Many evangelicals are angry and frustrated about cultural and societal changes. Anger and frustration are frequently the result of unmet expectations. Could it be that the anger and frustration felt about our American society are based on unmet expectations about our culture?<\/p>\n
Evangelicals are angry about America\u2019s slippage into immorality. We expect better. However, should we expect cultural behavior that is fully in line with our Christian ethics?<\/p>\n
Evangelicals expect better behavior because we have been working off of a model that predicts the realization of cultural redemption. Our culture, according to this way of thinking, used to be more redeemed than it is now. Also, if the proper conditions are met, it is possible for our culture to become more redeemed in a Christian sense.<\/p>\n
This paper will try to position the expectations of cultural redemption in an historical and theological context. This paper will argue for a model of Christianity and culture that strives for Gospel representation without the expectation of complete cultural redemption.<\/p>\n
There are many ways of thinking about redeemed culture. For the purpose of this paper, however, I would like to propose a specific model.<\/p>\n
Richard Niebuhr\u2019s classic 1951 book, Christ and Culture<\/em> describes five historical models for understanding how the church has traditionally understood, and worked out, the tension between Christianity and culture.1<\/sup>The following discussion doesn\u2019t fully represent Niebuhr\u2019s nuanced details, but offers simplified models are offered as a possible diagnosis of evangelicalism\u2019s anger and frustration regarding the American culture.<\/p>\n John Stackhouse suggests that evangelicals have inhabited all of Niebuhr\u2019s models over time.2<\/sup> Nieburh\u2019s first type is Christ against<\/em> culture. The classic example of this model would be the Amish horse and buggy. The GARBC\u2019s penchant for separation, however, could be an example of this view as well.<\/p>\n Stackhouse suggests that Niebuhr\u2019s Christ of<\/em> culture paradigm has been seen in evangelicals \u201cwhenever we have closely associated God and country and assumed that our nations are Christian, or \u2018almost,\u2019 so that with enthusiasm and effort we can realize that ideal.\u201d 3<\/sup><\/p>\n The Christ above<\/em> culture model, according to Stackhouse, might be seen in apologists who link certain non-Christian thinkers like Plato or Aristotle to an intellectual understanding of God\u2019s truth.<\/p>\n The last two categories: Christ and culture in paradox (hereafter \u201cparadox\u201d), and finally, Christ redeeming culture (hereafter \u201credemption\u201d) are the subject of the following paper. These two categories currently represent two differing visions of how the church relates to the culture at large.<\/p>\n The following discussion doesn\u2019t fully represent Niebuhr\u2019s nuanced details, but offers simplified models are offered as a possible diagnosis of evangelicalism\u2019s anger and frustration regarding the American culture.<\/p>\n Since Niebuhr doesn\u2019t give a detailed critique of the redemption idea, many see this is his preferred model. The redemption model has become the standard understanding among evangelicals regarding their belief about how God will, and should, work through culture.<\/p>\n A heavy leaning on the belief that we should be looking for a redeemed culture has led to the intense frustration and anger among evangelicals who expect either the residue or anticipation of redeemed culture. A culture that is drifting away from traditional Christian morality betrays the fact that our culture is either losing or avoiding redemption.<\/p>\n Examples of evangelical hope for redemption can be seen in movements that are working towards reclaiming or creating a Christian influence on America.<\/p>\n Second Chronicles 7:14 (If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land) is sometimes applied to America. If America will repent of her wicked ways, it is claimed, God will heal this land. In other words, it could be redeemed.<\/p>\n Groups like Jerry Falwell\u2019s Moral Majority and Ralph Reed\u2019s Christian Coalition of America worked hard to bring America back to its Christian roots. Of course, a lot of debate has taken place about defining America as a Christian nation.<\/p>\n Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson recently stated that a Muslim should not be elected as president of the United States. The sentiment behind Carson\u2019s belief is not the focus of this paper, but it does show that many people believe that despite the first amendment\u2019s clear statement against a religious test about serving in government, a tacit litmus test is in play. Carson\u2019s statement, in fact, reveals the incredibly complicated nature of religious liberty. The principle that would allow a radical Muslim to serve as president would actually deny his religious obligations if his faith tried to establish itself as the one true religion.