Ep. 78: Should Christians FIGHT Culture & Government? w/ Dr. John Neufeld

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, INDOUBT audio world, Andrew here. Hope you’re doing well. We’re doing something a little bit different today for our episode. A few months back, we were in Winkler, Manitoba for the INDOUBT SHOW Live. We had Dr. John Neufeld as our guest with us, and we talked about the Christianity in culture debate. How do we fit in? How do we just deal with all that’s happening in the world today? And so it was a fantastic episode, great conversation, and we love that we got to do it in front of a live audience, which reminds me to go to INDOUBT.ca and see where we’re going to be next, because we’d love to have you join the party. God bless you. Enjoy the program.

We got a great, great, great program today. And so audio world, if you’re listening in podcast world, when you hear this music-

MUSIC:

Andrew Marcus:

You know him. You love him. Dr. John, come on up, brother. Give him a hand. Yes. Dr. John. Amazing. Brother, how are you?

Dr. John Neufeld:

I really loved the day when no one knew who in the world I was. I loved that.

Andrew Marcus:

You always appreciate the Spider John song. I remember the first time you heard that, we were doing a conference live, and it just took him by surprise.

Dr. John Neufeld:

It did, it did.

Andrew Marcus:

He was quite embarrassed. You’re doing well?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, I’m doing really well.

Andrew Marcus:

You’ve been to Winkler many times, actually.

Dr. John Neufeld:

I have. This is a wonderful place. It really is. I mean, my wife is Saskatchewanian, so anywhere in the prairies, it feels wonderful to me. I love the wide, open spaces. I mean, I love the rural lifestyle. And there is a wholesomeness that’s here, and there is a rootedness in the Christian faith that is really quite impressive in this place. And so I find this to be kind of like our home turf, even though I know that none of us are from here, but I find it feels like coming home.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s amazing. I remember when we were going for a walk last year when we were here together, and just like, “Man, we just love this place.” There’s just this peace that’s in this place that’s amazing.

Dr. John Neufeld:

I almost convinced you to move here.

Andrew Marcus:

He almost convinced me to move here, folks.

Dr. John Neufeld:

I did, yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

I just have to convince my wife. We want to talk about the Christianity in culture debate today. And we were even just talking right before we recorded this, and you were mentioning a book specifically that really shaped maybe some of your theology and some of your ideas of just how Christians throughout history have tried to navigate all that’s happening in culture, because you see people who want to run for the hills and avoid the world at all costs. You see people who want to immerse themselves and walk the walk, talk the talk to fit in. There’s a lot of different approaches that people have taken throughout history, church history, of engaging with culture. So maybe tell us a little bit about that book, so we could even reference, people who are watching or people in the room.

Dr. John Neufeld:

The book’s called Christ and Culture. It’s a classic, Christ and Culture. It was written by a man named H. Richard Niebuhr, and it was written in the 1950s. In some ways, Andrew, I don’t like the five different views books, because what leads people to do is, okay, these are the range of views in the Christian faith, and they don’t come down anywhere. And in that sense, the book doesn’t really come down anywhere either. But for me, I’m trying to work and navigate my way through, what does it mean to be a believer in a very real world, how do Christians in historically dealt with their approach to culture?

And so Niebuhr, I mean, one of the approaches that he has, and we don’t need to talk about that, is the Roman Catholic understanding of culture. But two of the views in the book were very interesting to me. One is the classic Anabaptist view, which is the Christ against culture. So culture is seen as the realm of the evil one, and it’s the task of the believer to flee from culture and flee to Christ. So the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. And so when we come to Christ, we are transferred from the realm of darkness into the realm of light, and the realm of darkness being the realm in which Satan rules, which is in the wider cultures of the world. So that is one very significant Christian view.

And the other one, and I wrestled with those two, and the other view is the classic Reformed position, and the Reformed position looks at Christ as the transformer of culture. And that view, it kind of looks at the example of Daniel and Babylon. We live in Babylon, but Daniel has become the prime minister of Babylon. But rather than bowing towards the king and recognizing him as a deity, he opens his window every single day and prays in the direction of Jerusalem and knows that his land is there. So as long as believers continue to work, the culture will continually be transformed. However, Babylon will never become Jerusalem. We await the new Jerusalem to come. So it’s the tension between those views that helped me articulate what I thought my position was. So it was a helpful book for me; started my thinking.

