One of the most common questions I’ve been asked over the last few weeks relates to the question of Church Services and cultural relevance. And one of the most common thoughts raised by those who are pushing back on it focusses on the exprience of Jesus in the Incarnation. When ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’, He did so in a way that was within a given culture. Put crudely, He dressed and spoke like a 1st Century Jew; He operated in ways that fit with and made sense in 1st Century Middle-Eastern context. Doesn’t the Incarnation then mandate Churches to ‘incarnate’ themselves in a similar way in their cultural context?

Well, Yes and No.

Yes - we are to be culturally … well I prefer to speak of Cultural authenticity rather than relevance. That’s more than semantics as we’ll see. We live in a specific time and place. You’ve heard me say a lot recently that our place in geography and history matter. Culture - though cursed and fallen like everything else in this age - remains nevertheless God’s idea. We are shaped by our culture in ways we can’t even begin to appreciate. At a more obvious level, we dress and speak in ways shaped by our culture, and which would be out of place elsewhere in the world. We can’t escape that, not should we necessarily try (unless those cultural norms violate Scriptural ones).

and No.

To say that Jesus was culturally relevant is at best only partly true. There were also ways in which He transcended His own culture, ways in which He challegned it, and ways in which He remained an enigma to it. If we are going to draw on the Incarnation as our model, then let’s do so consistently. We’ll need to see where Jesus challenged, or rejected His culture and where He refused to be shaped by it, or limited by it as much as where He accomodated it. It seems clear that none of the 1st Century cultures had a category that would allow them to make sense of the Cross. And while there were aspects of Jesus that were distinctively ‘1st Century-Middle-Eastern’, there were aspects of His Incarnation that were trans-cultural, making Him immeditately recognisable and identifiable in every culture. Jesus challenges, condemns, subverts, rejects, redeems, inhabits, celebrates and re-imagines the culture in which He lives.

Which means that the relationship between a Church and the culture(s) in which that Church lives is complex. There are parts of Church life which should be instantly recognisable and identifiable in every Church wherever and whenever they meet. I can read the liturgy of Church services from Jerusalem in the 3rd century, North Africa in the 5th century, Europe in the 16th century, and while the language is different, there is also massive continuity and at times a surprising degree of consistency in what is said and done. We use forms of service and liturgies that were crafted centuries ago, and find they speak to our spiritual need today. I have worshipped in churches all over the world (well, on four continents…). Even when I am sitting in services where I haven’t been able to speak the language, I have still been able to recognise much of what’s going on… sometimes even recognise some of the songs being sung!

It also means that while we inhabit culture, we don’t capitulate to it. Our relationship with culture is one of critical engagement. We are aware that all culture needs to be redeemed. This world is under the control of the evil one (I Jn.5:19). The culture of the nations of this world is created through the synergy of fallen humanity and spiritual forces. Incredibly though, it - like much else - remians redeemable. Indeed, that is arguably part of the role and responsibility of the Church. But - and I think this is key - the Church shapes culture, as much (more?) from without as from within.

And one final thought… the Church is within itself made up of people from different cultures. Few local Churches are completely culturally monochrome. Even a Church like MIE is composed of folk from several different cultures. Some cultural differences are obvious, some much less so. We often don’t appreciate the differences until we trip over them and cause cultural offence. When it comes to the question of being culturally relevant, we are going to struggle - which culture is it we are wanting to be relevant to? Which of our cultures are we wanting to resonate with? This is a much deeper question than may first appear, and it isn’t always clear that we know the answer.

The glory of the Church is supposed to be precisley that it holds together in spiritual unity those from a variety of different and divergent cultures. Whether those are different cultures within a nation’s life, or from beyond a nation’s life. Cultural relevance to one culture is cultural irrelevance to another. This is true in terms of geography as well as history. As one wag put it: the Church that is married to one culture will be widowed to the next.

None of this is to advocate deliberate cultural irrelevance. We are not working for an idiosyncratic or archaic way of being Church; nor are we trying to make it harder than necessary for people to find a spiritual home in the Church. Nor is it to plea for relevance to a culture of 500 years ago.

But just because the Church did something 500 years ago, doesn’t mean that it was being shaped by the culture of its own day, and so should be re-imagined in such a way as to make it culturally relevant in our day. The BCP (for example) was as culturally irrelvant to the various 16th Century English cultures as it is in the many 21st Century English cultures (language and literary style not-withstanding). And where it became more ‘relevant’ it is because the (the doctrine of the) BCP had shaped the culture, not because it had been shaped by it. Archbishop Cranmer consciously modelled (to the point of cutting and pasting at times) the liturgy of the Anglican Church on historic Christian worship dating back to the Early Church Fathers. It is often not appreciated that the Reformation kept significant continuity with the worship of the Church of previous centuries (again, language not-withstanding). Several of the Reformers made the point that they were standing in greater continuity with the Ancient Church than the medieval Catholicism they were reacting against.

When it comes to the culture of our Church (and thus of our worship), some of that (likely the most surface elements) will be generated in conversation with the culture(s) of those who comprise the local congregation. Music styles, language, aesethetics might all be worked out in dialogue with our own cultures. But at the most foundational level of that congregation’s life it will be shaped by a Culture that transcends all culture. All of us will therefore suffer a kind of culture-shock. We will all find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, disoriented and uncertain. But that’s not always a bad thing! Sometimes it is postively good.

But the burden of this series is that some of the most pressing questions about worship might not ever be resolved at this level of culture…