Why are we so desperate for cultural validation?
February 5, 2022 § 1 Comment
There’s an awful lot being bandied about regarding the Colbert clip, which I shared from a post by Todd Pruitt including a bit of commentary from Scott Christensen.
All this “family squabbling” (which is not nearly as enlightening as it is predictable) aside, what is most interesting is to me what Colbert actually says here. I hear nothing that is distinctively Christian or even Catholic, for that matter, in anything that Colbert says. It is vacuous enough to be supplied with just about any “Christian” spin one wishes to give it, which requires bringing one’s own presuppositions to that spin; it isn’t possible, as far as I can hear, to find anything of much clarity or even weightiness. Even when he speaks of “Belfast” as a movie that seeks to be “funny about sad” and “getting it” being a “Catholic thing,” we are left with no more information about Colbert’s faith at the end of the “interview” than we had its beginning.
The conclusion, I believe, is that he is a liberal Catholic whose faith appears to be more about sentiment and emotional expression than it is about content, especially the content of redemption. Moreover, there is nothing of the Gospel in anything he says—which, to be fair, is not likely something he even had in view when asked about how his faith and his comedy overlap.
I see no difference in the eagerness of some to see a bridge to Christianity that in this clip than when folks see Gospel testimony every time an athlete points to the sky or an artist thanks God at an award show. Why are we so desperate for the validation of our culture?
If this is a commendable way of handling faith in a way that our “culture can handle” then it is clear to me that our culture is largely just as vacuous as Colbert’s statement. But I am left asking, “Where are we told to share our faith in a way that our culture can handle?” Jewish culture couldn’t handle a Gospel that proclaimed a crucified Messiah, and Greek culture couldn’t handle a Gospel that proclaimed human wisdom was foolish and human strength was weak. No human culture can handle the Gospel, period.
None of this, of course, means that Christians are to be arrogant, argumentative jerks; we must never intentionally poke our culture in the eye, especially not because we don’t happen to like the culture. But when the Gospel pokes the culture in the eye—when Jesus is doing the offending—we don’t abandon him in our proclamation to embrace a thin, non-offensive progressive gruel masquerading as God’s gracious good news.
Roblog 
I agree. Very well stated. This reminds me of when some from the Babylon Bee were trying to claim they won Elon Musk to the faith when they didn’t even share the gospel with him and all he said is that he agreed with some of the moral principles in the Sermon on the Mount. That’s it. Mahatma Gandhi said similar things. Does that mean he was saved, too? If that’s all it takes to be a true believer, then the majority of the world would be saved, which, of course, is not the case.
I think the reason the modern church seeks cultural validation is that ultimately, like the Pharisees of old, it values man’s acceptance more than it does God’s approval. And it’s not willing to “go outside the camp” where Christ was crucified to bear the reproach and shame of the cross.