because if we're talking about reality and the nature of God, and what that means for culture, women are made in the image of God, we can teach that and talk about that before we evangelize. - That's right. - We can be discipling people and a culture pre-evangelism. - Yes. - Now does that mean we don't share the gospel of Jesus Christ? No. That's absolutely fundamental. But we can disciple before people come to Christ and after they come to Christ. - It's such a really powerful point, Dero. Yeah, I think we have in our minds, I know I did as a young Christian, people come to Christ and then they're discipled, but we can work with people in terms of relating to them and interacting with them as if God is real, he is real and he's alive and he's, you know, there is a culture, there's a kingdom culture and we can interact with people and relate to people from that vantage point before they are believers, because it's the real world as you were saying. Something we can add to this discussion, when you think of the Exodus, God leading his people out of Egypt, they had prayed for 430 years. I don't know if any of us have prayed that long or anyone listening to this podcast have prayed that long, but Hebrew people had prayed for 430 years And there was no answer. And then God answered, and he led the Hebrew people out of Egypt after 430 years of slavery. No sooner were they out of Egypt than what did they want to do? They wanted to go back to Egypt. They missed the leaks and the garlics. At least that's what it said. But there was something more profound than missing the leaks in the garlic. What was more profound, it's one thing to take a people out of slavery. It's a totally different process to get slavery out of their heads. And they had lived for generation after generation as a slave people in a slave society. And now they are free. They're out of the prison as it were. But the prison is still in their mind. Now what do you do? And the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, are God's story of what He did and had to do to transform a slave mind to a free mind. To get the Hebrew people from having a mindset of slavery to be able to function as a free nation. And that's what the Pentateuch is about. I was in Jawa Posoah a number of years ago in Brazil. And I visited two missionary, young missionary women who were working on a garbage dump in Jawa Posoah. They wanted me to go see the people they were working with and what they were doing. As we were driving to this garbage dump, they took, they drove past some new apartment buildings, brand new apartment buildings with running water and electricity. And they said, the city, which Jawa Posoah built these apartment buildings to get the people off the garbage dump. And then we went to the garbage dump to see all the people that were there. And after the apartments had been built, they came in, moved the people off the garbage dump, all the children, the parents. And they bulldozed the cardboard trash shacks back into the garbage dump. And within six months, where were the people? They'd walked away from these brand new apartments with running water and electricity. And they've moved back to the garbage dump and rebuilt their trash houses. What's the lesson? You can take people off the garbage dump. That's one activity. But how do you get the garbage dump out of their minds? Totally different process. And if governments don't think in those terms, what they do is the easy thing. They spend money to build apartments. Great. Clap. We did this. But the people don't want to live in the apartments because they've still got the garbage dump in their minds. In other words, they're not. Let me go back to your Israel illustration. God was trying to create a culture. A nation and a culture. To be a model nation. And it takes time. And it takes time. And it takes time. And it's a process of new inculturation, which is what Myers was arguing. The discipleship is a process of inculturation. And consciously inculturating. Yeah. I think you see it in the United States, you see this very powerfully indication. In other words, somebody is going to be discipling the culture. Somebody is going to be shaping and influencing it around the worship of some belief system. There's no neutrality here, as we've said before in other podcasts. Somebody is going to be actively influencing the culture. So today, people are waking up and their Christians are waking up, kind of shocked. And they're reflecting a non-biblical worldview. They're reflecting this worldview of critical theory, of Marxism. How did. And they're propagating it. And they're propagating it through the institutions, right? Because the kids are going through the schools. And they're learning about the world. And they're propagating it through the institutions. Because the kids are going through the schools and they're learning it kind of biosmosis. Because they've been shaped now to reflect that false belief system. And Christians are going, "How did that happen?" Like, what happened? We live in a country where probably the majority of people would claim Christianity. Whether they believe in Jesus or not. They would claim some affiliation to it. How did that happen? I answer my own question. It happened because the people that