Culture Always Reveals Something

I have argued before that culture always creates disciples. It is just what culture does. In a similar way, I believe that culture is always revelatory. Culture always reveals something; it reveals deeper beliefs held by that culture, and this is true of every culture that currently exists or has existed. As an example, someone could examine the movies and TV shows that are produced and are popular in America today and see that our culture is obsessed with sex and that we tend to have certain views and attitudes toward sex. In the same way, Christian culture is always a medium for Revelation. Christian culture reveals what Christians believe to be true about God.

A fascinating example of this occurred a number of years ago, when the British-based Christian youth organization Hope Revolution Partnership studied the main reasons British youth converted to Christianity. It was shocking to find that the top reason for British teenagers' conversions to Christianity was visiting beautiful churches. 1 in 6 young people converted because of the beautiful churches they visited. In fact, beautiful churches were more significant in conversions than attending a youth group or speaking to other Christians about their faith. Let that sink in: prayer and beautiful churches were more effective than youth groups.

There are a number of reasons why this might be the case, but I want to focus on one: culture always reveals something. Historic Christian culture believed in God's beauty and omnipotence and created churches that reflected this reality. When people visit those churches, they get a taste, a glimpse, of the beauty and impotence of the Christian God, and they are attracted to it.

On one end, someone could argue from this that building beautiful churches is a means of evangelization. I think that can be true, but it's not necessarily the point here. The point is that Christians have always believed certain things about God, which led them to create certain types of Churches. Those churches then became places that revealed something about God: God is magnificent. (It also shouldn’t surprise us that over the past 70 or so years in the West, when we went through the process of becoming a post-Christian culture, most of the churches built during this time resemble more of a factory or outlet mall and not a space dedicated to a magnificent God.)

Culture always reveals something, and that is true both for a society at large and for culture at the level of a family or small community. What does your family culture reveal about God? What does the culture of your community reveal about God?

As the famous saying goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”