Andrew Marcus:

And I see both camps and I see the temptation. I mean, even we look at what’s happening in school districts and what they’re teaching in schools, it’s easier for me to think, “I want to take my kids in flee and just run away.” That’s an easy temptation. But there is value for us being in the world, not of the world, but making an impact. So maybe walk through, what does it look like for us as Christians living in the world but not of it?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, I mean, we do have to come to terms with the fact that there is a Christian culture. And by that, I don’t mean that we eat a certain food or wear a certain clothing, but we interact with each other as Christ wants us to interact, so that within the community of God’s people, we learn to prefer one another. We look out for each other’s interests rather than our own. That’s very different from the culture which teaches us stomp on the other.

So there’s all of those things that I think provide for the world in which we live an alternative to the nightmare that people live in. So I think there’s that. So a healthy, vibrant local church that is entirely yielded to Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, doing what Christ wants us to do. I mean, that is a necessity to bring into this world. I mean, see, this is where I don’t believe that we should run from culture, but we need to advance into culture and present that alternative. And the church, if it’s healthy, presents that.

Andrew Marcus:

So you’re saying the church should be in the front lines, in a sense?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. I’m not arguing that the church should be in politics.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, no, but I mean in the sense of like if we’re going to engage in culture, it starts with a healthy church and a healthy community?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. The church is God’s plan A. Christ said, “I will build my church.” So before we ask ourselves, “What should my response be?” … You mentioned MAID, medical assistance in dying, which is really assisted suicide, now being offered in all of our hospitals. Doctors who have been called in the past, do no harm … That was a part of a physician’s creed. And now they are called upon, yes, indeed, to do harm and to take life. So we’ve made the physician our executioner. Are we concerned about that?

We’re horribly concerned about that. But I would want to say if that becomes the issue, the central issue of the church rather than the cross … If we’re not proclaiming Christ crucified for the sins of the world and wonderful opportunity of grace that Christ has come to us, risen from the dead and offers us everlasting life, if that gets eclipsed because we’re so concerned about that or gender dysphoria or the host of issues … I still think that abortion, in my mind, is one of the key issues. Even though for many Christians even it’s on the back burner, I still think the Holocaust against the unborn is of such a concern. As much as there is within me this heart’s cry that says, “I’d like to go and take that on,” at the same time, if I do that at the cost of proclaiming the gospel, I’ve lost everything.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow, that’s such a good word. Is there a way that we could balance where Christians, our main focus is the gospel, preaching the good news, but also, where do we find getting involved in making our story heard, our voices heard?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Andrew, that one of the things that I love to do is I look for historical examples that might inform what’s happening today. And for me, what happened in England in the 1700s, to me forms the kind of an example that we can all learn from today, John Wesley, George Whitefield, the Wesleyan revivals that spread throughout all of England. It really is, to me, a case in point. England before the Wesleyan revivals and England after the Wesleyan revivals is remarkably different. Secular historians have written of England before and after the Wesleyans, and it’s fascinating and it’s fascinating to me to actually think about that Wesley continued to preach … What?

Personal regeneration. Wesley and Whitefield are going into mining communities and realizing that all these miners, they’re tough blue collar workers who work in underground conditions that are unsafe. I mean, these guys are just really tough boys. And many of them will have lost their lives. These preachers go into the mines … they’re coal miners, blackened faces. There are stories of Wesley and Whitefield preaching in the open air. These guys are starting to weep, these hardened guys, and the tear streaks are running down their face against the blackened coals. People are coming to Christ in droves.

What happened as a result of that? Well, the answer, what happened, is first of all, the Sunday school movement happened. And you began to teach children literacy, because they needed to read their Bible. So many children were just abandoned orphans. Churches were taking them in. But maybe from our perspective, what really happened as well is you have people like William Wilberforce, that is the next generation that comes as a result of that. And he’s a member of the British House of Commons. And his tireless efforts, along with others, brings an end to the slave trade.

Whitefield didn’t preach against the slave trade. Whitefield preached Christ and what the new life looks like and how believers now interact with one another. But once you believe that everyone’s created in the image of God, you’ve got all sorts of converts now who begin to apply that to every single area of culture. And revival changes culture. I do believe that. The problem in our day, Andrew, is that we have all sorts of people that are politically motivated preachers. So they preach against the social ills of the day. They make that the theme. The problem is they’re preaching to unconverted individuals whom you will never convince of these things. You spend your lifetime and waste your breath preaching against abortion. And I tell you, that abortion industry will carry on. But if God sends His spirit and sends us a revival so that men and women turn to Christ, we will look at children as image bearers of God, and we’ll never be the same. It’s the gospel that has to come first.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, that’s so good. And you mentioned politics. I feel like that’s happening a lot. What is the role of a Christian when it comes to politics?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, and I want to say it depends on who that Christian is. Before I came to Back To The Bible, I was 35 years a pastor. That’s in my DNA. I think church, I think Christian leadership-

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing, amazing.