were propagating that worldview understood what it meant to disciple at the level of culture. That's right. And they had a vision. And they were very disciplined about doing it, starting with the school systems. You know, we need these school systems to reflect our belief system. We need to get it into the curriculum. And, you know, from there, you know, it can begin to ripple out into every area of society. And I would say that this process started, you know, back in the 1950s. And now it's bearing fruit at every level of society. My point is Christians, I think, used to have a vision to do that kind of thing. But we did. We lost it. So we went to the sideline. We took ourselves out of the game. And then somebody else, you know, went on the playing field and played the game. And now we live in a culture that even though we're Christians is not reflecting the worship of the living God. So you see it in negation, this process of discipling at the level of culture. Well, and you see the reformation as an example historically of how nations were transformed because the reformers understood that the word of God was for all of life and all the institutions of society. And they taught this, preached this from the pulpits of the reformation. And nations were transformed in one or two generations. We see it with Wesley in England. England was a cesspool before Wesley came. And with a little more than a generation after he came, he preached Christ crucified. And he preached that the crucifixion of Christ had a public impact as well. So he accepted, he understood that if people came to Christ, the societies should be changed. And we saw England transformed in a little more than a generation. And part of that change was Wilbur Force and his, the people that were part of the clap him sect who brought an end to slavery. Coming out of the Wesley revivals. That's right. Yeah. So it used to be something that was part of our tradition, but then, you know, we lost that vision. We walked away from it. But other people didn't. You know, they were very intentional. Intentional. At shaping the culture and influencing it and discipling it, if you will, in that way. And it seems like the church has become Israel in your analogy, of God taking Israel out of Egypt. And the church was a part of society. And now we've been relegated to a religious institution. And I don't think God's wanting us to stay there. He's wanting us to engage with culture, to change culture. But we're pretty content to just come on Sunday mornings. It's easier. It's way easier. Much easier. Yeah. What does it mean to bring by kingdom come? And I will be done to Atlanta, to St. Louis, to Los Angeles, to Lima, to Nairobi. What does that mean? We have to think about that and then consciously act on that and eventually build institutions that reflect that. Yeah. Because we professionalized Christianity just like the business world. And we hire a pastor to teach us and to do the work of the ministry while we do the other things. And instead of us seeing ourselves, the church is the body of Christ. We're all engaged. We're all meant to be engaged in all the important role to play. To be discipling culture. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I just want to come back to the motivation, dear, really quick. You mentioned Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 and 3, the call of Abraham. I think this is so important. We're not talking about engaging the culture and discipling the culture for some kind of, so we can be superior and dominant and kind of have our belief system imposed on everyone else. That's not at all the biblical idea. The biblical idea is this is true. And because it's true, it's good. It sets people free. In other words, God said to Abraham, I'm going to raise you up. I'm going to create a culture here that's going to be a blessing to all the nations, to all the cultures, but the key idea is blessing. It's good. It's going to bless the nation. It's going to lead to freedom, prosperity, flourishing. - And with that in mind, Scott, the blessing is truth. The blessing is goodness. The blessing is beauty. This is the culture of the kingdom of God. Thy kingdom come to where? To earth as it is in heaven. Because we're do-less, we spend so much time focusing on getting people to heaven or into church or into church and then waiting in church and the church is like a warehouse of souls waiting to die to go to heaven. Rather than taking seriously what Jesus taught us to pray, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is bringing the culture of the kingdom of God to earth, bringing beauty into our communities, into our homes, speaking the truth and speaking the truth to power. Not only being good, but doing good. Goodness is to be part of our lives. And this is discipling at the level of culture, the engagement with beauty, truth and goodness in our daily lives in the world. - Okay, I wanna talk more about that. I wanna get down into it. How do we do that? We're talking about the concept of discipling at the level of culture. But let's see if we can get practical in some ways that people can go, okay, I know what I can do to do that. - Can I just read, so Proverbs 29, 18 says, where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happiest