<\/p>\n The reclaiming movement can be seen in songs like Rend Collective\u2019s song \u201cBuild Your Kingdom Here.\u201d<\/p>\n Build Your kingdom here<\/p>\n Let the darkness fear<\/p>\n Show Your mighty hand<\/p>\n Heal our streets and land<\/p>\n Set Your church on fire<\/p>\n Win this nation back<\/p>\n Change the atmosphere<\/p>\n Build Your kingdom here<\/p>\n We pray<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although Rend Collective is from Ireland, many American Christians surely sing these lines with gusto, hoping that our land will be brought back to more Christian foundations. This song claims that cultural redemption is possible and within our reach with God\u2019s help.<\/p>\n Another way of working for the idea of cultural redemption is to take the \u201cpost\u201d out of \u201cpost-Christian\u201d. The idea of a post-Christian culture assumes that there was a time when our culture was Christian, or at least more Christian than it is right now.<\/p>\n This idea of a previously recognizable Christian influence definitely makes sense. Christianity has less influence in the public square today than it did a generation earlier. The idea, then, of redeeming culture can be a strategic move to reintroduce a Christian influence into a culture that has forgotten about its religious pedigree.<\/p>\n A few specific authors have been very instrumental in bringing the hope of a redeemed culture into popular Christian thought.<\/p>\n Francis Schaeffer famously diagnosed misguided modern thinking. According to Schaeffer, a fundamental split between reason and faith accounts for schizophrenic thinking in the modern world. Modern man has bifurcated the united ideas of classical, holistic Christian thinking by forming a wall between the heart and the mind. The following quote is one of Schaeffer\u2019s clearest statements of his foundational argument:<\/p>\n One must understand that from the advent of Kierkegaardism onward there has been a widespread concept of the dichotomy between reason and non-reason, with no interchange between them. The lower story area of reason is totally isolated from the optimistic area of non-reason. The line which divides reason from non-reason is as impassable as a concrete wall thousands of feet thick, reinforced with barbed wire charged with 10,000 volts of electricity.\u201d4<\/sup><\/p>\n According to Schaeffer the dichotomy between faith and reason has erroneously created a way of looking at the world as either secular or sacred. Nancy Pearcey picks up Schaeffer\u2019s paradigm a generation later in her popular work Total Truth<\/em>.5<\/sup> Chuck Colson joins Pearcey in How Now Shall We Live?<\/em> to advocate for a way that virtually eliminates the secular in order to see everything as a sacred gift from God.6<\/sup> Thinking in terms of \u201csecular,\u201d it is claimed,\u00a0 denies God\u2019s absolute lordship over all creation.<\/p>\n Colson and Pearcey map out a strategy that would minimize the \u201csecular\u201d in hope of maximizing the \u201csacred.\u201d Public Christian voices, it is reckoned, will restore a definitively Christian influence into the culture at large. This Christian influence will bring about a more redeemed culture.<\/p>\n It is important to note that the definition of \u201csecular\u201d that Schaeffer, Pearcey, and Colson reject describes a realm where God\u2019s rule is absent. Since there is no place where God does not reign, there really is no such thing as \u201csecular\u201d. Since many have adopted this definition, it\u2019s no wonder \u201csecular\u201d is a taboo word among evangelicals today.<\/p>\n The term \u201csacred,\u201d on the other hand, is used to recognize God\u2019s rule. Everything, everyone, and every place, then, is sacred. Pearcey states:<\/p>\n We have to reject the division of life into a sacred realm, limited to things like worship and personal morality, over against a secular realm that includes science, politics, economics, and the rest of the public arena. This dichotomy in our own minds is the greatest barrier to liberating the power of the gospel across the whole of culture today.7<\/sup><\/p>\n One can see, then, that Pearcey\u2019s thoroughgoing adoption of Schaeffer\u2019s two story model has no room for a secular category. This proscribed nature of the term \u201csecular\u201d is deeply entrenched in modern evangelical thinking.<\/p>\n The visions of Schaeffer, Colson, and Pearcey, then, would result in a culture that is less secular and more sacred. Christian witness serves to change society into a place that is friendly to, and supportive of, Christian values, especially Christian morality. After all, if everything is sacred, why shouldn\u2019t it look sacred?<\/p>\n Cultural redemption, according to Colson and Pearcey, is the result of redeemed thinking.