Cultural Engagement

(Prelude: This was for my theology class and how the church and the culture mix. 9/7/16)

I think a healthy approach to cultural engagement is to simply be open to the idea of learning about the culture. If you do not learn about the culture, you cannot engage in the culture. Once you stop learning about culture, you get old and start the process of dying. Keeping up with what is happening in culture keeps you aware of your surroundings and life in general. Unfortunately, old people have the most Christians in their age bracket. Also, the old people run the church and are in charge of what is going on there because they have been around long, but regrettably while they get to a place where they are in a position to do something culturally relevant they get out of touch with what is “hip”. I don't know if there is a valid solution to this other than putting out the extra energy to stop and look around at what is happening in culture. Maybe using your high place in the hierarchy to hire a young person who is in touch with the world to help.

I think certain methods of cultural engagement are negative or ineffective because it is inauthentic. Whenever old white guys are trying to pander to the younger crowd to promote something for themselves, it almost never works out well. If someone is trying to appeal to the “younger crowd”  in an unauthentic way, they look at data points and decide what to do based on inaccurate research. In their research they might find that sharks are in with the younger crowd and try to force it in a sermon or something. Sometimes they are not doing it for themselves and they are actually doing it for God, but people can feel when something is inauthentic or not.