he as the King James. But just the idea of a vision, when you have a vision and you have God's vision, then flourishing is meant to happen. And when we don't have that, then unrestrained happens. Chaos happens, selfishness happens. And that doesn't promote flourishing. It doesn't promote goodness. There's doesn't need to be truth in that. - Yep. And Scott, what you were saying, we live in an intergeneration where people do not want to hear things that offend them. We have safe spaces. I don't know about universities in other countries, but in the United States, it's not about the pursuit of truth anymore. It's about creating safe spaces where people don't have to be challenged, can't be challenged, or hear anything that might offend them. But the concept of the pursuit of truth came right from the lips of Jesus Christ. In John 8:31 and 32, he said to the Jews who believed on him, if you continue in my word, you will know the truth. And the truth will set you free. These are not simply pious, spiritual things, continuing in the Word of God that allows us to come to understand truth. And what does truth do? It brings freedom. And this is why the universities in the West were so much about the pursuit of freedom. You could go to the university, and you could argue, you could discuss, you could challenge. That's how it used to be because people were pursuing truth. And that means something. Today, the environment is opposite of that. Don't say anything that could offend somebody. So what do we do? Because just on that. Because that's their truth. That's their truth. So don't offend them, except that, respect that, you know, end of story. That's the post-modern. So the words that are used, their truth, this is my truth, you have your truth. But those words are faulty words. You can say, this is my opinion, what's your opinion? That's the language we should be using. And challenge somebody when they say, oh, this is my truth. No, it's your opinion. Because truth is objective. It's based on what is real. We no longer have a pursuit of truth in the culture today. In fact, we are now the post-truth culture. We don't want to deal with truth. So what can we do if we wanted to cycle at the level of culture? Speak truth. You do it nicely, you do it civilly, but you don't not do it for fear of offending somebody. That's one every day of our lives. We can be people who in the situations in which we live, speak truth. I like when I'm thinking practically about this, and Dwight, we need to hear from you on this too. But when I'm thinking practically about this, I like to challenge people to, because I think when we talk about discipling at the level of culture, or just let's say influencing culture, it seems too daunting. What can I do to shape a culture, right? And then we're thinking culture very broadly, like the culture of the United States or the culture of Brazil. But I like to challenge people to think of it differently. You know, we all have opportunity to shape culture. If we think about culture in terms of just, you know, whatever that group is that you have some influence with, it could be as small as your marriage or your family, or if you have a position of influencing the place that you work, you have a place, a platform to shape a culture, or if you're a coach of a sports team, you have a platform to shape a culture. So think of it that way. And then, like you were saying, Darryl, what does it, you know, but just there's so many ways that we can bring this in that this being biblical truth in, but pick one way, you mentioned truth, that would be one way, you know, or we thinking biblically about truth here. Another way is just the way we, you know, we think about each other. Are we, do we see each other as human beings in the biblical sense? Do we treat each other as human beings in the biblical sense? So there's many ways you can do it, but I think it's helpful to say, that's what it means to disciple at the level of culture. It's right there in your, you know, in the place where you can begin to make a difference and shape a culture. - I was in Pune, India a number of years ago, doing a series of lectures, and teaching on some of these things. And after a while, after a session, a young man came up to me, and was thanking me. And he said, "Dero, I have a story to tell you, and I've been telling this now for 15, maybe 20 years." And he had come to understand that women have dignity, but at that time in India, if a man got on a bus, a woman had to stand up to let the man have the seat. It was the culture, because in Hindu culture, women are inferior to men. In fact, in Hindu culture, a woman was a man in the last life who sinned a lot, or had bad karma, and came back in this current life as a woman. And if she hoped to be a man in the next life when she was reincarnated again, she had to suffer as a woman. That's the culture. So if she gets on a bus, or a man gets on a bus, and women are all sitting down, one of the women is to stand up to let the man have the seat. And this young man had come to understand that women are not inferior to men. They're made in the image of God. And he said, "Quite simply, if I'm on a bus, And it's crowded and a woman comes on I stand up and give her my seat That's discipling at