The Christian and Culture: Christians in Babel and their challenges

In this “Babel culture” that seems like hell’s slope to destruction, Christians must learn to see that the armor of God prepares us to fight against dominions and powers, against forces of darkness and evil spirits (Eph 6:12).

Christians must not allow themselves to be drawn down the road of counter-creation. Instead, they must follow the path of renewal. We are on the path to the new Jerusalem, and we need to be led toward it continually. The removal of Babel and the struggle against it will place the Christian in the position of a foreigner and a bearer of the cross.

This will be the kind of testimony found in Revelation 11. It is both a prophecy and a warning to return to divine norms, which teach and allow true freedom and responsibility.

We cannot in good faith avoid the world. The “culture of Babel” is a perversion of the Kingdom of God that feeds on the forces of the Kingdom of God. The Bible calls it a “culture of darkness,” and darkness cannot extinguish the light that has burst upon this world with the coming of Christ (John 1:5).

With the coming of the Kingdom of God, the culture of Babel will be judged

The perspective of renewal, represented by the glorification of Christ, is the perspective of responsible thought and action.

If scientists, engineers, economists and politicians make responsible, normative choices, science and technology will no longer be threatening forces. They will have fascinating possibilities in current research to reveal the secrets of creation.

There would be no end to this discovery and revelation. But the path that leads to the reign of man always threatens the end, for it threatens humanity with its destructive and demonic developments.

If men once again discover the path of normativity in science, technology, economics and politics, or in other words, seek the Kingdom of God responsibly, their efforts would generate many problems.

The right way to follow God’s commandments would be risky, because many cultural structures today are blocked from the perspective of the human kingdom. We must accept this obstacle as we seek to move forward with our Christian perspective on culture.

We would first have to recognize the existing situation and find ways to deal with it, for we are always tempted to accommodate ourselves to the nature and power of the Babel culture.

It is increasingly difficult for Christians to live in the culture of Babel and still not be part of it.

Choosing the responsibility of being coram Deo [before God] means resisting the powerful forces of human ambition and will.

Responsibility also means rejecting revolution. Revolutionary changes are incapable of providing solutions to existing states of lawlessness, as they themselves have no law.

Christians face the enormous task of starting with the existing, decaying situation and trying to renew it, using God-given standards.

If Christians were more discerning about what is actually happening in the world, they would be less deceived by worldly motivations. Understanding the world should be the basis of their apologetics, especially when they attempt to use principled action in cultural activities.

Our culture today tends toward nihilism, and it seems that Christians are all too likely to choose technocracy or revolution. We often see young Christians taking sides, and then changing sides to the opposite. There are always compelling arguments on both sides.

The winning viewpoint is then modified and accommodated before it becomes a Christian attitude. Through this oscillation and compromise, Christian political thought and actions in Western European countries have practically all but lost their central dynamic.

Why did this happen?

Because Christians have failed to recognize the spiritual conflict inherent in the cultural motives that determine contemporary development.

In the past, the weapons of apologetics defended the Christian faith against the spiritual force of paganism. A similar defense must now be mounted against neopaganism, the modern spiritual force and hallmark of secular culture.

This apologetics should ardently confront philosophies, ideologies and systems of thought that, as false revelations, were very keen to make religious power apostatize.

Christian apologetics must propose a unitary vision of man that is biblically responsible, normative, cultural and historical.

It will help Christians test the spirits and enable the church to remind its members of the privilege of having the Kingdom and the way of life accessible to it, despite all the anguish and problems that arise in the death-provoking culture.

Development of ethical awareness

We have dealt with the problems of scientific and technological cultural life, emphasizing that these problems are signs of man's obstinate ambition to form culture.

Escaping the road that leads to death is only possible if people choose a different path. And we affirm that the prophetic mission of the church is to point out the best way.

However, due to the legitimate limitations of the church, we cannot solve the technological crisis. There are Christians called to this task, individually or as a group.

The task of the church is to warn against wrong motives. The right path can be followed only if we allow ourselves to be guided by biblical wisdom, which, though ancient, remains ever new and relevant.

In the biblical dynamic, man is not the center of reality, he is not a totally willful and ambitious creature. Scripture shows the creation of man in the image of God and therefore emphasizes his responsibility. As a responsible creature, man must love God above all else and his neighbor as himself.

The political and practical results of this love would involve man giving up the desire for power and seeking to promote justice and righteousness. For economics, love means that his motivations are no longer driven solely by profit, but by the exercise of responsible stewardship.

For science, love means that knowledge is no longer brute force, but serves the interests of wisdom. Science and technology must be seen as useful servants of humanity, rather than tyrannical masters.

We need not deny the great significance of science or technology

However, we must resist the belief in the independence of the willful man who has become part of it. Through man's apostate faith, the development of science and technology tends to determine the course of our culture.

In fact, their function should be limited to a means that leads to the elaboration of culture. Science and technology need to be subjected to responsible thoughts and actions.

We can better understand the service that science and technology have rendered to culture when we return to the original motives. The Bible teaches us that man was given permission to use creation as a basis, but only for the purpose of preserving it.

Maintaining only creation without developing culture leaves man a hostage to natural forces. Building without considering preservation means being arrogant.

Ignoring careful and discreet preservation will eventually result in a situation where natural hazards are replaced by cultural hazards; disruptive technological forces will threaten to bring about total ruin.

