76 Sermon Illustrations on Culture

I remember the day I fell in love again with baseball, back in the 1970s. (I'd been in a 20-year funk since the Dodgers moved to L.A.) A Wheaton College colleague and his wife took Sharon and me to see the Cubs at Wrigley Field. We had front-row, upper-deck seats above first base. Wrigley was beautiful, but the infield warm up impressed me first and most. I couldn't believe the ease with which the third baseman fired the ball “on a rope,” 30-40 yards, back to first. Such strength and skill. I still get chills when I see it.

I get a similar thrill when I visit art galleries. Artists can be amazing. If you gave me a year, an offer of $1 million and the best of tools, I still couldn't match a square inch of DaVinci or Vermeer. When it comes to painting, I'm a hopeless clunker, so I'm drawn (no pun intended; well, maybe a little intended) to those who execute their paintings with consummate skill.

My work on a Christian website recently took me to London, where I raced to and through four museums in my free time -- the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery one morning, the Wallace Collection and Tate Britain another afternoon.

The artistry was gratifying, but I was struck more than ever by the subject matter -- or rather the change of subject matter through the centuries of Western art.

For roughly the first 1,600 years, A.D., Christianity was the focus. At the National Gallery, I passed through several halls seeing scarcely a secular work. There (and to a lesser extent at the Wallace and Tate), painters frequently turned to the Gospels (the Annunciation, the Nativity, the kings' and shepherds' adoration, Mary's mothering, Jesus' baptism, John the Baptist's beheading, Lazarus' raising, the temple's cleansing, the foot washing, children's blessing, the high priest's interrogation, Gethsemane, the crucifixion, Christ's burial, Mary Magdalene's visit to the tomb, Thomas' incredulity, the supper at Emmaus, Pentecost) and the Roman Catholic saints (Jerome, Eustace, Sebastian, Catherine, Francis, George, Michael, Anthony). Others worked from Acts (Paul's shaking off the viper) and the Old Testament (the flood, worship of the golden calf, Moses in the bulrushes, Egypt's plagues, Belshazzar's feast, Lot's flight from Sodom).

As the Renaissance took hold in the 15th and 16th centuries, everyday people replaced the saints, contemporary settings and dress supplanted the biblical and ancient. New techniques (perspective, natural shading) and materials (tempura, fresco) emerged.

As a child of the Reformation, I have to say I welcome the collapse of the old sacred/secular distinction. I agree with Luther that God calls people to everything from preaching to homemaking to farming to smithing to marketing. The sacred is everywhere, as extensive as the Kingdom. But I do miss generous artistic coverage of biblical stories and personalities. Of course, there were exceptions. William Blake was a virtual industry in this connection in the 19th century, with paintings and illustrations of Satan's smiting Job with boils, Abel the shepherd, heaven's river of life, Joseph and Mary's flight to Egypt, etc. But the generality stands.

Despite the changes, the church was once so much a part of the cultural fabric that artists naturally picked up on its leaders and activities. Seventeenth- century Dutch painters captured Protestant worship services in progress. Eighteenth- and 19th-century English portraiture celebrated such Christians as Robert Raikes (founder of Sunday School), William Wilberforce (who led the Parliamentary fight against slavery) and Hannah Whitehall Smith (who wrote “The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life”).

The 20th century saw the death of cultural piety. Art both hastened and reflected its demise. No greater illustration of this can be found than in the National Portrait Gallery. A short walk from the 1828 Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence, you find the 1997 prurient self-portrait Gilbert and George - two homosexual artists standing side-by-side in full frontal nudity, with a crude expression at their feet. And the craft is not that impressive -- arty paintwork around a sepia photo.

It would be fun to ask the chief curator, “Have you no shame?” just to see what he would say. Of course, he has none. Shame is a joke now, and likely one turned back on the person who uses the expression without irony. On this modern model, the critic should be ashamed of his “homophobia” or stuffiness -- ashamed of his shame, embarrassed of embarrassment.

I'm not asking that we return to the stylistic days of Duccio and Titian. But just imagine if we had more artists who could work with this conviction:

I love to tell the story

Of unseen things above,

Of Jesus and His glory,

Of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story,

Because I know 'tis true;

It satisfies my longings

As nothing else can do.

*

In his book, The Suburban Christian, author Al Hsu explains how Christians have condemned culture, avoided culture, critiqued culture, and copied culture. “Mostly,” he says, “we consume culture. But all of this is a far cry from God’s intent, that we fulfill the [creation or cultural] mandate and exercise our energies to create culture.”

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #21523]

“You either have a wedding or you burn down something.” That was the recipe for garnering ratings during sweeps week back when the TV show Happy Days was in syndication. But no longer — things have changed.

Today, shows like The O.C. and One Tree Hill take advantage of kisses to gain publicity — but not just any kisses. The sweeps attraction today is the now nearly pedestrian lesbian kiss. It might be predictable, but as Virginia Heffernan writes in the New York Times, it can “transform a lackluster show into a news headline.”

It's easy to think that this is the media's courtship of the gay community. But the fact is, same-sex kisses are not political statements, so much as they are exploitation. As Heffernan noted, these “controversial” storylines are “reversible”: “[S]weeps lesbians typically vanish or go straight when the week's over.”

Nevertheless, same-sex kisses remain attention-getters for those trying to promote acceptance of homosexuality. And recently, in a decidedly non-blue county in northern Virginia, a student-written and -directed play raised eyebrows.

The play, “Offsides,” was performed at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, Virginia — down the road from Prison Fellowship's offices. It's about a football player “coming to terms” with his homosexuality. It may not have received as much notice except for a scene that ended in what appeared to be a kiss between two boys as the lights went down. “People are who they are,” said the student who played the main character. “Accept them. That's it.” That argument always seems to be the conversation-stopper, but it doesn't have to be.