the level of culture. It's creating a especially if you have influence over a group of people You can say that this is what we do around here. That's culture. Yeah, well, and that this is the way we act around here He at that moment might not have had a platform to lecture right but he was on a bus with a bunch of people and He did something that broke the norm of that culture and that can cause what's he doing that for? I wonder why he's doing that and it creates a question for people to reflect upon So whether it's having a platform or having a radio program where you can challenge things or it's simply Straighting the truth of something in a very simple way. That's a good hero and I think that's another angle another avenue into this You know where people go how do I do this? What is it in the culture now that really goes against you know clearly that you see it it goes against the teachings of the Bible and the Reality of the living God so treating women in that way does that's clear Start there just start there. I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna lead by example and Lord willing over time will have a new culture here that treats women differently and You could say that about many things in a culture so to kind of take an inventory of whatever the culture is that you want to influence What are the things that are being done in this culture the norms the values that? You know that caused God to weep, you know that are so counter to the kingdom culture Whatever that is start you could start with that. Couldn't you? Yeah, Scott yes for examples looking at you Dwight for the real great wisdom now Dwight Yeah, I don't have any but I'm thinking how I I could think of my family examples of my family, but I'm thinking well how have I ever influenced a group you know I'm at once being in a village in Bangladesh and I was responsible for the A project in this village to provide new roofs to these families because of hail damage to their roofs and they had it in their mind that that they were they were untouchables and they were At the low end of society. They were the lowest cast if that was you know cast was illegal, but that's where they were and they were powerless and they knew that and I knew that right and And yet for me, I didn't view them that way. I view them as people like any one my like my family or anybody else and I figured It's their decision to decide how to fix their roofs They saw themselves powerless victims and so they weren't happy with the budget that I had and so they were gonna go on strike and until we gave them better roofs and My job was to convince them no I'm not in charge of the resources you are this is what you have you decide and It took about Six hours for them to talk to one another to see whether I was being honest with him But they to convince themselves that he's telling us we really do have to make this decision This is our agency. We have to decide now what we're gonna do about our roots. It was really small thing They were so happy with these second-class roofs Because they got to decide which second-class they had and it was human agency This idea that I can I can make decisions Yeah, I can make decisions they were to be stewards over the resources they have and they didn't have that idea previously They didn't have that idea. Yeah, yeah, that's powerful. They were the happiest guys I've ever seen as they fixed the roofs that evening Yeah, no, no, that's a great example to wait and it's a simple example of I didn't know what I was doing you were disciplining at the level of cultures what you were doing But you were shifting a paradigm I was alive for these people That was the story and if they walked away with that shift they're gonna be solving other of the problems They have in their community Rather than waiting for somebody else to come and solve them for them That's you that's the beauty of worldview. It's it's at the paradigm level Once you can shift a worldview it shifts a lot of things I want to just I think you it breaks my heart you see the lack of this You know Sean you had you brought up the vision the vision piece and and that's so important Do you have a vision for what this could look like? And how it would be different this this being whatever that group is or that area where you've got some influence or that group of people Your family your business or whatever it is what could it look like? If it was if it reflected the value system and the truth of God's kingdom what would change? You got to have a vision and right now I think we a lot of Christians just don't even they don't even have a vision Because they've they've said that is below the line if you will right that's that's cultural stuff It doesn't matter to my faith we kind of swall that off and I just was so taken recently in a very negative way by the story of Who's help me out guys the guy that recently resigned from the National Institute of Health the Francis Collins? You know evangelical Christian he was the head of a very large bureaucracy in the United States one of the one of the One of the one of the largest budgets of any bureaucracy in the United States this National Institute of Health and He was an evangelical Christian running that and so he had a big platform there to shape