<\/p>\n If our culture is to be transformed, it will happen from the bottom up-from ordinary believers practicing apologetics over the backyard fence or around the barbecue grill. To be sure, it\u2019s important for Christian scholars to conduct research and hold academic symposia, but the real leverage for cultural change comes from transforming the habits and dispositions of ordinary people.8<\/sup><\/p>\n If this vision of redeemed culture is the correct one, there is no question why recent cultural shifts in America are causing such angst among evangelicals. America, according to the redemption camp, is becoming less redeemed in terms of orthodox Christian standards. In other words, the redeemed strategy is not working like we expected. Unmet expectations lead to anger and frustration.<\/p>\n Why isn\u2019t our culture getting redeemed according to the strategy of Schaeffer, Colson, and Pearcey? A recent book by James Davison Hunter suggests that the cultural redemption model suffers from a misguided understanding of how culture is actually changed.<\/p>\n Hunter investigates the belief that changed minds change culture. He finds that this is actually not the case. Cultural shifts aren\u2019t the result of believing something. Hunter summarizes this view, \u201cAs the logic goes: if people\u2019s hearts and minds are converted, they will have the right values, they will make the right choices, and the culture will change in turn.\u201d9<\/sup><\/p>\n According to Hunter, however, the view that redeemed thinking will lead to a redeemed culture, \u201cis almost wholly mistaken.\u201d10<\/sup> Hunter sees institutions and institutional elites as the agents who actually usher in cultural changes.<\/p>\n The redemption model, then, proposes a world that is potentially redeemable. Christians need to work hard with God to usher in redemptive work that will result in a more Christian culture.<\/p>\n Along with Niebuhr\u2019s four categories of the Christian relationship to culture (Christ against<\/em> culture, Christ of<\/em> culture, Christ above<\/em> culture, and Christ redeeming<\/em> culture), another way is offered: Christ and culture in Paradox.<\/p>\n Niebuhr\u2019s classic example of this paradox is Martin Luther\u2019s two kingdom theology. Luther\u2019s clearest exposition of his view is found in his 1523 treatise On Secular Authority\u2014To What Extent We Owe It Obedience<\/em>.<\/p>\n As mentioned earlier, the term \u201csecular\u201d is rejected by Pearcey and Colson because it implies a sector which is not ruled over by God. Since there is no place not governed by God, \u201csecular\u201d is a non-existent construct. Luther, however, defines secular differently. The secular government, over against the sacred church, is not established by the consent of the people; it is founded by the ordinance of God.<\/p>\n Although Luther\u2019s context was couched in a long-standing Christendom, his distinction between God\u2019s twin rule over sacred and secular paved the way for later societies that would recognize religious liberty. Luther\u2019s proposed dichotomy need not necessitate a gnostic duality. While Augustine\u2019s two cities implied a kingdom of Satan existing alongside the kingdom of God, Luther\u2019s two kingdoms are both ruled by God.<\/p>\n In the redeemed kingdom, God rules directly through the gospel; in the common kingdom, he rules in a hidden way through natural reason. In the common kingdom God is disguised and not recognized by the kings or subjects. In the church, God is revealed through the Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n A paradox view of Christianity and culture would hold to a view of a Christian\u2019s citizenship in two kingdoms at the same time. A Christian is a citizen of the redeemed kingdom which needs no authority other than guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Christian, however, is also a member of the common kingdom, which God has established primarily to govern those who are not redeemed.<\/p>\n According to David VanDrunen, the Bible \u201crequires a high view of creation and of cultural activity, but it also requires a distinction between the holy things of Christ\u2019s heavenly kingdom and the common things of the present world.\u201d11<\/sup><\/p>\n VanDrunen points to Genesis for the foundation for the common kingdom. In God\u2019s \u201ccovenant with Noah God entered covenantal relationship with the entire human race (and with the entire creation), promising to preserve its cultural activities such as procreating and securing justice.\u201d12<\/sup> Abraham\u2019s covenant, on the other hand, establishes the foundation for the redeemed kingdom.<\/p>\n This idea of the two kingdoms is stated clearly here:<\/p>\n Christians live under two kingdoms, governed respectively by the Noahic covenant and the Abrahamic covenant. Civil governments, families, economic associations, and many other cultural institutions continue to exist under the covenant with Noah, and Christians and non-Christians alike participate in them and, in many respects, cooperate in their activities. At Christ\u2019s return these institutions and activities will come to a sudden and \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 radical end. Yet Christians belong especially to the church, the New Testament manifestation of the special covenant community created in Abraham. Through the church they are citizens of heaven even now.13<\/sup><\/p>\n Theologians who are persuaded by the paradox view doubt the historicity of the redemption views of Colson, Pearcey, and Schaeffer which claim that the church has not traditionally used a holistic view of seeing everything as sacred and nothing as secular.