In his book Ask Me Anything, Dr. J. Budziszewski provides a rejoinder. While gays equate “love” with “acceptance,” Budziszewski offers another view: “Love is a commitment of the will to the true good of the other person. ... [A] perfect Lover [that is, God] would want the perfect good of the beloved. ... He would loathe and detest whatever destroyed the beloved's good — no matter how much the beloved desired it.” And what destroys us — all of us — is sin. If we refuse to let go of it, writes Budziszewski, we say to the perfect Lover, “I bind myself to my destruction! Accept me — and my destruction with me!”

There is nothing “loving” in condoning or promoting homosexual acts. As Virginia Delegate Richard Black said in response to the play, “This is a considerable health hazard right now. If we encourage just one child to experiment and contract the HIV virus, then we have done an enormous disservice to our children.” Indeed, not only do we put them at physical risk, but at spiritual risk by turning them against who they are as God created them.

The lyrics to the old song “As Time Goes By” from Casablanca go like this: “And no matter what the progress or what may yet be proved, the simple facts of life are such they cannot be removed. ... A kiss is just a kiss ... The fundamental things apply as time goes by.” Well, today it seems that a kiss is no longer “just a kiss,” but “the fundamental things” do still apply despite our changing culture. Regardless of misplaced kisses in Hollywood or at high school, as the song says, “Woman needs man, and man must have his mate — that no one can deny.”

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Michael Laris and Karin Brulliard, “Gay-Themed High School Play Sparks Va. Protests,” Washington Post, 9 February 2005, B01.

• Virginia Heffernan, “It's February; Pucker Up, TV Actresses,” New York Times, 10 February 2005. (Archived article; costs $2.95 to retrieve.)

• Ann Oldenburg, “ 'The O.C.’ stirs latest TV lesbian controversy,” USA Today, 11 February 2005.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 050222, “Radical Solutions: AIDS Prevention from a Different Angle.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 041201, “Obvious but False: Common Views of Love and Courtship.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 041203, “Shocking Questions: Yes, There Are Answers.”

• Roberto Rivera, “No Other Kind: Foregoing Fulfillment,” BreakPoint Online, 22 October 2002.

________

Copyright © 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

God is “calling us to a marathon –– a long-distance run” in discipleship and leadership, according to Daniel Akin. The secret to staying in the race -– while avoiding the urge to be an earthly “winner” -– is not to carry excess baggage, said Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Such baggage, he noted, leads people to think they need something more than God to get them to the finish line.

Referencing statistics from his new book, “Breakout Churches,” Thom Rainer said nearly half of all pastors across America shared their faith zero times in the course of six months.

Along with such lackluster discipleship from church leaders, 80 percent of the nearly 400,000 churches in the United States are either declining or at a plateau, according to Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Low expectations for church membership may be partly to blame for the malaise, Rainer said.

“I’ve been in civic organizations that have higher expectations than the local church,” he said. “We’re bringing people in without giving them any information or any expectations.”

Rainer, who noted that the Book of Acts illustrates that membership should equal commitment, observed that the churches he studied for his book that went from stagnation to phenomenal growth all had what he called “breakout leaders” and were operating with a legacy in mind, just as disciples did in Acts 6 and 7.

Kenneth Hemphill, national strategist and author of “Empowering Kingdom Growth,” said an “infectious passion” is needed among lay leaders and pastors to grow the church.

“The church in North America is in serious trouble,” said Hemphill, citing statistics on the stagnation in the number of baptisms across the Southern Baptist Convention over the past 20 years.

“Billy Graham made a lot of people angry a few years ago because he said 80 percent of the people in the church are lost,” Hemphill said. But, he said, Rainer’s research would indicate the figure is at least 50 percent.

“Many in the church think the church was designed to keep them comfortable until Jesus comes,” Hemphill said. “The church never was designed to make you comfortable.”

Yet, he said, people become proprietary about the church. “It’s a spiritual problem, so it demands a biblical cure,” he said.

Mark Marshall said church leaders need to move away from risk management toward what he termed “risk engagement” in order for extraordinary changes to happen in the church.

“Why do we not risk?” Marshall asked rhetorically. “Fear of failure. We want to save face at all costs.”

That’s not like such biblical role models as Joshua and Caleb, he said. In fact, he said, playing it safe with our faith is not the way to grow the Kingdom.

In a practical sense, fostering spiritual maturity is the way to overcome the worldliness that can be a source of problems, for example, in a deacon ministry, said John Temple, who led workshops on resolving challenges that can undermine a deacon ministry.

Temple, senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Madison, Mississippi, said power struggles, poor examples, too few workers and attrition all call for scripturally based on-the-job training for deacons.

“If you’re a leader, you’re a disciple. Every church that has inadequate discipleship has inadequate workers,” Temple said. With multiplication of the church as the goal, church hierarchy and deacon-led ministries need to “cut the secret handshakes and closed doors.”

Ed Stetzer said the cultural shift into a postmodern mentality presents unique challenges to Christians. “I call it the Oprah-ization of our culture,” he said. “We have embraced as a culture a secular spirituality that is devoid of Scripture,” which has led to the isolation and nominalization of true evangelism.

“We cannot then relate to the existing current culture,” Stetzer said. “The ‘emperor’ of today is tolerance,” he noted, adding that somehow the church has to pay homage to it without compromising biblical truth. It also means people will tolerate Christianity as long as Christians keep it to themselves.

“The problem is we have a missionary faith,” Stetzer said.

Participant Dan Garland, team leader for church development and evangelism for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, said a survey at the University of Louisville asked students why they left the church and what it would take to bring them back.

Garland said authenticity, understanding (listening and not just converting), relevancy and relationships were the four most important reasons cited.

“Screaming at the culture hasn’t changed it,” Garland said. “It takes time.”

*

When the Christian film FACING THE GIANTS came out in 2006, far more interesting than the movie itself were the reactions to it. Mainstream critics were almost universally dismissive — it “feels like an overly earnest church sketch of the type many evangelical congregations use as a teaching tool on Sunday between the worship music and pastor’s message,” wrote William Lobdell of the Los Angeles Times in one typical review. Meanwhile, much of the Christian community welcomed it with open arms. As PluggedIn Online’s Tom Neven and Steven Isaac wrote, “The messages and stories that God holds dear and wants people to hear make the rest pale in comparison.”