a culture of a whole bureaucracy given the position of leadership that he had But then when he retired here recently it came out that one of the decisions that the NIH had made under his leadership was to provide funding to the University of Pittsburgh to be used for research on aborted baby body parts and You know whatever benefits we could get from that kind of research Just horrific injustice and you ask the question how could how could a Christian who is over that kind of Program and budget do such a thing and I think the answer is no vision It was below the line. This is this is my work. This is this isn't my faith You know the discipleship for me is I go to church. I read the Bible. I pray He probably did all those things But it doesn't have any influence or impact on how I think about my work In the National Institute of Public Health to the point where he could go along with this very Darwinian idea You know what a what a human being is an unborn person is So I don't mean to pick on him, but I just think it's reflective of The mindset of so many Christians if you don't have a vision for discipling the culture. You just don't do it. There's a culture It's a destructive deadly culture and we could easily go along with that so One part of this story Scott that you're telling that really takes this to the next level It's not simply harvesting Aborted baby body parts they've been doing that for decades It is recognizing that they need living tissue for research So they do the abortion in a way that the baby is alive and whole When it is outside the womb So that when the body parts are harvested The baby's heart is still pumping blood So these are the freshest tissues there can be This is the thing that was going on at the University of Pittsburgh under this grant and It is driven by a world view. There it is driven by a world view. It's a Darwinian worldview. There isn't a god We are just accidents of a purposeless process of evolution. We're just matter So of course you can use these parts. They don't have any intrinsic value in fact pragmatically if they can bring value to me what's to stop me that that's consistent with an atheistic Darwinian view exactly but here's and you have a car that's broken and what do you do you go to another car and Take a part out of it. Yeah put it in your car. So your car runs it's treating a human being like a machine a car A car yeah, yeah, yeah so It's it's you know there is a world view that shaping that culture. It's discipleed according to a particular world view Our job is Christians isn't just to go along With whatever that worldview is or stick our heads in the same or pretend that yeah It's to say no our job is to disciple at the level of culture with the truth about a living God Including the truth about human beings are what is what is that what is the unborn in the woman's womb? There's a truth to that So we've got to speak that we've got to build a culture around that But again so many Christians I think because it's They don't connect the dot between discipleship and that That's not discipleship. No, that's my work. And again that goes back to Sacred secular divide right what we're interested in is spiritual things. If it's below the line, that's a different story. Yeah, you've already mentioned like the idea of spiritual disciplines is important and it's and it is good. It's you have to know the nature and character of God. You need to know who Jesus is and then once you know that, it's not just about me and Jesus as my best friend and I walk through life and he goes with me, but it's then taking that nature and character and letting it live out of you so that you do have something to confront an idea. I think something that we haven't talked about much is just the spiritual dimension of these things. Like discipleship at the level of culture becomes a spiritual activity because there is a culture that is not representing the true nature and character of the living God and therefore it needs to be changed. We have to acknowledge that, recognize that and then do something to change that, to bring about life. Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life." Those things of who he is, that expressed in our culture, brings the way to live life, the truth of living life, the abundance that life can bring to us, but if we don't connect who he is to the way I live outside of my just personal relationship with him, then I can do what you just said. I can support something that's destructive while still thinking my relationship with him is intact. We have to acknowledge that I think that there is this spiritual implication of what God desires, what His kingdom looks like when it's expressed in the world, it's a faith, it's a faith thing and when we do that we live that out, trusting that the power of truth will transform, will confront the spirit of the age or of the wickedness of the world. I'm thinking back to Collins again. My guess is if you ask him, and I don't want to be careful here, but my guess is he would say something like, "That's my own private belief." It doesn't really have any place here in my public life, in my life as a leader of this big government institution. This is what I believe, it's personal, it's private. I think that's a mistake. It is