Our Cultural Mandate

In the last blog post I did before this one, I kept repeating the phrase, "We're not doing something right." We have an overwhelming percentage of our population still calling themselves Christians, and yet singular digits in the percentage of people who actually hold a biblical worldview. There is a gigantic disconnect between what many Christians say they believe and what they actually believe. It is tempting, maybe easy, to get disheartened when we look at this disconnect, but, for those of us who have a biblical worldview, this should not be surprising.

Are we living in the last days? Many people believe that we are. Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, that day will not come until the rebellion occurs (2 Thessalonians 2:3). There have been all kinds of rebellions in history. So what makes this rebellion any different? Why is this called THE rebellion? The Greek word is “apostasia,” from which we get our word “apostasy.” It refers to a falling away or defection. In this context, it refers to people falling away, defecting from, and forsaking the truth. The only other time this word “apostasia” is used is in Acts 21:21 when Paul is accused of teaching all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to Jewish customs. In both cases, the word is used to refer to turning away from one way and going another.

The United States of America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. But, starting from a time before I was born and continuing on through my whole life so far, America has been drifting away from its Christian foundation. What we see happening right now in the surveys that I pointed out in the earlier post did not happen overnight or in one generation. This has been, as one Christian song would put it, a slow fade. American Christians are entering a time that many of us have never personally experienced, at least those of us who have lived our whole lives here. However, just because this might be unique to American history does not mean it is unique to the world's experience or the Bible. Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. In 1 Samuel 15, the prophet Samuel said to King Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed. Saul was given clear instructions from the Lord through the prophet, but Saul and Israel rebelled against the Lord. The history of Israel–and the human race as a whole–has been one of rebellion, judgment, repentance, restoration, and repeat. So again, this is not new, even though it may be new for all of us American Christians reading this as a whole in our culture.

Other Christians may look at this differently. Some believe that it is our responsibility to not be involved in the culture. Because of the Bible's commands that we live separate from the world, they think it means that we should separate ourselves from all earthly matters. In this viewpoint, earthly citizenship is considered to have minimal, if any, importance in the life of a disciple of Jesus. The reasoning goes that because this world as it is right now is not our home, it is useless to waste our time concerning ourselves with earthly things. This is not the view that the American founders had citizenship. And I do not believe it is a biblical one either. God blessed humanity, saying, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28). The Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible notes that this Cultural Mandate is a prophecy relating to the call and purpose for mankind. Psalm 8:3-8 indicates that the Cultural Mandate is to operate throughout all of history. It says, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.” That Bible’s commentary note on this passage reminds us that the Cultural Mandate provides the basis for human involvement in society, culture, labor, politics, and science. We cannot have dominion over that which refuse to engage with.

Regardless of where you come down on whether or not Christians should be actively engaged in the culture of war or whether we should separate ourselves from it to keep focused solely on "spiritual things" as if there is anything that the spiritual realm does not impact, I think it is clear from everything that I talked about in that previous post that we are losing ground in our world. But all is not lost. There is still plenty of hope out there. The kingdom of God is advancing in some areas and lives. But, when we look at the world's condition as a whole, can we really say that the church is living out the victorious nature that Christ prophesied for us when he said the gates of Hell would not overcome the church (Matthew 16:18)? Let us put actions behind our words, get involved, and stop hiding our lights under bowls (Matthew 5:15).