And yet some enthusiastic viewers unwittingly gave the impression that they had enjoyed the film because it was their duty to do so. That impression was perhaps best summed up by Ted Slater of Boundless, who wrote, “Let’s not knock a movie that encourages faith in God.”

The reaction to FACING THE GIANTS was not an isolated incident, but representative of a larger trend — one that has surprisingly wide-ranging implications, not just for the Church, but for the wider community as well. For many years now, a great deal of Christian culture has been valued not for its artistic worth, but for its effectiveness as propaganda and as reinforcement for our beliefs. That emphasis affects not just how we Christians see culture, but how the world sees us — and Christianity.

Oddly enough, one of the best tools to help us understand the problems with this way of thinking is a book by a man who devoted little thought to movies. C. S. Lewis’s unique insight into faith and culture, and the relationship between them, can help us understand where Christian thinking on film and other forms of culture has gone wrong, and how we Christians can form a worldview that truly appreciates the value of both faith and art.

In the opening paragraph of AN EXPERIMENT IN CRITICISM (1961), Lewis proposes that literary critics might be able to understand better what makes a book good or bad if they reverse their usual method. Instead of judging books themselves, he offers, they might try judging, or at least analyzing, readers: “Let us make our distinction between readers or types of reading the basis, and our distinction between books the corollary. Let us try to discover how far it might be plausible to define a good book as a book which is read in one way, and a bad book as a book which is read in another.”

In short, Lewis is proposing that we judge a book by the motives of its readers — or, adapting the proposal for our purposes, a film by the motives of its viewers. (Most or all of what we learn about Christian film by doing this, however, will also be applicable to the majority of contemporary Christian fiction and art.) He suggests that if we discover that a certain work tends to be “used” rather than enjoyed or loved by the vast majority of its fans — or vice versa — this usually tells us something highly significant about the nature of the work in question.

FACING THE CRITICS

When Christian columnist Dick Staub wrote an article criticizing Sherwood Baptist Church’s efforts to make and promote GIANTS, he reported afterward, “The more common reactions were from people who a) loved the evangelistic themes; b) believed we ought to support the effort because it was made by good Christians (‘I thought Dick was “one of us;”’ c) agreed it didn’t meet Hollywood production standards but thought my comments were counterproductive in light of a) and/or b).” One particular correspondent scolded Staub:

What do you expect when the budget is ($)100,000 and the actors

are new to the acting profession? I saw the film and there were

some scenes that were weak but the story line was exceptional and

moving. I saw people openly crying and moved during this movie.

They were emotionally involved and impacted. That is more than I

can say for the majority of trash that comes from Hollyweird.

In the same vein, Ted Slater wrote the following about GIANTS:

I’m not ashamed to say that I really liked “FACING THE GIANTS,”

that I was moved to tears by God’s redemptive love portrayed

through the work of amateur church-going filmmakers.

Sure, some of the acting was a bit immature, and the script may

have tied up too nicely for modern sentimentalities, but I was

profoundly affected by it. My love for God was piqued. (And

isn’t that of more ultimate significance than my merely being in

awe of the cinematography or in appreciation of the dialog and

plot twists?)

We find that the following are usually some of the motives that lead admirers of FACING THE GIANTS and similar movies to call them “good” films:

• The explicitness with which the Gospel and related spiritual

messages are spelled out

• The extent to which Christian viewers are able to identify with

the characters and situations

• The good intentions and perceived sincerity of their makers

• The inspirational value of their stories

• The lack of objectionable elements such as cursing and explicit

sex scenes in them

• The Christian leaders who have endorsed them

• Obstacles they have overcome or battles that they are seen to

have won (for instance, if they managed to make money despite a

small budget and poor reviews)

This is the kind of viewing that Lewis would define as using a work, as opposed to receiving it. Those who use a work of art, he explains in An Experiment in Criticism, “rush hastily forward to do things with the work of art instead of waiting for it to do something to them.”

Lewis was writing before the emergence of the Christian subculture, which acts as a sort of parallel universe for those offended and disgusted (often justifiably so) by mainstream culture. He was writing about works of art, both good and bad, that existed as part of the mainstream culture of his own day (some of which was also offensive and disgusting). However, his insight into people’s ways of experiencing art helps us understand why the evangelical Christian movement has embraced substandard art so fervently.

EGO BOOST

Lewis wrote — with characteristic humility, never with artistic snobbery — of those who used art “as a self-starter for certain imaginative and emotional activities of [their] own.” For instance, they may enjoy a certain “narrative” quality in a picture, meaning that they like what the picture is about without really caring one way or the other about the picture itself.

To be moved by the thought of a solitary old shepherd’s death and

the fidelity of his dog [as the subject for a painting] is, in

itself and apart from the present topic, not in the least a sign

of inferiority. The real objection to that way of enjoying

pictures is that you never get beyond yourself. The picture, so

used, can call out of you only what is already there. You do not

cross the frontier into that new region which the pictorial art

as such has added to the world.

Christians who laud a film like FACING THE GIANTS for the sort of reason cited above — for instance, because the trials of the football coach remind them of what they went through in their own lives, and how it helped them to pray just as he did — are using it in the way Lewis describes. The idea that the movie brings to them is, “That’s us up there on that screen! We never get to see people like us onscreen, but finally, there we are!”

That we feel this way, as Lewis would say, is no sign of inferiority. Nor is it surprising. In a time when movie protagonists tend to be adorable bed-hopping ditzes, bloodthirsty vigilantes, or some combination of the two, being able to identify with characters understandably comes as a relief and a delight. But the phenomenon goes beyond mere surface identification.

The media constantly tells Christians, in myriad ways, that their faith is either completely out of touch or, at best, is nice to believe in but does not provide any relevant answers to today’s dilemmas. Whether we acknowledge it or not, that sort of steady, relentless drip has an eroding effect unless we are careful. Many of us spend our days making constant mental adjustments and allowances for what we are always hearing, in an attempt to accommodate ourselves to a world that uses an almost completely different frame of reference on nearly every subject that matters to us. Christian media usually takes away that necessity and gives us the feeling that, at last, we are hearing from people who understand us and whom we understand — people who “get it.”