personal, our faith is very personal, it is not private. If God is the Lord of all, if it is true, it's public. It's public truth, Leslie Nubigan is very famous for saying this. It has to be lived out publicly, not just in your personal private life. How do we do this? How do we take these ideas and live them out? Is your faith private or is it public? How do I make my faith more public in that sense? And tyrannical governments, wherever they're found, whatever part of the world they're found, they may be okay with you living your faith privately, but there's no place for it publicly. And if you seek to speak publicly, speaking the truth in the public place, they can clamp down on you and often will clamp down on you. And this is the price that has to be paid, and it's one of the reasons is Dwight brought it up earlier, there's a fear, because what could happen to me if I spoke the truth, or if I live my life in a way that confronted lies, even if I wasn't speaking just the way I was living my life would confront the lies. Tell us a story about the man in Germany who didn't put the sign in his window. This comes from Voklov Havl, the first president of Czechoslovakia, and then when the Czech Republic and then Slovak split, he became the first president of the Czech Republic. He wasn't a politician, he wasn't a lawyer, he was a poet. And so he thought along a different track of lines and a politician would, and he would tell a story about a man. This was during the communist era, where in order to have a business you had to have the approval of the government, and you had to be careful that you didn't violate what the government had set out, and the government wanted you to have a sign in your window workers of the world unite. And if you, if the police came around and you didn't have that sign, they could shut down your business. So this man put a sign in his window workers of the world unite. He didn't believe it, but he put it there, so he was safe. And Havl asked the question, what would have happened if he had removed the sign? And of course one of the things he was happened, he could have been arrested and he could have had his business shut down. But he said the other thing that would have happened is everyone in the community would know the truth. The emperor has no clothes. And that is walking and living in truth. Would that have an impact? Yes. That's how we need to think in those terms. Are we willing to do the truth, speak the truth, even if it's costly? Because in doing so, you were affirming before the watching world. Yeah. Yeah. The power of that story from Edero was that it didn't matter what the sign said in a sense. It said, in this case, it was workers of the world unite. So it's this communist slogan. But the government, the party, the power used it as a way of… Prairie and conformity. Yeah. Exactly. It was a way of, you know, the guy didn't believe in communism. He thought it was wicked, but it was a sign that he was going to go along to get along in a sense. And, you know, when he finally got the courage up to take the sign down, you know, it called into question the whole edifice of lies upon which that was built. Yeah. So I think we have to do that, you know, to disciple at the level of culture is to change cultures that are demonic in many ways. Some of our listeners may be familiar with the man named Jordan Peterson. And Jordan Peterson has been a professor at Toronto University. And he has engaged with transgender people in his classroom. And he has called them by whatever preferred pronoun they wanted and by whatever name they gave him. He was quite happy to do it. And then the provincial government mandated by law that you had to do that. And he got on television and said, "That's not the place of the government. I will not do that." And he'd been doing it all along, but it hadn't been mandated. And he did that. And within days he was a global phenomenon. And he said, "No, because the government had overstepped its bounds and tried to force thought and speech." Well, you're opening up a whole another avenue of discussion. We need to pick up at a different time, I think, Darryl. But that is this whole question of why is that an overstep of the government to do that? No, we can do that on another-- Is that a biblical thing or not? That's a whole other thing. No, but the principle we should not be questioning. Because that's-- this is exactly Voklov Havils' point in telling the story. Do we speak in the midst of tyranny? Are we willing to be biblical to speak the truth, biblical truth in the midst of a culture that does not support that, and in which there'll be a price to be paid if we do? I think in some ways is a good way of saying it for this discussion. Darryl, I've heard you say that Satan-- here's another-- this idea of discipleship at the level of culture is quite unique, I think, and something that the DNA talks about. But this idea that Satan lies at the level of culture, and you use that as a springboard to say, "Therefore, we must disciple at the level of culture." But could you just expel on that just for a minute? Like, what do you mean by Satan lies at the level of culture? I think most of us would agree that Satan is a liar and he's the father of lies. And most of us think of that in