Dr. John Neufeld:

I mean, I love pastors. But here’s what I want to say to pastors: “Don’t get involved in politics. Care for the well-being of your church, preach the gospel, go through the Bible, exposite it for God’s people, show them how to live according to the precepts of Christ.” That’s important. Here’s what I want to say about especially what we should say to the next generation that’s coming up, who are inflamed with passion for Christ. You want to say to them, “When you choose a career and a life’s calling, make sure that you choose a life’s calling that will highlight your influence.”

Proverbs says, “You see a man who is skilled in his work; he will not stand before common men. He will stand before kings.” I mean, wow. And the reality is that if we have believers in every walk of life using their influence in business, in the sciences, and even in blue collar trades as well, but let’s say we have people who feel called into the political sphere, Christians, well, we want to encourage that. So we’re not going to say to a Christian who feels called to public service, “Don’t be involved in politics.” You are to be involved in politics, even while the church where you attend is not a political institution. We exist for the glory of Christ.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s a good distinction there.

Dr. John Neufeld:

We want to make a distinction, yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. That’s really, really good. When it comes to just being in the workplace, how can we honor God and be making a difference in our workplaces? What are some advice for maybe some young people they feel like, “Oh, I’m not doing ministry. I’m not a pastor, a worship leader,” while they’re in working at McDonald’s or whatever? How could they be bringing influence and helping shape a little bit of the culture even in there … I’m guessing preaching the good news, personal evangelism?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Oh, personal evangelism always.

Andrew Marcus:

Always, yeah.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Form friendships. I mean, you don’t want to make sure that you’re doing a whole gospel presentation to someone while you’re getting paid to actually be at the cashier where you’re supposed to be. You don’t want to do that, because that’s not being faithful to Christ. You want to serve your employer as you would Christ.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s so good.

Dr. John Neufeld:

So one of the things that we want to say to anyone who’s working, no matter where they’re working, work with such integrity that you become the most productive member of that team. One of the things that I’ve learned from the growth, the astronomical growth of the Chinese church, during the time of Mao’s widow and the gang of … was it seven or four? I always get those two numbers … whatever it was. I mean, they had a Communist party official on every block. They were looking over everybody’s shoulders. They were arresting at will. And yet, we had all sorts of factory executives who were leading government factories but were rewarded by their productivity. And many of these execs found out that the best workers they had on their shop floors were Christians who worked harder because they worked unto Christ.

And so what they would do is they would allow for, this is actually true, they would allow for Christians to meet an hour before their shift started in a room on their factory floor or somewhere where they would be free from persecution and hold Bible studies and prayer meetings, and then they’d go to work and work like nobody’s business. And so people who were interested in advancing in the party says, “I’m going to look the other way while these believers are doing their thing.”

So if you want to know how to advance into culture, is be like Daniel, bless the nation that we’re a part of. Seek not its undoing or seek to criticize it at every level, seek its welfare wherever we go. So in terms of Canada, make Canada a better country because we’re here, and make the workplace a better place. And so out of that integrity, be ready to share your faith. And if you want to know how … Here’s an example.

Somebody that you’re working with, they’ve got a crisis in their family. And you simply say, “Can I pray for you?” And you don’t say, “Oh, somewhere I go to a church and we’ll remember you in prayer.” No, no. Pray for them right there as you would in the church where you are at. Put your arm on their shoulder. Pray earnestly for them, because I’m going to say something, that person has probably never experienced anybody praying for them in their lifetime. And you’ve just transformed their life. Anybody can do that. Any believer can do that. It’s easier to do. That’s how you bring Christ into the workplace, and it will transform everything.

Andrew Marcus:

And it takes a boldness. I mean, you might get someone to say, “No, I don’t want you to pray for me.” Well, that’s okay.

Dr. John Neufeld:

You’re going to have to ask the Holy Spirit to fill you fresh. You’re going to have to repent of your sins. And you have to say, “I’m afraid of men. I have the fear of men. Oh Lord, I have the fear of men.” And you’re just going to have to say, “Holy Spirit, take that fear away.” Even ask people in your church to pray for you. Tell them, “This is what I’m struggling with.”

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s good.

Dr. John Neufeld:

And have them surround you and pray for you in that. And maybe when you come back next time, people in your church are going to say, “I’ve been praying for you all week. How’d you do?”

