Chapter 1 The Power and Deception

Chapter 1 The Power and Deception of Culture

Culture (cosmos) has an incredible power to shape our thinking, values and actions. Romans 12:2 warns: "Don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold." Or "Don't let the evil social order brainwash you into accepting its values as your own."

Culture possession can be as evil, as demonic, as individual demon possession. Only a small percentage of persons in a society actually become demon possessed, but nearly everyone is a culture is poisoned by negative cultural values. If a person is born into a racist culture and lives in that culture for her/his first eighteen years, such a person is "predestined" to become a racist to some degree. And possibly that individual might even believe that this racist social system is ordained by God.

It is my conviction that American culture is pervaded by the negative values of the American trinity---hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism. And that most Americans serve two trinities---the Christian trinity and the American trinity---at the same time, or at least they try to do so. Most of these American Christians are not aware of what they are doing nor do they realize the deep conflict between the two trinities.

Another way of expressing the power that culture has over our lives is that with every breath of cultural air we take in, we are gradually poisoned with negative culture values. The process is slow, quiet, and subtle so we are usually unaware of what is going on. But over time the amount of cultural poison we absorb is large---large enough to make us sick. But this sickness may appear to be quite normal to most people because these same people are equally sick.

There is a culture war going on in America, but the real war is not between the religious right and the secular left; it is between American culture and the kingdom of God. Unless kingdom of God concepts and values are pervading our lives, we are almost automatic victims of our cosmos culture.

Allow me to illustrate this point by using the life of General Lee Butler, former commander of the nation's nuclear forces, as a mirror to see ourselves. The following is from an interview with General Butler published in Sojourners, Jan/Feb, 1999. Butler was born and raised in Mississippi:

"As a child, it was a burden that I never understood, and did not perceive or feel until my later formative years, after I had gone off to the Academy. Only then did it dawn on me that the society in which I had grown up was so tortured and morally debased by its deep racial divisions.

"I have spent years going back over that historical terrain trying to imagine how it was that I was so indifferent to a world where blacks and whites went to different schools, drank from different water fountains, rode in different seats on public transportation. Where blacks were considered chattel property, were abused and even murdered on whims. All of that was accepted as not just normal but the rightful scheme of things. It was not until I was a young adult and had left that environment permanently that it finally came crashing home how despicable were these circumstances. . . .

"The parallels with respect to my attitudes toward nuclear weapons are very strong, as today I strive to understand how we came to normalize the process of shearing away an entire society, to accept as a routine price of deterrence the slaughter of populations wholesale. We not only treated these policies and practices as normal. but invented sophisticated theoretical schemes and strategic underpinnings to structure this normalcy. In many respects, we elevated it to theology. I think that there are very powerful analogies between dealing with the legacy of racism and the belief systems of nuclear deterrence."

So we see from the life of General Butler, Christian though he was, that he was the victim of two brainwashings; first, by his Mississippi culture, then by his military culture. Fortunately, he was freed from both of these non-Christian ideologies or idolatries, but not before he served them for many years as an oppressor or potential oppressor. Unfortunately, many American Christians go to their death still believing in the idolatrous values of racism and militarism. Can idolaters go to heaven; will church membership save them?

Obviously, we need a more biblical gospel to deal with these issues. Possibly Walter Brueggeman's A Social Reading of the Old Testament, 1994, can help us think more biblically about these social issues. Americans think so individualistically that it is difficult for them to recognize social evil.

Brueggeman is well read sociologically so he combines sociology and theology and sees things many people cannot see. He wants theology to be able to address the great issues facing modern human beings. For example, Karl Marx was deeply disturbed by "the social alienation caused by capitalism and the role of religion in legitimating social structures that are exploitative and dehumanizing." Christianity and capitalism were hastily married; a marriage that ended up supporting individualism and materialism and weakening community. Had there been a clear theology of society, the church would have resisted materialistic capitalism and worked to preserve community.

Max Weber was concerned about the excessive power of a highly rational bureaucracy which also would be destructive of human community. Emile Durkheim was worried about the loss of social cohesion in the midst of social change. Norms are weakened and communities cannot remain healthy in a state of normlessness. Without strong norms, social problems increase.

The prophet needs to question the existing status quo and urge the church to challenge and change the unjust situation, not legitimate it. Brueggeman asserts that the prophets understood how society operated, that it was "an organization of social power," built upon "land, money, hardware and technology." Social power and social systems interacted to create a social system. In the OT, the priests controlled the religiously based social system. When the social system became corrupt, its leaders could hide behind religion to cover their tracks. The prophets task is to expose what is going on, and then to create a new social reality based on truth and justice. But they have to fight with false prophets who are misusing the same religious system to sanctify the unjust status quo. Personal sin is involved, but the problem is much deeper than personal sin alone. Social evil has become incarnated in the values of society thereby becoming deeply entrenched.