The catch is that we are talking about works of art — whether highbrow or popular. And characters and environments that make us feel at home, while comforting, are hardly enough to make a work truly artistic. As Lewis says, when we are enjoying a work mainly in this way, we are simply enjoying its appeal to what we already know and appreciate in ourselves. You might even say, at least in some cases, that we are simply enjoying having our egos stroked.

What I have said could be said of any of a number of groups trying to preserve their own identity and ways of thinking in a culture that’s indifferent at best, and antagonistic at worst. But there is an even more serious danger for Christians. Judging a film by such factors can tend to lead to an “us vs. them” mentality, where the Christian viewer sees the film as triumphing over the enemies of Christians. This can often lead us to take up an attitude that is directly opposed to the attitude that the Bible teaches us to have.

IDENTITY CRISIS

For instance, Pastor Brian Tubbs wrote of Giants: “The movie is shamelessly committed to faith and family in general, and evangelical Christianity in particular. And this is no doubt why many critics have panned it.” Note that Tubbs assumes that the mainstream critics are thinking the way he does — judging the film on something other than its quality as a film — except he sees them as taking the opposite point of view and being bitter about a Christian film’s success.

To point out and analyze the flaws of such thinking is not to deny that there may be a grain of truth in it. A vein of aggressive hostility toward Christianity exists and makes itself felt in mainstream culture every day. Nonetheless, focusing on it to this extent often leads us to ignore valid criticisms of Christian films, and to become defensive and even judgmental about them — hardly an attitude that makes our faith look attractive to a watching world.

The sad fact is, we tend to dwell so much on this type of conflict that we run a serious risk of, first, building an entire “Christian” culture around it. In his book Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, Daniel Radosh examines the contemporary Christian subculture from his perspective as a secular Jew. Over the past few decades, he notes, “Christian pop culture developed into a truly parallel universe, superficially similar to the mainstream, but separate and generally hostile. One result of that separation and hostility was that evangelicals could be safely ignored by the mass media — which only reinforced their separation and hostility.”

Aside from the futility and sheer wrongness of trying to win over a skeptical world through hostility, there is also the danger of forming a herd mentality that allows for little dissent. We begin to indulge in a sort of Christian “identity politics” instead of engaging in critical thinking.

There is a big difference between using one’s Christian worldview to evaluate the religious and moral ideas that a film conveys, and arguing that everyone should consider a film a great work of art because it conveys religious and moral ideas with which we agree. In other words, the idea that Christians should like a film because it is Christian fails to function as legitimate criticism. In fact, it is the attitude that has helped give Christian film a reputation for being substandard — and, unfortunately, give Christians a reputation for having no taste or discrimination.

The point could be made that secular audiences increasingly have the same problem. But we are the ones who claim to serve a God of truth and beauty. So to secular observers looking on, an “anything goes just as long as it preaches the Gospel” attitude is more off-putting than alluring. If we Christians are simply putting our own home movies, so to speak, up on the screen for our neighbors to see, they are going to be met with the same enthusiasm that neighbors usually have for home movies — that is, little or none.

CHANGING THE VIEWERS

Going by Lewis’s theories about art and audiences, we might speculate that if we want to change Christian film, we need to start by changing Christian viewers. Right now, we have a sort of dichotomy among Christian viewers, with some watching almost nothing but Christian films and others viewing mainstream culture completely indiscriminately. While there are problems with both practices, one thing that can be said for the latter group is that, at some level, they understand that art and entertainment are supposed to be enjoyed, not used. This is what both fans and creators of Christian films need to learn.

As Reuters/Hollywood Reporter reported in May 2008, Christian films are seeing shrinking audiences and diminishing box-office receipts: “In the years since [the release of The Passion of the Christ], studios that have waged extensive faith-based campaigns have garnered mixed results, leading some in Hollywood to lose faith in the practice.” As it happens, two of the few faith-based films in recent years that performed well are the two Narnia movies, based on the works of C. S. Lewis himself — which, yet again, helps prove just how much we have to learn from one of our greatest writers, educators, and critics. In this case, the lesson is that, just as with non-faith-based films, the foundation of a good Christian film is a good, well-told story.

If the work of Christian filmmakers is ever going to reach a level where it can compete in the mainstream, their viewers are going to have to hold them accountable for making, not propaganda, but art.

________

Gina R. Dalfonzo is editor of The Point blog.

For Further Reading and Information:

Alex Wainer, “Used Art: The Problem of Worldview Analysis,” BreakPoint Online, 25 October 2005.

Alex Wainer, “Beyond the Ratings,” BreakPoint WorldView, July/August 2004.

BreakPoint Commentary No. 060622, “Seeing with New Eyes: Movies and Worldview.”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 071106, “What a Good Movie Can Do: Bella.”

________

Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Chuck Colson or PFM. Links to outside articles or websites are for informational purposes only and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

© 2008 Prison Fellowship

To respond to many of today’s cultural problems, Christians need a theology of culture that enables them to engage culture without conforming to it, said Gene Veith in a two-day lecture series at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. In his first message, Veith outlined and critiqued several theologies of culture, which are ways in which Christians try to relate to their culture.

The first way, which Veith called “Culture Rules Christianity,” is associated with liberal theology. In this model, the world sets the agenda for the church so that “when culture changes, Christianity needs to change as well to remain culturally relevant.”

Problems with this model abound, Veith noted.

“How much can you change the church’s teachings and practice to make them relevant to people today, given that the dominant culture is non-Christian?” he asked. “I’m not saying that we don’t need to make adjustments, but some Christians have gone way too far. There are some churches out there that don’t preach about sin anymore. They also often don’t preach the Gospel anymore, so all through the sermon, you don’t hear about Jesus.

“I would argue there’s a profound problem with that, even to the extent of stepping outside the Christian faith. This model replaces the authority of the Bible with the authority of culture. As far as a biblical critique of that, it’s on almost every page of the Old Testament ... The prophets warned the people of Israel not to conform to the people of the land.”

