SERMON
NOTES

August Sermon Series: Christ in a Complex World
Sermon 3: Christians and Culture Wars
Working Title (may change): Formed or Farmed? Christian Identity in an Age of Culture Wars
REv. Anthony Hita

Anchor Scripture: Judges 7: 1-12
Other Important Passages: Colossians 3:1-11; Ephesians 4:1-5, 14-16; Proverbs 18:1-12; 2 Timothy 2:14-19

Key Themes:
  • · Christian identity is becoming subservient to political preference.
  • · Christians are tying themselves to temporal preferences instead of eternal significance, this is dangerous.
  • · Not every Christian is called to every battle, and we must develop the discernment to know which battles are ours.
  • · Easy answers and ideological certainty must be resisted through humility, comfort with mystery, and a focus on Christ alone.

Sermon Points (may change as sermon develops):
  • · Cultural conflicts can seem overly important in the short term because we are living within them, but the Kingdom of God is an eternal, enduring reality that has outlasted every single nation, party, ruler, or opinion that has ever existed, and will continue to do so. We must remember that though we exist in a place and time we are of a transcendent Savior.
  • · Recent sociological surveys have shown that modern American Christian religious formation is primarily shaped through political affiliation rather than Scripture or any particular denominational doctrine. Despite an uptick in the regularity of attendance, most Christians do not take part in any kind of intentional doctrinal formation—Sunday school, Bible study, regularly Scripture reading (with or without others), etc. It appears that most Christians develop their faith positions out of their political preferences instead of adapting their politics to their identity in Christ. The American Church is quickly becoming a reactive political agent instead of a proactive Christ-centered social engine.
  • · When culture wars become the primary way we are developing as Christians, we aren’t being formed, we are being farmed. Look at a factory farm, all the animals look the same because diversity is undesirable and introduces complications that make control and resource cultivation harder. We must be more than poultry waiting to become chicken nuggets. While divisions are hurting us as individuals and collectives like churches, powerful groups and individuals are using our increasing isolation and mistrust of one another to extract resources like time, money, votes, influence, and collective power from us.
  • · Emphasis on culture wars reframes Christians as a faction within temporal political struggles, and often reduces the Gospel to another weapon used to defend a tribe, ideology, or political/national identity. But these are all passing things and will inevitably be thrown out. When they are thrown out, if the Church has tied itself too closely to them, it risks being thrown out as well. Conflating losing influence as culture changes with intentional targeted persecution is irresponsible as we are largely at fault for our own irrelevance. We are losing our ability to fulfill our prophetic and pastoral role as Ambassadors of Christ by instead becoming mouthpieces for various opinions. By allowing this to happen, we are drawing lines between ourselves and others that God has not drawn.
  • · Our mission starts and ends with Jesus and is meant to bring dignity and a message of God’s love to the world—even to our “enemies”.  At all times, in all places, we reflect Christ, so we must ensure we are always watchful of our words and attitudes because we may be the only thing a non-Christian ever experiences of Jesus.