In the context of his harmonious vocation to build and preserve, man sees himself as the divine image. Building and preserving confirm his love for the Creator and Redeemer. Thus, he treats creation with the concern and respect it deserves.

Responsible humanity recognizes the need to develop creation and resist all forms of distortion and disorder. If man allows himself to be empowered by biblical norms, his cultural endeavor can be a blessing even to the kingdom of nature.

This occurred in the days of King Solomon (1 Kings 4:33,34)

As it can now be, if we allow our economy, politics, science and technology to become harmonious actions to build and preserve, or to put it another way: if they become part of the search for the Kingdom of God.

It is certainly not easy to achieve harmonious interaction between construction and preservation. Many people will strongly resist the biblical meaning. Even after rejecting the idols of science and technology, many people turn to other idols, such as revolutionary freedom or nature.

Others try to design a modified strategy for science and technology, but they continue with a closed view of the world and life that still excludes God.

Yet God does not allow Himself to be excluded, and thus causes the cultural developments of this closed world to go awry. We recognize His judgment here, and yet at the same time we hear His call to return to Him and follow His rules—this gives us hope.

Her horizon is the horizon of the Kingdom of God, which will be the fulfillment of the reconciliation and renewal of all creation. With this perspective, we need not consider ourselves pilgrims or spectators throughout the world.

But rather citizens of the Kingdom that came once with Christ and will come again. We belong to this world, even though we are exiled in the culture of Babel.

Exiles, yes — although we are not the builders of the hostile culture — we are not its slaves either.

Our relationship with culture is one of tension. God's demand for love that rejects this culture also demands that we resolve it, based on love.

Thus, the Christian cannot avoid his cultural environment, but he also cannot expect to see much fruit from his mandate in such a hostile culture. The biblical concept of living and acting in the love and grace of God is diametrically opposed to the cultural concept of Babel.

The Bible absolutely rejects the human claim that, with the use of science and technology, it can create a counter-creation, to which it itself attributes meaning.

Scripture calls us to live and work in recognition of the order of creation, and confessing that only Christ can give meaning and hope of renewal. In Christ, the Kingdom of God has already been given to us, and at his return, it will be given to us in the recreated dimensions.

This is the true view of history. This perspective cannot be altered by the claims of the Babel cultural norm. The biblical perspective seems to give us resources with which to combat the reduction of the significance of culture in science and technology, for it directs our attention to the rich and inexhaustible meaning.

The culture of Babel reduces science to a caricature of truth

As exiles, we can witness its authentic and full meaning by focusing on its original and normative meaning.

These global concerns about temperature, nuclear weapons, biotechnology, computer and energy problems, as well as personal problems such as abortion, crime, the breakdown of marriage and the family, and the increasing decay of our society, problems with personal roots have assumed enormous proportions.

Living in the midst of all these ups and downs, Christians need to behave responsibly, which means serving and at the same time bearing witness to the values that society should honor. Therefore, personal efforts should not be forgotten, because cultural reform must begin in these areas.

We often think in global dimensions and analyze our culture as part of the global culture, but we must start with small cultural efforts.

Science and technology can help us in our endeavors, but we must always keep in mind that they are potentially subversive forces, which can once again imprison us if not used correctly.

It will be useful to say a few things about politics, where people often look for solutions

Christians must first seek a different path, starting with questions such as spiritual and historical background.

Given the religious background of the problem, they will have to articulate an ethical position before they can look to politics as responsible for the solution — a superficial approach that begins and ends with politics, whose effectiveness will only be apparent.

I could mention, in this context, the current political discussions related to nuclear weapons, on a global scale, and, as an example, the more personal issues, the discussions on the legalization of abortion.

I suspect that many Christians will find my approach impractical. However, I argue that accepting responsibility and normativity allows for great variation in possibilities and benefits, and also a stable course.

The current course of Babel culture may seem like a path to freedom, but man will eventually find himself a prisoner of his own disorientation, on a course that offers no future, only fear.

Those who remain in contact only with real development run the risk of always conforming to this evolution. Those who are guided by the perspective of the Kingdom of God, given to man by grace, do more than just keep up with the facts.

They will resist the spirit of atheistic development, and they will also accept their own responsibilities to pursue a biblically normative approach. The Bible gives us the examples of Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon, and the examples of the two witnesses in Revelation 11 are also encouraging and hopeful.

Final Considerations

At the end of these chapters, I conclude that we must first learn to see the Kingdom of God as the ultimate goal of history and of our cultural endeavors. We must always remember that the Kingdom of God is a bestowed gift, truly granted now, and ultimately will be bestowed upon us once more in the future.

The final renewal will show us the true meaning of our cultural efforts. Then even Babylon will become Jerusalem. This divine mystery, which has been revealed to us throughout history, cannot be fully understood; nevertheless, it is a life-giving dynamic that deserves our respect, devotion, gratitude, and sense of responsibility.

The normative view of life in the culture that rejects frenetic cultural expectations and their immediate abrogation is most accurately described by the prophet Jeremiah in his letter to the exiles in Babylon. The words are calm, but full of expectations:

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I have taken captive from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit.

Take wives and beget sons and daughters; take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the peace of the city to which I have banished you, and pray for it; and in its peace you will have peace. (29.4-7)

E: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to promote peace and not plans to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (29:11)