The second model, “Christianity Rules the Culture,” is “much more noble than the first option” but still runs into serious problems, Veith said.

According to this model, the church’s means of impacting culture is to obtain political power and subsequently implement the laws of the Bible as the laws of the land. Although some throughout church history have attempted to practice this model, it, like the first model, is met with difficulties, Veith said.

“We can say that we can govern culture by God’s law, but can non-Christians follow God’s law?” he asked. “It’s impossible on the face of it. Sinners are going to act like sinners; unbelievers are going to act like unbelievers.”

Veith also noted that under this model the church’s fixation on obtaining political power could distract it from its task of preaching the Gospel. Furthermore, he said, God has provided the state, not the church, as the means to punish evil in society according to Romans 13.

A third view, “Christianity against Culture,” maintains that culture is so sinful that Christians must separate themselves from it. Historically, many of those who adopted this position have pursued ascetic or monastic lives, cloistered away from the rest of the world, Veith said.

“This seems to violate John 17, where Jesus says, ‘I’m not taking you out of the world; I’m sending you into the world,’” he said. “The Lord teaches in that passage a principle: He wants His people to be in the world, but not of the world.”

For the Christian, to abandon one’s role as a member of the culture is also to abandon one’s duty to evangelize it, Veith said.

“How can you be salt and light if you shut yourself away and cannot impact people with the Gospel of Christ?” he asked, noting that another problem with this view is that cultural problems are not alleviated when the church becomes its own culture.

“Sin is not something we shut out because it comes from inside,” he said.

A fourth option, which Veith said he prefers, is “Christianity and Culture” or “the doctrine of two kingdoms.” In this model, Christians live out their faith as citizens of both of God’s kingdoms, the church and culture. Foundational to this view is an understanding that God already reigns in both church and culture as part of His governance of the universe, Veith said.

“We’re engaged in [culture]; we’re active in it,” he said. “But our identity comes not from it but from the spiritual community controlled by His Word.... The church, under this model, is not to be shaped by culture but only by the Word of God. We can shape culture by bringing our faith to everyday life.”

Veith noted that as citizens living in both kingdoms, Christians can, on the one hand, fight against the practice of abortion as citizens of their culture, while at the same time offering grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ to the woman who has had an abortion.

Such a view of culture also frees the Christian to enjoy culture critically, bringing his values into civic life.

In his April 6 message, Veith addressed what he called “probably the most culturally influential notion to come out of Protestantism” -- the doctrine of vocation.

This doctrine, he explained, teaches that God providentially works through human beings working in their various vocations to provide and care for each other.

Since vocation includes, but is not limited to, a person’s job, people may have more than one vocation, Veith said, such as employee, mother or father, spouse, church member and citizen.

The key to understanding the activities of everyday life as having meaning and significance, he noted, is when Christians realize that God has given them particular vocations in order to live out their faith in the world by loving and serving their neighbors.

Recalling Christ’s teaching from Scripture that anything done “to the least of these” is also done to Christ, Veith challenged the audience to realize that, in everyday life, “Christ is hidden in our neighbors so that when we do something for our neighbor, Christ counts it for Himself.

There are few topics that we need to understand more than how our culture is viewing sex, and nowhere are modern sexual mores more evident than in pop music. It may not be singularly occupied by sex, but nearly so.

This reflects not merely an aberrant way of life, but a different worldview. Peter Jones’ underappreciated work from a few years back, “The God of Sex,” helped me see that many people today have, wittingly or unwittingly, adopted a pagan outlook on life. In our modern neo-pagan world, the body is paramount, gender roles are blurred, and sex is cathartic, giving meaning to life.

In many modern neo-pagan pop and rap songs, there is no whimsy, no space for romance. All is sex. Sex is all. One partner after another, one night after another. There are no boundaries, no rules. The act is the end of all things. Depending on who’s making the music, sex can be earthy to the point of grimy or elevated to the point of life’s meaning. Sex is the particulars, the dirty details, and it is also the one truth that makes sense of it all.

So how is a Christian to respond? A few thoughts come to mind:

First, Christians have to know that we’re dealing with a different worldview (or mish-mash of them). Non-Christian friends who buy into a neo-pagan sex-driven paradigm may cop to any number of spiritual beliefs. Whatever else they put their trust in, they are at the very least syncretistic. They are reveling in the body and its pleasures, seeing them as the purpose and minute-by-minute rhythm of life.

This is really what’s taking place among those -- often men -- addicted to pornography. They’re not simply falling into certain unbiblical practices. In buying into a neo-pagan way of life, they are ruled by their bodies, and glorying in them, and -- if a Christian -- they are losing sight of their meaning and purpose in Christ.

We need a zero-tolerance policy with sexual sin. Neo-paganism is pulling at all of us, and far too many Christian men are obeying its siren song. I commonly hear the question today, “How much sexual sin is tolerable in the life of a pastor?” The answer is zero (Hebrews 12:14). We simply cannot excuse pornography usage. If we’re falling prey to it, we should step out of ministry. It is sadly true that we will all sin in isolated ways, but I fear that many young men are caught in patterns of sin. They need the shock effect of being removed from ministry to master their sin. The Gospel brings forgiveness, but the Gospel also breeds toughness.

Second, Christians need to be clear about the goodness of sex. If we have been ashamed by sex in the past, we cannot be today; otherwise, we will fail to connect with folks ensnared in today’s thought patterns. Let’s be frank: God invented it, not Satan. God created it for our delight. We celebrate His brilliant and gracious design. We’re not hedging on the goodness of sex.

But we’re also clear: Sex is not meant to give ultimate meaning to life. Pleasure and delight are preeminently found in God. No sensation or feeling is meant to lastingly satisfy us. In fact, God hard-wired sex in its very design not to be a permanent reality, much as our pop and rap songs tell us otherwise. Sex naturally is connected not merely to marital happiness, but to children, and thus to self-sacrifice, love for others, virtue and a host of other behaviors and truths. Our culture wants sex without consequences because it has lost sight of the beauty of the natural family.