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s good. That’s so good. You mentioned just for a moment when Christians would gather together for an hour before, but just avoid persecution, all that kind of stuff. When I think of persecution and I think of politics and maybe some of the regulations that they’re putting on where you can’t publicly preach the good news or you can’t share your faith in certain … And it’s getting worse for Christians.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, it is.

Andrew Marcus:

And we’re seeing it’s happening fast. How do we navigate it when we’re being persecuted or we’re not allowed … “Hey, don’t share your faith, or don’t pray with someone, or you can’t publicly read the Bible, or you can’t counsel,” or whatever the case is? What does it look like in that sense as a Christian when the government is maybe telling you to be quiet, when you shouldn’t?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Well, I think a couple of things … Wisdom. I think you can have wisdom. I mean, we don’t have to be stupid about this. I mean, I would always say don’t try to be a martyr. Work within the system if it’s possible, and look for ways to do it. So I have a very dear friend, he’s just retired now. He’s a medical doctor, a GP for many years. The amount of Christian literature he had in his foyer … I mean, I’ve sat in doctors’ offices before waiting for my thing, and there’s all sorts of literature. He had all sorts of Christian literature around. The music was piped in was Christian music. He would often ask his patients after he had examined them and worked through stuff, and especially when they had difficulties that they were dealing with, sometimes their crisis … You know when the doctor delivers the news and says, “You’re terminal,” I mean, it’s tough to go through.

And he would always say, “I know a pastor. Do you need help right now?” And he would refer. I mean, he did that all the time. And there were many of his patients that came to faith in Christ. Now, if he had simply been stupid and simply said, “They’re telling me I can’t share my faith in my workplace, so I’m going to do it anyway,” well, eventually his license would’ve been taken away, but he looked for wisdom.

So I would say first of all, look for wise ways to continue to do this. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you insight. I mean, all that kind of stuff, we can do that, But we also need to recognize that if things get very bad, if it means that we are in prison for our faith, I guess we’re going to have to say, “My Lord and Savior was arrested, the apostles were arrested.” And I don’t like the idea of being in a cage, Andrew. I’m a little bit claustrophobic. I don’t think I’d do well in prison, but I think there would be grace enough in that moment. So we just rest ourselves in the grace of God.

Andrew Marcus:

And you’ve never done prison ministry, so maybe this could be your opportunity.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Well, I know-

Andrew Marcus:

I’m just saying. I mean, it would be hard, but I think you’d do great.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah, I know. You have to explain wherever you go-

Andrew Marcus:

You have a captive audience, is what I’m saying.

Dr. John Neufeld:

… if I have a criminal record and I’m the Bible teacher, I’d have to explain everywhere I go. I know that. So that’s true, yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s amazing. We talked a little bit about … I just want to circle back, because I was just thinking about this. There’s a lot of movements that happen, social justice movements. And you see a lot of Christians jumping on all these different movements. Would you say that that would not be, then … because we were just talking about it, and I’m just circling back, thinking, “Oh, well, he said preach the gospel, focus on that. Don’t just jump on all these different things.” But is it important for us to voice our concerns as well?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Social justice is a fascinating word to me, and I find it sometimes difficult to define. And I find that other people define it differently. I mean, sometimes social justice deals with historic grievances. And I’m not saying that there aren’t historic grievances. I’m just simply saying I don’t know of a culture group on planet Earth that has not both been victimizers and the victimized. It’s because we live in a broken and ruined culture. And sin has been pervasive and has affected not only individuals, it affects culture.

So what do we do with historic wrongs? And I know that’s a political question. So believers find themselves wondering what to do. And I know that there are churches more on the liberal end of the spectrum. They’ll say, “We’re going to dive right in and we’re going to deal with historic grievances, and those are going to be the matter of our sermons.” But I’m going to root right in and say, if I’m a pastor of a local church, I’ll die on that hill. This is going to be about the cross. This is going to be about Christ crucified. This is going to be about the gospel. This is going to be about teaching people the word of God and acting like Christians. But as we act like Christians, we learn to love all people.