<\/p>\n The important point here is that the paradox model presents different cultural expectation than that of the redemption model. Whereas the redemption position expects to see a more Christian culture, the paradox view has no such expectation. While the paradox view can hold out hope that the church will be a witness to redemption, it doesn\u2019t expect that the common kingdom will look completely redeemed in a Christian sense.<\/p>\n It might seem strange for a Baptist to consider the paradox model since most of today\u2019s Baptists would probably see it as too Lutheran.<\/p>\n A Baptist consideration of the paradox view, however, is fully in line with early Baptist thought. In fact, an examination of three different Baptist traditions show that the paradox view is deeply seated in the DNA of Baptist thought.14<\/sup><\/p>\n The twin distinctives of religious liberty and soul competency are the clearest examples of a Baptist alignment of the paradox model.<\/p>\n Religious liberty, according to James E. Wood, is grounded in Christian anthropology. God creates us free; therefore, we should live as free creatures. Wood defines religious freedom as \u201cthe inherent right of a person in public or in private to worship or not worship according to his own understanding or preferences, to give public witness to one\u2019s faith (including the right of propagation), and to change one\u2019s religion\u2014all without threat of reprisal or abridgment of one\u2019s right as a citizen.\u201d15<\/sup><\/p>\n The soul competency doctrine states that every person has a right to direct access to God. According to R. Stanton Norman, \u201can individual must be afforded a free, uncoerced opportunity to interact with God in order to realize one\u2019s \u2018religious destiny.\u201d16<\/sup><\/p>\n The principles of religious liberty and soul competency would suggest the existence of a world where the redeemed church bears incarnation witness of Jesus Christ within a culture that might never be redeemed.<\/p>\n Walter Klaassen shows that<\/p>\n Basic to the Anabaptist view of government was their version of the two kingdom doctrine. In its basic ingredients it was virtually identical with Martin Luther\u2019s. Government was given because of man\u2019s sin; it belonged to law, while the church, which was given out of sheer grace, belonged to the gospel.\u201d17<\/sup><\/p>\n Two of the earliest Anabaptist thinkers believed God worked through two different avenues. On the one hand, God established the government which bears the sword. On the other hand, God works directly through his church. The Anabaptists did not expect that they would redeem this world at all. In fact, they had a very pessimistic view of the fallenness of the world around them.<\/p>\n Michael Sattler (ca. 1490\u20131527) was an Anabaptist pioneer who had previously served as a prior of a Benedictine monastery. Sattler was only an Anabaptist for a short time, but his contribution to the first Anabaptist confession of faith, The Schleitheim Confession<\/em> (1527), cemented his legacy as one of the most important thinkers of the Radical Reformation.<\/p>\n The Schleitheim Confession<\/em> calls for believers to separate from the world. The demarcation between good and evil seems to illustrate a view of Christ against culture. However, one statement very clearly delineates two realms of God\u2019s authority. The sword, according to the confession, \u201cis ordained of God outside the perfection of Christ.\u201d God has chosen civil authorities to function now in the same way theocratic forces worked under the Old Testament law.<\/p>\n There is a considerable tension between the two ways God chooses to work in the world. On the one hand, God has established the church as his visible body on Earth. On the other hand, he uses the secular realm to enforce his rule.<\/p>\n Pilgram Marpeck (d1556) was a civil engineer by trade and a very gifted lay theologian in his free time. He worked and worshipped in Strassburg and Augsburg.<\/p>\n Pilgram Marpeck is not well known outside of in-depth Anabaptist studies. Marpeck was a German Anabaptist who was also a well-respected member of society, a rare thing in deed. His engineering skills were so valuable to the city fathers that they tolerated his unorthodox Anabaptist beliefs. It is ironic that Marpeck\u2019s persecution came at the hands of local Lutherans. The Anabaptists agreed with the early Lutherans on the basic tenants of the two kingdoms, but differed greatly on the thought that allowed the state to use the sword against heretics.<\/p>\n Marpeck wrote a theological treatise in 1531 called Expos\u00e9 of the Babylonian Whore<\/em>.18<\/sup> Marpeck sounds apocalyptic in his analysis of sixteenth century Europe. According to Marpeck, the entire world is \u201cnow full of error and seduction, and all generations on earth are drunk with the wine of fornication, Rev. 18[:3].