Third, Christians must also make clear that sex is intended to speak a truth about meta-reality. The loving union of a man and a woman speaks to the marriage of the atoning Christ, our head, and His atoned-for, submissive church (see Ephesians 5:22-33). It speaks a cosmic truth. The act and sensation of sex is part of the broader framework of marriage, which points us to the reason for the cosmos: God loving His people for all eternity and being not only seen by them, but delighted in by them.

This is how we recognize, against the pagan impulses of our pre-converted hearts, that sex must have limits, for at a much greater level, Christ limited His covenant relationship to His bride. This last precept brings morality, virtue and righteousness into the equation. Sex cannot be whatever physical act we commit with whatever partner(s) we desire. There are holy limitations, and the church’s covenantal God sets them and keeps them. He does so both for His glory and for our flourishing.

When we hear modern songs and encounter media that fit the general category of neo-pagan, we need to see that this is not simply naughty behavior being spoken of. This is a worldview in direct opposition to Christianity, one that takes a good gift of God and twists it and misunderstands it. We find ourselves among body-worshippers, and we ourselves are tempted as they are.

How good of God to give us the gift of sex. How good of Him to show us, both through human design and especially through special revelation, that we are not made for ourselves and our own selfish sensations. Instead, we are made for the pleasure of holiness expressed and experienced through a full-sensory life of delight in Him.

Sex isn’t a reductionistic act. It’s a gift of God, part of a worldview of delight. To a neo-pagan society, we say: Your view of sex, of love, is not too big. It is too small.

________

Owen Strachan is president of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood and associate professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri.

Were we really surprised? President Obama announced, after years of opposing so-called “same sex marriage,” that he is now for it. “I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” he said.

That’s quite a change of heart, especially since the day before, so-called gay “marriage” was soundly rejected by the citizens of North Carolina, who voted 61 to 39 percent against gay “marriage.” Was the timing of his announcement a coincidence? I don’t think so. For one thing, the gay-rights movement was extremely upset by the North Carolina verdict. And adding further pressure on the President, his Vice-President, Joe Biden, came out for gay “marriage” the week before.

Folks, this is pure politics. But what’s more important than the President’s pronouncement, was something Joe Biden said about gay “marriage” on “Meet the Press.”

According to Biden, the television show “‘Will and Grace’ probably did more to educate the American public [on homosexuality] than almost anything [else].”

Now, think about that statement. “Will and Grace” was the first show to feature a gay character who wasn’t a stereotype. The growing acceptance of same-sex “marriage” required a previous change in “the social culture.”

Now here’s why this is so important, as I said, politics is downstream from culture. Or, as Chuck Colson said, “Politics is nothing but a reflection of culture.” And Chuck was quite right — especially when it comes to sexuality and the family. When the Supreme Court of Hawaii created a right to same-sex marriage in 1993, the reaction was an overwhelming rejection at both the personal and political level. The Defense of Marriage Act was passed and signed into law with both Republican and Democratic support.

Today, this kind of response is simply unimaginable. Why? Because popular culture, including “Will and Grace,” has shaped the way Americans feel about same-sex relationships.

Note that I said “feel” and not “think.” Most people simply don’t reason their way through issues such as same-sex “marriage.” Their response isn’t the product of who has the best argument, but whether they feel “comfortable” or not with the proposed outcome.

And TV shows like “Will and Grace” raised their comfort level with regards to same-sex relationships. It didn’t matter that it was fiction or that the actor portraying “Will” wasn’t even gay. The show’s creators had succeeded in their goal of shaping the audience’s imagination. People saw “Will” or watched Ellen DeGeneres and their comfort level rose. They saw that these were folks “just like us.”

And of course, once they thought that, persuading increasing numbers of Americans that denying these folk the “same exact rights” as heterosexual couples simply wasn’t that difficult.

Now, while I lament the outcome, I respect the shrewdness of our opponents. While a television show should not the basis for overturning millennia of tradition and custom, we should never forget that contending for marriage and the sanctity of life requires an appeal to people’s imaginations.

The President’s announcement notwithstanding, we have “won” nearly all of the political battles concerning so-called same-sex “marriage.” But if we want to preserve marriage, we have to do a better job of contending for Truth upstream of politics: In the culture, and in people’s imaginations.

________

Copyright (c) 2012 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Within a generation, a certain Communist country will have more Christians than any other country. I’ll tell you what that says about them, and us, next.

At the time of Chairman Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, Christianity in China seemed on the verge of extinction.

Less than four decades later though, not only has Christianity in China not disappeared, but by some estimates there’ll be more Christians in China come the year 2030 than in any other country in the world.

Purdue sociologist Fenggang Yang, author of the book, “Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule,” told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that “China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon.”

How soon? Yang said that “it is going to be less than a generation,” and added that “not many people are prepared for this dramatic change.”

According to his estimates, by 2030 there’ll be 247 million Christians in China. While that will represent less than one-fifth of the population, it may — depending on how you count who is a Christian and who is not — be the largest Christian population in absolute terms in the world.

And remember, China is officially an atheist state that routinely harasses and persecutes Christians who get out of line.

This harassment is by and large an acknowledgment by the Communist government of Christianity’s ability to shape a culture. William Jeynes of California State University at Long Beach has written about how, on the one hand, Chinese officials are warily open to Christianity, because they see the link between Christianity and the West’s economic success.

But on the other hand, they also see a link between Christianity and Western freedoms, which is why they try to control the practice of Christianity.

While Chinese officials and scholars see these links, the West is increasingly blind to them. At the same time that the Telegraph was telling readers about the rise of Christianity in China, it was also reporting on the controversy over British Prime Minister David Cameron’s calling Britain a “Christian country” during remarks at the Easter Sunday reception at 10 Downing Street.

As soon as the remark was made, Cameron was accused of “fostering divisions in the UK.” Fifty “prominent public figures including novelist, diplomats, Nobel prize winners and playwrights” signed a letter to the Telegraph in which they said that “Repeated surveys, polls, and studies show most of us as individuals are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities.”