Though labeled religious rebels by Isaiah, though engaging in idolatry and oppression, many of the people of Israel still fasted, prayed, worshipped; they seemed to be genuinely religious. Isaiah bluntly tells them the error of their ways. Social evil also pervaded the religio-social system of Jesus' time. The Temple and the priesthood were corrupt. In Matthew 23, Jesus directly exposes their hypocrisy. Jesus was more concerned about Jewish corruption and oppression than he was about Roman oppression.

Unless American Christians begin to think biblically about social concepts such as oppression and justice, we will fall prey to such things as racism and militarism as did General Butler. Social evil will corrupt us even as we fight the battle with personal sin. We must fight on both fronts or we will lose the battle.

In a sense we expect the secular, godless culture to yield to social evil; this is bad, but when the church is penetrated by ethnocentrism and oppression this is much worse. A case in point. Recently I read a small book by Scott MacLoed, Snakes in the Lobby; MacLoed is a musician and songwriter. He describes a vision he had:

"I was standing in a well-known hotel lobby, which I had literally stood in earlier that same day during a very well-known Christian music conference. In the vision the very large and open lobby was packed full. . . . Many were artists, musicians or people directly involved in the business of music. . . . Much to my astonishment and horror, I saw what looked like a massive snake lying on the lobby floor. . . . Amazingly, people were actually leaning up against it! . . . no one else seemed to notice it---they just carried on with their business. Many people were surrounded, and some were even totally wrapped up in its monstrous coils, and yet they were still unaware. They were all in great danger. . . . It seemed almost welcome here. . . . The oversized snakes were everywhere. . . . I knew immediately that the great snakes I had seen in the vision were the principalities and dark power (or evil spirits) that have been controlling and manipulating much of Christian music."

The MacLoed was given an interpretation of his vision. The biggest snake's name was self-promotion. Other snakes' names were lust, pride, insecurity, fear of man, jealousy, etc. One white snake with a light that radiated from it was called religion. In the presence of this white snake "everything looked normal in the lobby---orderly and prosperous. People were smiling, gracious and respectable. There was no sign of trouble."

A spirit told MacLoed, "This is a Christian function. Everything that is done here is done in the name of Jesus." MacLoed explains, "This was none other than the voice of 'Religion,' the same power that had gone against my Savior." There were also snake-keepers in the lobby; they fed the snakes money. This reminded MacLoed of Matthew 23:25-26, where the religious leaders of his day were condemned by Jesus because they were "full of greed and self-indulgence."

I cannot prove that MacLoed's vision is valid, but my sociological and biblical study leads me to a similar conclusion. In Jesus' time, the real enemy was not Roman oppression, as most Jews concluded (Jesus never railed against Roman oppression in the gospels); rather, it was a degenerate Jewish religion led by a corrupt religio-politico-economic elite. In America, the real enemy is not secular humanism, as many Christians assert. In actuality, it is the church comfortably co-existing with the American trinity. The American trinity of individualism, materialism and ethnocentrism/racism is the snake in our midst; watch out, its bite is deadly!

Back to Mississippi, the state with the worst case scenario of social evil corrupting the church. By and large, the white church supported slavery and segregation. When the federal government finally ordered the Mississippi public schools desegregated, the church helped set up private white schools to avoid segregation. John Perkins said that once again the Baptist church became the bastion of segregation. Some of these Christian private schools are beginning to integrate in 2014, but by and large, schools are still segregated today. Oppression and poverty are still widespread in Mississippi doing enormous damage to blacks, to quality education, etc.

The American trinity has also infiltrated the black church in terms of individualism and materialism. Four blocks east of the Perkins Center in West Jackson, MS is a four square block area bordered by Prentiss and Rose, Robinson and the Parkway. In this poverty-stricken area, there are three impressive church buildings; considerable monies have gone into million dollar church buildings while most of the surrounding residential housing has deteriorated or is deteriorating. Just east of this area, Habitat for Humanity has built around a dozen houses. Just west of this area. the Perkins Center has a model for rebuilding poor communities. Even so, these three black churches have done little to rebuild their surrounding community. The American trinity has infiltrated both the white and black churches in Mississippi. My black friend, Lee Harper who was born and raised in Mississippi, has summed it up well with this one-liner: "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things that appeared just." For injustice ran deep in the white church.

In America, we badly need the Spirit of truth and the Word of truth and prophets of historical and social truth to show us the nature of ethnocentrism and oppression and then to chart the path to justice and reconciliation.