\u201d He definitely has no hope for cultural redemption.<\/p>\n Despite the darkness of this world, God has not failed to leave a witness. Markpeck knows \u201cof no other Authority specifically appointed by God than the Emperor; all emperors hold the imperium even today and will hold it until the appointed time of which Daniel speaks (Daniel 11 [:36]), when the wrath of God shall come over the whole world (Isa. 24 [:17\u201321]). For all flesh needs his authority and rule.\u201d<\/p>\n In his Explanation of Testaments<\/em> Marpeck states:<\/p>\n They should be allowed to remain in their proper service of God to fulfill it according to God\u2019s will through the fear of God \u2026 . Saint Paul distinguishes this wisdom of the worldly magistrates from the wisdom of Christ when he says: \u2018It is not the wisdom of the rulers of this world.\u2019 I Cor. 2. It is thus clear that the worldly rulers have a special wisdom for their service. (Anabaptists in Outline<\/em>, p. 262)<\/p>\n According to Marpeck, then, this world is hopelessly lost and unredeemable. God, however, has still authorized the king to guide and protect. These Anabaptists were nearly unanimous in their denial that Christians could use the sword.<\/p>\n A branch of seventeenth century English Separatists would later be known as Baptists. This group wanted to be left alone spiritually, but were more willing than the Anabaptists to participate in social life.<\/p>\n Thomas Helwys\u2019 book, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity<\/em> (1611\/1612) is widely regarded as the first extended literary argument for religious liberty in the English language. Helwys helped John Smyth start a church in Holland that was grounded in a membership of baptized believers. Smyth and Helwys were a bit of an odd couple. According to Leon McBeth, \u201cIf Smyth was the more dynamic and creative, Helwys made his contribution in clarity of thought and stability of action.19<\/sup><\/p>\n After establishing the first Baptist church in Holland, Smyth and Helwys parted ways. (\u201cParting ways\u201d would become a great Baptist tradition.) Upon returning to England, Helwys established the first Baptist church in England.20<\/sup> After tasting religious liberty in Holland, Helwys was even more offended with the throne\u2019s illegitimate rule over the pulpit. He was compelled to voice his concerns directly to King James I.<\/p>\n It is cruelly ironic that Helwy\u2019s work on the necessity of religious liberty caused his prolonged incarceration. His Declaration<\/em> is a brilliantly reasoned theological treatise that expounds biblical concepts, arguing for a model of Christian interaction that is in essential harmony with Luther\u2019s two kingdom theology. Helwys draws a clear distinction between the two kingdoms when he shows that the king \u201ccannot be both a king and a subject in one and the same kingdom.\u201d 21<\/sup><\/p>\n According to Helwys, it is beyond doubt that God has established the role of the earthly king. First Peter 2:14 clearly states that the king\u2019s power was given by God \u201cto punish evildoers and to reward them that do well.\u201d God\u2019s intent is that this power advances good deeds and does not advance the \u201cmystery of iniquity.\u201d 22<\/sup><\/p>\n Helwys wants to draw a very clear distinction between the two kingdoms. He implores King James to not let deceivers fool him into thinking he has any authority over the kingdom of Christ\u2019s church. If the king attempts to rule over the church, \u201che shall sin against God in entering upon the kingdom of Christ who is the only King of Israel.\u201d 23<\/sup><\/p>\n Although Helwys does not use the exact language of religious liberty and soul competency, he describes each idea. He touches on the issue of soul competency when he asserts that the common kingdom is governed by the king\u2019s sword. Trouble makers should be compelled to stop making trouble. God, however, works differently. The king reacts to outward acts of rebellion; God works with the inward attitudes of the heart. \u201cIt is spiritual obedience that the Lord requires, and the king\u2019s sword cannot smite the spirits of men.\u201d 24<\/sup><\/p>\n Probably the best known affirmation in this document is the following statement offered in the original English, \u201cLet them be heretikes, Turks, Jewes, or whatsoever, it apperteynes not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.\u201d25<\/sup> This sentiment reveals an uneasy willingness to live in a world with two diverse kingdoms, one that lives by Christ\u2019s rule and another that allows a plurality of religious commitments. While Helwys holds out for a progressively pure church, he also votes for a common kingdom that would protect those with different (or no) beliefs as well.<\/p>\n For these early Baptists, separation from the established church did not necessitate a desertion from society.