They wrote that “although it is right to recognise the contribution made by many Christians to social action, it is wrong to try to exceptionalize their contribution when it is equaled by British people of different beliefs.”

Well, to put it mildly, that is a comically absurd reading of British history. Still, it reflects the opinion of many, if not most, opinion-makers in Britain and Europe. And if church attendance is any guide, it also reflects the beliefs of most Europeans.

That leaves me wondering: is the United States closer to Britain or to China?

How ironic is it that in this country, more and more, the faith of our Fathers is seen as the enemy of human freedom. Yet the Chinese communist leaders understand Christianity for what it is: a culture-shaping source of human freedom. And not only freedom. The West’s superiority in economics, education, charity, and even technology and science, can all be traced to Christianity and the Christian worldview.

________

Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Among the top worldview stories of 2024 was the series of unexpected admissions from prominent atheists of the cultural good of Christianity. Even as hostility toward Christianity and Christian morality has increased in recent years, a growing number of atheists, former atheists, and secularists verbalized the role Christianity played in shaping the Western world and why it is a necessary factor in preserving civilization.

Most notable was Richard Dawkins. Author of The God Delusion, one of the so-called “four horsemen” of New Atheism, and longtime critic of Christianity, Dawkins made this fascinating confession after seeing lights celebrating Ramadan on a street that once celebrated Easter

I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer, but there’s a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. ... I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. ... We [in the U.K.] are a “Christian country” in that sense.

If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time. It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion in a way that I think Islam is not.

The world first learned that Ayaan Hirsi Ali was considering Christianity in 2023. In 2024, it’s become clear that what’s happening with this former atheist is more than just a cultural admission. Asked by Dawkins how she could accept the “nonsense” idea that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead, she replied

...when you accept that there is something, that there is a powerful entity, for me, the God that turned me around...(w)hat the vicar says no longer sounds nonsensical, it makes a great deal of sense. And not only does it make a great deal of sense, it’s also layered with the wisdom of millennia. Like you, I did mock faith in general, probably Christianity in particular, but I do not do that anymore.

Historian Tom Holland, whose journey of faith preceded the last year, made similar, powerful observations on a social media thread. “Essentially what I’m talking about,” he wrote, “... is ... what makes Western civilization distinctive.” His list included lifelong marriage, an understanding of sexuality that protected women and children, the modern scientific project, and the idea that humans bear the image of God. These ideas ended slavery, expanded care to the poor, established democracy, educated the masses, and insisted that everyone be under the same law. In short, Christianity has given the Western world nearly everything that matters the most.

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk also jumped on 2024’s “cultural Christian” bandwagon. In an interview for The Daily Wire, Musk said

While I’m not a particularly religious person, I do believe that the teachings of Jesus are good and wise. ... I would say I’m probably a cultural Christian. There’s tremendous wisdom in turning the other cheek.

In these comments is the tacit admission that Christianity has been good for the world. This is a significant change of course for the so-called “new atheism,” a movement that claimed that God was a delusion, faith was foolish, and religion “poisons everything.” However, as science and reason have been terrorized by the moralizing witch-hunts of progressivism, many of Christianity’s harshest critics find themselves the target of the woke left, especially due to pseudoscience on sex and gender.

They are now discovering what has always been true, that the Western ideas of human rights, political equality, and science and art are products of Christianity. These things do not occur in most civilizations, and there is no reason to expect that they will endure in the West if Christianity fades. It’s incredible to watch secular prophets recognize the debt owed to the religion of Jesus.

However, the West benefited because of people who really believed in Jesus. Cultural Christianity came from real Christians. Their faith was good for the West and the world because Christianity is true. Cultural flourishing and renewal will not come by merely adopting the best ideas of Christianity, but by advancing Christ. This is what Chuck Colson meant by the Church being the Church.

________

Copyright (c) 2024 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

As the dominant culture moves further and further away from traditional Christian beliefs, particularly in the area of sexual ethics, [it] is causing tremendous fear, uncertainty, and anxiety among many people of faith. They are struggling with how to deal with this loss of cultural influence. Christians are not all that familiar with being a minority faith, at least not in America. Yet in some important respects, that is what’s occurring. The reaction among some is to push back even harder, to tighten their grip during what they perceive as a tipping point. For others, the reaction is to warn of the impending wrath of God. And for still others, the reaction is resignation and giving way to the temptation to withdraw.

“We used to be the home team,” one person of the Christian faith said to me. “Now we’re the away team.” The challenge facing Christians in America is to remain deeply engaged in public matters even as they hold more lightly to the things of this world; to rest in our faith without becoming passive because of it; to react to the loss of influence not with a clenched fist but with equanimity and calm confidence; and to show how a life of faith can transform lives in ways that are characterized by joy and grace.

Engaging the culture in a very different manner than Christians have – persuading others rather than stridently condemning them – may eventually lead to greater influence. But whether it does or not isn’t really what is most important. Being faithful is. And part of being faithful is knowing that God is present in our midst even now; that anxiety and hysteria are inappropriate for people who are children of the King, as a pastor friend of mine recently told me; and that hope casts out fear.

“You either have a wedding or you burn down something.” That was the recipe for garnering ratings during sweeps week back when the TV show Happy Days was in syndication. But no longer — things have changed.

Today, shows like The O.C. and One Tree Hill take advantage of kisses to gain publicity — but not just any kisses. The sweeps attraction today is the now nearly pedestrian lesbian kiss. It might be predictable, but as Virginia Heffernan writes in the New York Times, it can “transform a lackluster show into a news headline.”

It's easy to think that this is the media's courtship of the gay community. But the fact is, same-sex kisses are not political statements, so much as they are exploitation. As Heffernan noted, these “controversial” storylines are “reversible”: “[S]weeps lesbians typically vanish or go straight when the week's over.”

Nevertheless, same-sex kisses remain attention-getters for those trying to promote acceptance of homosexuality. And recently, in a decidedly non-blue county in northern Virginia, a student-written and -directed play raised eyebrows.

