Christians as Cultural Antidotes

I met Chris after college; he was a recovering legalist trying to navigate life as a Christian saved by grace, not his works. He threw away CDs and comic books in youth group because they had so-called evil messages. I had always heard pastors joke about the motto: “Don’t smoke, drink, chew, or go with girls that do.” But I never knew how far you could go down the rabbit hole of separating from the broader culture. Chris came out of that legalistic framework looking for the right balance for engaging with culture as a Christian.

But all believers are faced with similar questions. As followers of Jesus, we all must consider how much we participate in the varying aspects of the culture surrounding us. C. S. Lewis wrestled with this very idea shortly after his conversion. As an English professor at the University of Oxford, Lewis had ample opportunity to engage in artistic culture around the university. He wrote about it in an essay entitled Christianity in Culture. He knew the end goal of his life was now “salvation in Christ and the glorifying of God” but could not wholly reconcile this belief with an understanding that culture had good things to offer.

Here are three lessons we can learn from Lewis’ thoughts on culture.

You Can’t Escape Culture

If you could detach yourself from culture, you would only substitute it with another set of aesthetic and intellectual activities you find valuable. We all must wrestle with the parts of culture we value and engage in, but we cannot remove ourselves. Lewis reflected on that reality. His skills as a professor, author, and critic bound him to culture. He lamented that some people like him “had few or no other talents for any other career” that would allow a vocation outside a “cultural profession.”

Perhaps Lewis could have quit. But would it have rid Lewis of dealing with harmful cultural influences? He taught and created with the skills God gave him. That meant God called and placed him in the realm of culture. If you find yourself like Lewis, someone whose God-given gifts and talents are cultural, then trust God made you to be actively creating culture. That does not mean that culture is harmless. Culture can be harmful in many ways, so we must find our place influencing culture.

Be a “Cultural Antidote”

Lewis knew culture could be harmful and described Christians as an antidote. Lewis remarks,

“The abuse of culture is already there, and will continue whether Christians cease to be cultured or not. It is therefore probably better that the ranks of ‘culture-sellers’ should include some Christians—as an antidote. It may even be the duty of some Christians to be culture-sellers.”

Culture can give a tremendous amount of joy and pleasure. Ecclesiastes 9 emphasizes godly pleasures in this world: food, drink, clothes, spouses, and even work. Since we discover and enjoy pleasures in culture, we must be careful to choose godly pleasures and not guilty pleasures.

God gifts people in design, literature, music, and numerous other fields that create cultural products. If you are one of those people, create in such a way that it honors and glorifies God and influences culture. We can look back at C. S. Lewis and see a lasting cultural impact beyond his Christian apologetic work. Children today still read the Narnia series. In 2018, Netflix paid a quarter of a billion dollars for the rights to adapt the Chronicles of Narnia into movies and series. If you create something true, good, and beautiful, it can move culture beyond your lifetime. Lewis is not the only Christian “culture-seller” worth our time. Thus, we should search for and consume culture that builds us up. We should highlight and celebrate the cultural antidotes.

Find Your People

Culture will influence you, so find like-minded believers you want to affect you. So, find your people in music, television, careers, and beyond that give you great enjoyment without distracting you from our greatest end, glorifying God and enjoying him forever. Lewis understood the gift of friends who he could engage. Indeed, Lewis and his good friend, J.R.R. Tolkein impacted culture well beyond their lives because they gathered on Thursday evenings to discuss what they wrote and read. Imaine what God might do in your life if you have friends like that.

Chris and I became close friends because we loved live music. Our apartment was a few blocks from the entertainment district in Dallas. We went to random shows, walked out of questionable shows, and cringed through some open mic at the comedy club. Chris and I never agreed entirely on music, but we built a friendship by engaging in culture and considering it together. Neither of us is skilled enough to fit into Lewis’ class of “culture-sellers,” but you can count us as the fans of Christians who do so in a way that glorifies God and helps us to see the beauty and goodness in the world, he made for us. We navigate culture better together.

Conclusion

Lewis offers us a beautiful picture of how Christians can participate in culture. Christians are created by God with gifts and talents that inevitably influence culture. Don’t run away from those gifts. Use them to cultivate a world that reflects God’s glory. Creating good and beautiful products can be an antidote to the harmful broken parts of culture we want to escape. As you do so, find some friends and bring them along with you. God can do mighty things when a few followers of Jesus encourage one another to create God-glorifying pieces of culture.

C. S. Lewis, “Christianity and Culture”, Christian Reflections, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967).