terms of, you know, what are we listening to? You know, it's a personal thing, it's a satan line to me, and it's a place where he can and does. But culture is the intersection of the transcendent world with the physical world. It's the membrane as it were between the spiritual and the physical. Let's see that one more time, sorry, that's a good statement, but say it again. The culture is the membrane. It's the line of the horizon between the spiritual and the physical. And satan lies at the level of culture. Institutions are built from those lies. We build whole institutions, and then we live within the framework of those institutions. It's how this is how life works. This is what's normal. And you mentioned a little while ago, there is a spiritual war going on, but that spiritual war isn't simply out there in the heavenlies. That spiritual war manifests itself in the physical realm through culture. It's just the air we breathe, the water we swim in. But again, this goes back to what we said earlier. We need to disciple at the level of culture. God wants His kingdom to come from heaven to be modeled to be established here on earth. Perfectly? No, not until Christ returns. And that means it has to have an institutional impact. Institutions need to be changed. Corrupt justice systems need to become -- corrupt justice systems need to become more just systems. Laws that may make something legal that's immoral need to be changed so that the laws reflect the moral. We all know there's things that we can do that are legal, but not moral. That the question is, is it legal? If it's legal, well, I can do it. Very good. I have one very small illustration of discipling at the level of culture. And Scott, you know what I say, what I'm going to say. But I am so impressed with the impact of Darwin in theory on our world in terms of how it impacts every single aspect of society. I mean, everything is spoken of oftentimes, others, economics or business or health. It's always in evolutionary terms. And it's just assumed now that evolution is fact that Darwin's random misguided -- no. Unguided process is why we got here. Matter is the reason. So I feel like step one in countering anything in our world begins with God created the heavens and the earth. You can't talk about the image of God and man if he wasn't created by God. So anyway, with my kids, when they were young, we would look at sunsets. We would look at amazing aspects of life, whether it's a flower or a tree or a understanding how photosynthesis work. And I'd often say, "This isn't an evolution amazing." Or I'd talk about the miracle of evolution. Basically, they knew I was being ironic and they would laugh. And now they say that, "Dad, the miracle of evolution." And sometimes, you know, getting back to your hobble thing, you don't have to always confront the truth head on. You can just pour irony onto it and be ironic. But anyway, that was my small attempt to disciple at the level of culture. At the family level. I think that's a good way to kind of end it there, Dwight. I want Christians to have a vision. This is part of our mission. It's not just to live out our faith personally and privately, but publicly in a way that shapes the culture, moves it away from the lies of Satan towards the truth of God and His Word, towards freedom flourishing, blessing. That's God's intention. That's why he raised up Israel. That's why Christ came. That's why we're saved. Not just to have a personal relationship with God, but to create cultures that reflect his truth, goodness, and beauty. So, yeah, I hope that encourages everyone of you guys out there. Let's be people that disciple at the level of culture. Should we pray? Father, we just come to you humbly, admitting our own weakness. Admitting that we often hold on to lies that keep us bound, instead of embracing the truth that sets us free. As followers of Jesus, we want you to invade our hearts and our minds to allow the truth to do its work within us, to expose the lies that we've believed and to set us on the right track of living and following and trusting the truth. That it will accomplish the work that you've called it to do. Lord, we live in cultures that have also, as Darryl mentioned, just been lied to by Satan. And we know that your Word speaks truth. It is truth and it sets us free. So, help us to know how to take the truth of your Word into our cultures, to live it, to be truthing people, who speak and live according to your Word, and that confronts the lies of the world and sets people free. We want to see your kingdom come, Jesus, and we want to see your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We call out to you for your help in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to this episode of Ideas Half Consequences. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to visit us on social media. We are the Disciplenations Alliance on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. To dive deeper into our content and teaching, go to the Disciplenations.org. That is Disciplenations.org and check out our resource page. There you'll find free online training courses, books, blogs, and hopefully everything else you'll need to continue to think biblically about everything. Thanks again for listening. [Music]