The play, “Offsides,” was performed at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, Virginia — down the road from Prison Fellowship's offices. It's about a football player “coming to terms” with his homosexuality. It may not have received as much notice except for a scene that ended in what appeared to be a kiss between two boys as the lights went down. “People are who they are,” said the student who played the main character. “Accept them. That's it.” That argument always seems to be the conversation-stopper, but it doesn't have to be.

In his book Ask Me Anything, Dr. J. Budziszewski provides a rejoinder. While gays equate “love” with “acceptance,” Budziszewski offers another view: “Love is a commitment of the will to the true good of the other person. ... [A] perfect Lover [that is, God] would want the perfect good of the beloved. ... He would loathe and detest whatever destroyed the beloved's good — no matter how much the beloved desired it.” And what destroys us — all of us — is sin. If we refuse to let go of it, writes Budziszewski, we say to the perfect Lover, “I bind myself to my destruction! Accept me — and my destruction with me!”

There is nothing “loving” in condoning or promoting homosexual acts. As Virginia Delegate Richard Black said in response to the play, “This is a considerable health hazard right now. If we encourage just one child to experiment and contract the HIV virus, then we have done an enormous disservice to our children.” Indeed, not only do we put them at physical risk, but at spiritual risk by turning them against who they are as God created them.

The lyrics to the old song “As Time Goes By” from Casablanca go like this: “And no matter what the progress or what may yet be proved, the simple facts of life are such they cannot be removed. ... A kiss is just a kiss ... The fundamental things apply as time goes by.” Well, today it seems that a kiss is no longer “just a kiss,” but “the fundamental things” do still apply despite our changing culture. Regardless of misplaced kisses in Hollywood or at high school, as the song says, “Woman needs man, and man must have his mate — that no one can deny.”

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Michael Laris and Karin Brulliard, “Gay-Themed High School Play Sparks Va. Protests,” Washington Post, 9 February 2005, B01.

• Virginia Heffernan, “It's February; Pucker Up, TV Actresses,” New York Times, 10 February 2005. (Archived article; costs $2.95 to retrieve.)

• Ann Oldenburg, “ 'The O.C.’ stirs latest TV lesbian controversy,” USA Today, 11 February 2005.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 050222, “Radical Solutions: AIDS Prevention from a Different Angle.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 041201, “Obvious but False: Common Views of Love and Courtship.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 041203, “Shocking Questions: Yes, There Are Answers.”

• Roberto Rivera, “No Other Kind: Foregoing Fulfillment,” BreakPoint Online, 22 October 2002.

________

Copyright © 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

God is “calling us to a marathon –– a long-distance run” in discipleship and leadership, according to Daniel Akin. The secret to staying in the race -– while avoiding the urge to be an earthly “winner” -– is not to carry excess baggage, said Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Such baggage, he noted, leads people to think they need something more than God to get them to the finish line.

Referencing statistics from his new book, “Breakout Churches,” Thom Rainer said nearly half of all pastors across America shared their faith zero times in the course of six months.

Along with such lackluster discipleship from church leaders, 80 percent of the nearly 400,000 churches in the United States are either declining or at a plateau, according to Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Low expectations for church membership may be partly to blame for the malaise, Rainer said.

“I’ve been in civic organizations that have higher expectations than the local church,” he said. “We’re bringing people in without giving them any information or any expectations.”

Rainer, who noted that the Book of Acts illustrates that membership should equal commitment, observed that the churches he studied for his book that went from stagnation to phenomenal growth all had what he called “breakout leaders” and were operating with a legacy in mind, just as disciples did in Acts 6 and 7.

Kenneth Hemphill, national strategist and author of “Empowering Kingdom Growth,” said an “infectious passion” is needed among lay leaders and pastors to grow the church.

“The church in North America is in serious trouble,” said Hemphill, citing statistics on the stagnation in the number of baptisms across the Southern Baptist Convention over the past 20 years.

“Billy Graham made a lot of people angry a few years ago because he said 80 percent of the people in the church are lost,” Hemphill said. But, he said, Rainer’s research would indicate the figure is at least 50 percent.

“Many in the church think the church was designed to keep them comfortable until Jesus comes,” Hemphill said. “The church never was designed to make you comfortable.”

Yet, he said, people become proprietary about the church. “It’s a spiritual problem, so it demands a biblical cure,” he said.

Mark Marshall said church leaders need to move away from risk management toward what he termed “risk engagement” in order for extraordinary changes to happen in the church.

“Why do we not risk?” Marshall asked rhetorically. “Fear of failure. We want to save face at all costs.”

That’s not like such biblical role models as Joshua and Caleb, he said. In fact, he said, playing it safe with our faith is not the way to grow the Kingdom.

In a practical sense, fostering spiritual maturity is the way to overcome the worldliness that can be a source of problems, for example, in a deacon ministry, said John Temple, who led workshops on resolving challenges that can undermine a deacon ministry.

Temple, senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Madison, Mississippi, said power struggles, poor examples, too few workers and attrition all call for scripturally based on-the-job training for deacons.

“If you’re a leader, you’re a disciple. Every church that has inadequate discipleship has inadequate workers,” Temple said. With multiplication of the church as the goal, church hierarchy and deacon-led ministries need to “cut the secret handshakes and closed doors.”

Ed Stetzer said the cultural shift into a postmodern mentality presents unique challenges to Christians. “I call it the Oprah-ization of our culture,” he said. “We have embraced as a culture a secular spirituality that is devoid of Scripture,” which has led to the isolation and nominalization of true evangelism.

“We cannot then relate to the existing current culture,” Stetzer said. “The ‘emperor’ of today is tolerance,” he noted, adding that somehow the church has to pay homage to it without compromising biblical truth. It also means people will tolerate Christianity as long as Christians keep it to themselves.

“The problem is we have a missionary faith,” Stetzer said.

Participant Dan Garland, team leader for church development and evangelism for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, said a survey at the University of Louisville asked students why they left the church and what it would take to bring them back.

Garland said authenticity, understanding (listening and not just converting), relevancy and relationships were the four most important reasons cited.

“Screaming at the culture hasn’t changed it,” Garland said. “It takes time.”

*