<\/p>\n In The Bloudy Tennent of Persecution<\/em> (1644), Roger Williams states that \u201ctrue civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom.\u201d26<\/sup><\/p>\n A Plea for Religious Liberty<\/em> is an excerpt from The Bloudy Tennant.<\/em> Williams, like Luther, Marpeck, and Helwys before him declares that the government is ordained by God, not to steer the hearts of men, but to protect their property. Williams explains that \u201ca civil government is an ordinance of God, to conserve the civil peace of people, so far as concerns their bodies and goods, as formerly hath been said.\u201d27<\/sup><\/p>\n Within this document, one can clearly identify Williams\u2019 heavy reliance on Luther\u2019s two kingdom thought. \u201cit is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries; and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of God\u2019s Spirit, the Word of God.28<\/sup><\/p>\n Williams and Helwys both make room for two coexisting societies, and a Christian is a citizen of both. They belong to the community of Christians while also living peaceably with people of other religious persuasions or those with no religious persuasion at all. Williams did not expect to live in a world that would necessarily share his religious beliefs.<\/p>\n A common theme among all of these examples is the delineation of a common kingdom which is not, and might never be, redeemed. In the examples of the Anabaptists and Helwys, this other kingdom is ordained by God, but rotten to its core. These thinkers would surely reject a project that sought to restore and reclaim this kingdom. According to Marpeck, this world \u201coverflows with evil that one lay hidden in the mystery of wickedness.\u201d 29<\/sup><\/p>\n These examples of Baptist applications of a paradox model allow us to conclude that the notions of religious liberty and soul competency call for a church that functions within a culture that is open to other faiths or no faith at all. For the Anabaptists and General Baptists of the early seventeenth century, there definitely was a secular realm, even within their Christendom. For Helwys and Williams, there was room for pluralism. Williams was a champion of tolerant. It might be troubling for many evangelicals to consider that pluralism<\/em>, secularism<\/em>, and toleration<\/em> might not be dirty words for Baptists.<\/p>\n So should we expect cultural redemption?<\/p>\n Yes and no.<\/p>\n Christians can expect partial cultural redemption. Since we are redeemed members of our culture, we can expect the gospel to transform us into better citizens. As the people of God, we are bearing a Christ-like incarnate presence within our sphere of influence. We can expect the Holy Spirit to work through us as we fit in<\/em> as salt and stand out<\/em> as light in our culture.<\/p>\n On the other hand, Christians need to temper their expectations of complete cultural redemption. Yes, God\u2019s reign is absolute in the whole world. Second Cor. 4:4 claims that there is an enemy \u201cgod\u201d of this age, but as Luther reminds us, \u201cthe Devil is God\u2019s Devil.\u201d<\/p>\n Hopefully, evangelicals will handle the phrase \u201credeeming culture\u201d with care. If we expect that this world should be the kingdom of God, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. By reintroducing a nuanced understanding of \u201csecular\u201d we should be able to allow institutions in the common kingdom to seek noble ends that do not always reflect absolute Christian ethics and morality. For example, we don\u2019t expect a bank to tithe a portion of our deposits to local churches. We should also expect robust educational standards in our public schools that don\u2019t attempt to transform everyone, including non-believers, into the image of Christ.<\/p>\n As God\u2019s church we must enjoy, explain, and expect redemption. At the same time, however, we must understand that redemption is extended to his elect and his church. Redemption on a global scale will not be realized until his return. Let\u2019s not get sidetracked with a task that is reserved for God\u2019s final age.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Introduction Many evangelicals are angry and frustrated about cultural and societal changes. Anger and frustration are frequently the result of unmet expectations. Could it be that the anger and frustration felt about our American society are based on unmet expectations … Continue reading Reclaiming Christian America<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Creating Christian Culture<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\u201cChrist and Culture in Paradox\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Baptist Witness<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Anabaptist Influences<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Michael Sattler\u2019s Schleitheim Confession<\/em> (1527)<\/strong><\/h6>\n
Pilgram Marpeck<\/strong><\/h6>\n
Early Baptists<\/strong><\/h5>\n
British Separatists<\/strong><\/h6>\n
Roger Williams<\/strong><\/h6>\n
Application<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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