So my response to that is I don’t want to bite on the social justice thing because I think … That’s my own personal opinion. I don’t have biblical reference for this, but my personal opinion is that I think it’s a rat hole that we never emerge from. There’s ever more increasing guilt that continues to have … There’s no story of redemption that leads to us. At the end, there’s no forgiveness when finally these things are put aside and reconciliation is finally attained. I don’t see, in all of the social justice movements, even though there are valid things that are said, but I don’t see the stories of reconciliation. I know of none. And I think that’s a problem for believers. We have a different narrative, and I fear that we’re in danger of being dragged into a narrative that is not the narrative of the gospel.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s a really good word. Another question for us, the Bible talks in Ecclesiastes, nothing is new under the sun. You see what’s happening in the world and what’s happening in culture. And again, like I mentioned before we started, what’s right is wrong and what’s wrong is right and celebrated, encouraged, promoted. How do we navigate when we think, “Oh, this is all new”? Is it all new, or can we look back throughout scripture and say, “Hey, they’ve actually been through all this before and have tools that we can get through the word to help us navigate today?”

Dr. John Neufeld:

I’m going to say that even while sometimes in Canada, we are tempted to think, “Well, maybe the 1950s or the war generation, the post-war generation was a more Christian country than it is today.” And that’s true in a certain sense. I’ll get back to that. Or then we even go back to the 1800s … And Michael Haken teaches actually in the U.S. He’s Canadian, but is as good a historian of Canadian Christianity that I know. And Michael says that in the 1800s in the province of Ontario, that on any given Sunday, well over 90% of Ontarians were in church.

So you have to think about how far our culture has actually gone. But please remember also that those churches, I mean Roman Catholicism was a big bulwark of … close to 50% of Canadians were Roman Catholic. And then we have also the mainline denominations, which were Anglicanism and Presbyterianism, and then we had Methodism and a couple of other hangars on. And those were the big groups. The United Church of Canada formed, combining a number of those groups together. But these were called the mainline denominations. And these mainline denominations became overtly liberal. I mean, they started denying the authority of the text of Scripture. They deny the gospel.

And what happened to the Canadian Church is not that we collapsed because of overwhelming secular forces. We collapsed within. We adopted a liberal worldview. And I’m going to say this: liberalism, which denies the inerrancy of Scripture, is always the halfway house out of the Christian faith. So what happened is that even while Canadians were all going to church, the churches, many of them that they were attending, had already given up on the gospel. And the gospel was no longer heard, even while the churches were all jammed to the rafters.

And many Canadians need to know the story of what happened in the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, because in Quebec, you couldn’t get healthcare, you couldn’t get public education outside of the Roman Catholic Church. That was the only avenue through which you could get it. And so you were a Roman Catholic because it was in your interest to be one. And when Trudeau the first cut the cord between education and the church and healthcare and all the social services, imagine being a priest of a parish in Montreal in which 3,000 to 5,000 people attend every single Sunday. Andrew, by the end of the month, you had 100 people left, and they never came back. Many of us don’t realize that’s what happened in the province of Quebec. So what does that tell you about Christianity in that province?

So what I’m saying, were we once a Christian nation? And the answer is, it depends on how you define this stuff. Was there a robust centeredness on the cross of Jesus? I’m not so sure, the more that I look at this. And I’m saying simply that the overwhelming secularism that we face today, my prayer is Bible-believing churches will recenter and say, “What are we all about,” and will get off of the, “Let’s be acceptable in the culture track,” and rather say, “Let’s be truly what Christ wants us to be.”

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, and we see this a lot. I mean, I know a lot of churches even back home where we are, where they’re just saying yes and amen to what culture is saying is good.

Dr. John Neufeld:

They do.

Andrew Marcus:

In the churches.

Dr. John Neufeld:

My response to the church always is: keep on stressing what the gospel stresses. Instead of attacking, don’t.

Andrew Marcus:

Yes, that’s good. Yeah.

Dr. John Neufeld:

I mean, my response is, why do non-Christians act like non-Christians? It’s because they are non-Christians. Gee, that’s so surprising, isn’t it? Instead of that, talk about the beauty of the Christian view of sexuality and what marriage entails for us. Because marriage is a lifelong union between a man and a woman in which they not only commit themselves to sexual activity, but they commit themselves to walking through life together. And it’s beautiful. And I think the world longs for what we got. And if we give this up, we’ve given away the farm. So that’s why I want to say, instead of fighting the other stuff, let’s talk about the glories of what Christ has given us.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s so good.

Dr. John Neufeld:

And let’s celebrate it more than ever before.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so good. Then it opens the eyes to those who are watching, saying, “Oh man, what they have is so special.” Well, Dr. John, thank you so much for being with us on today’s program.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Thank you for having me.

Andrew Marcus:

Can we give a round applause to Dr. John? Thank you so much. And for those who are watching online, thank you for tuning in. We’ll see you next week. God bless.

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