Introduction to Itching Ears

This blog will examine, from a Christian point of view, the Church’s response to the changing culture in which it is embedded. By “Church” I don’t mean any specific church or organization, but rather “the people of God,” believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. While believers have organized themselves into a variety of churches and denominations and have many disagreements among themselves, they can be distinguished by their core belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God – fully human and fully divine – and that through believing in him and following his teachings one can inherit eternal life.

The Church has gone through many struggles to separate its culture from that of the world around it. The early Church struggled to separate itself from the cultural hallmarks of Judaism. During first three centuries AD the Church was threatened by the pagan practices of the Roman Empire. During the 17^th and 18^th century it was the Enlightenment that undermined Christian beliefs. In our day there is a major battle between the Church and the contemporary, increasingly secular, culture. Throughout its history, the Church of Jesus Christ has been constantly penetrated by the world around it and has found it difficult to defend its distinctiveness.

I intend in these blog posts to discuss the current conflict between the Church and modernity, particularly in the realm of values and behavior.

Several trends seem worth noting:

1. Religious beliefs and religious practices are in decline all over the world.
2. The contemporary culture (more on what that means in a later post) is increasingly hostile to religion in general and to Christianity in particular; it is, in fact, drifting away from its Judeo-Christian roots.
3. This cultural drift is affecting the Church, so that definitions of sin and virtue are changing.
4. In their effort to counter the decline in church participation, many churches see their only option is becoming more like the culture around them.

My hope is to add some clarity to this evolving reality. Upcoming posts will examine, for example, the following questions:

• What do we mean by culture?
• If the culture is drifting, where is it drifting from and where is it drifting to?
• How has contemporary culture affected the Church?
  • Changes in our understanding of the foundations of Christian belief
  • Changes in what Christians believe and how they behave
• The clash between Church and culture through history
• The Church, the culture and today’s headlines

I will examine these and other questions from a biblical perspective (recognizing that I am a layman and an amateur). I will attempt to provide an unbiased sifting of evidence and go wherever the evidence leads. At times my conclusions will seem to reflect a conservative perspective; at other times a liberal one.

I intend to be led by the Holy Spirit, but clearly, He is not responsible for what I write here. In this age of pervasive social media, blogging requires a great deal of arrogance, of feeling that you have something that’s worth reading. I need to remind myself all the time of the arrogance involved in blogging at all. In spite of this, I intend these posts to be characterized by humility and by an honest search for truth, however difficult that may be in these contentious times.