Why Faith VS. Culture doesn't work

I forgot to say yesterday that the shift away from church in this generation is not a shift away from group meetings but a shift away from centralized control and anything that smells like some guy trying to use me to build a kingdom on earth to carry his name on.

Anyway that isn't what I wanted to write about tonight. I finished ch 3 of Barna's book today. So far a theme that undergirdes his ideas and those of the evangelical church is that, our present American culture is evil and the church must change this culture. This view sees evangelical christianity and American culture as equal forces both vying for control of the hearts and minds of the American people. This makes sense to people that hold this view. They see our country as having been founded on Evangelical Christianity, based on selected quotes of our founding fathers. They also see our country as having departed from this path as evidenced by "prayer not being allowed in our schools," the growing acceptance of homosexuality, etc. Things are either Secular and evil or sacred and good.

The problem, I believe, with this view of things is that it misunderstands faith's relation to culture, misrepresents where we came from, and over simplifies reality.

First, faith is a piece of the puzzle that is culture. Culture manifests itself through the actions of its individual members. One of these manifestations is faith. Others might be the workplace, the family structure, music, arts, media, technology, law, medicine, and so. As the views of people change, the changes are reflected in all of these areas. Culture in many ways is our attempt to see themes between these areas. As an example, a value in our culture is individuality. You see that in the workplace with people working from home, you see that in music in the growing varieties of music and disagreement about what is music, you see it in technology as it shifts to serve the individual (personally owned cars, cell phones), you see it in law in that our country's laws seek to protect the individual even to the detriment of the group on occassion, you see it in faith in that our country has more variety and different ways to express our faith corporately than almost any country. When you look at european culture this value of individuality in our country becomes more obvious. They are oriented often more toward the group, public transportation, trains and subways, cars only for the rich in some places, only a few church denominations are represented in any real sense, fewer individual rights and greater governmental control. Another value of ours is freedom. In America you are innocent until proven guilty, anyone can start a new church or business, or write a book. Anyone can do anything. Not the case everywhere around the world. To pit faith against culture is the same as claiming one of the 7 continents is better than the world as a whole. Culture can't be evil. There can be evil represented within a culture but I don't believe culture is secular and evil and faith is sacred and good. The Bible says that God puts national leaders in place and that we are to obey them as far as we can in good conscience. That doesn't sound very black and white to me. If culture were evil, how much more would its leaders be? Evil isn't something outside of us that we must fight against, evil is something inside of us, shown through our choices. I often feel our churches are more hateful and evil than other groups within our culture. Ask yourself, Is the church known, even assumed, to be the loving, accepting place to run to within our culture?
Second, I think we misrepresent where we came from. Our country's founding fathers were believers in a God, some even in Jesus, but not all. Some believed in Jesus deity, some didn't or had questions. Our country was founded by people who believed in a creator, their culture, in that day, demanded it. Our culture no longer demands this because it is based in faith and is unproveable and other explanations of the origin of the earth are accepted now. I don't think they were anymore godly or ungodly than we are. Everyone was a "Christian" back then. If anything it probably meant less because the only other choice was beening an admittedly sinful drunken orgy prone heathen. Not many people like that could get good MSNC poll results back then. And as for the whole "prayer in schools" thing, again Christian used to be the only choice. Prayers led by teachers back then probably made sense, but now there are other options and forcing teachers who may not believe in a God to lead students in prayers to him makes no sense. It doesn't mean we have become less Godly, it means we have given people more freedom.
Third, I think we misrepresent reality by not acknowledging these above truths and teaching our children not to think for themselves and ask hard questions that we might not even know how to answer. Faith is not about having all the answers. Faith is about moving ahead without answers. Love and fear can't coexist. The church must stop fearing what conclusions people might come to if they read the Bible for themselves. Freedom is scary but it is what God has called us to through Jesus Christ his son.
Viewing faith and culture as being in competition simplifies life, but it makes us look stupid, sets us up to fight the very people Jesus sat and cordially ate dinner with, and slowly turns us into Pharisees who have all the answers, all the power, and get vary angry when others won't fall in line.