Tim Keller on Underadapting to Culture

Tim Keller is one of leading voices in church planting today. He has thought long and hard about how to do gospel ministry in today’s urban contexts, and is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, a thriving ministry in the heart of New York City. Redeemer has helped mentor other church planters in New York and beyond through Redeemer City to City, a ministry which has helped launch over 200 churches in 35 global cities so far.

Keller’s latest book is Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Zondervan, 2012) which is a manual for how to think about doing church. His aim is to explain how “theological vision,” as distinct from doctrine or methodology, should drive how we bring the message of the gospel to the communities we are called to serve. Just from reading through the introductory chapter, I know I am going to want to read through this manual in depth—highlighter in hand. Keller uses diagrams and sidebars, and yes, even some footnotes, to present his information in an understandable format. And what he has to say is definitely worth hearing. He talks about the inevitability of contextualizing and chides preachers who don’t intentionally think through how their church must speak to the culture around them.

This post is not going to be a full review. I’ll save that for after I’ve had time to examine this work at length. Instead I want to focus in on an excerpt from the introduction on how the Church should adapt to culture. As a former independent fundamental Baptist (IFB), I read these words with great interest:

We will show [in this book] that to reach people we must appreciate and adapt to their culture, but we must also challenge and confront it. This is based on the biblical teaching that all cultures have God’s grace and natural revelation in them, yet they are also in rebellious idolatry. If we overadapt to a culture, we have accepted the culture’s idols. If, however, we underadapt to a culture, we may have turned our own culture into an idol, an absolute. If we underadapt to a culture, no one will be changed because no one will listen to us; we will be confusing, offensive, or simply unpersuasive. To the degree a ministry is overadapted or underadapted to a culture, it loses life-changing power. (pg. 24, emphasis added)

I think there is a wealth of wisdom in this brief except. I particularly appreciated the section that I bolded. This seems to be the case with most conservative IFB churches I know. By and large, the wider culture looks at them with bewilderment. Their version of Christianity—complete with Stoic worship, an archaic Bible and outdated fashion—is totally foreign to the average citizen in the community. And the churchly phrases and Christian lingo confuse the message even more.

In a later section in the book, Keller talks of Anglo Christians who are “often culturally clueless”:

They don’t see any part of how they express or live the gospel to be “Anglo”—it is just the way things are. They feel that any change in how they preach, worship, or minister is somehow a compromise of the gospel. In this they may be doing what Jesus warns against—elevating the “traditions of men” to the same level as biblical truth (Mark 7:8). This happens when one’s cultural approach to time or emotional expressiveness or way to communicate becomes enshrined as the Christian way to act and live. (pg. 96)

Keller goes on to discuss how our culture shapes our view of individualism and community. He also decries how church planters or missionaries tend to reproduce the cultural methodology of ministries that have impacted them.

If they have been moved by a ministry that has forty-five-minute verse-by-verse expository sermons, a particular kind of singing, or a specific order and length to the services, they reproduce it down to the smallest detail. Without realizing it, they become method driven and program driven rather than theologically driven. They are contextualizing their ministry expression to themselves, not to the people they want to reach. (pg. 97, emphasis added)

Keller’s point should not be ignored. While we must not overadapt to culture and compromise the gospel, we nevertheless have a responsibility to analyze the culture we find ourselves in and seek to communicate in such a way, that the offense that arises in response to our teaching, is an offense directed at the gospel itself, and not our own idiosyncrasies and cultural traditions.

I recommend that pastors and church leaders everywhere pick up a copy of this important book from Tim Keller. The book is carefully written and the principles are clearly explained. Even if you disagree with some of what he has to say, his book will provide an opportunity to systematically walk through all of the issues related to doing ministry in a given culture. If we recognize that some sort of “theological vision” exists and undergirds what we do, then focusing on what that vision is and how it is developed will have lasting impact in how we do church in the twenty-first century.

You can learn more about Center Church at Zondervan’s Engaging Church Blog this week or from CenterChurch.com. You can see a book excerpt or watch a video trailer at Westminster Bookstore’s product page. Pick up a copy of the book at any of the following retailers: Monergism Books, Westminster BookstoreChristianbook.com, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, or direct from Zondervan.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Zondervan. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

7 thoughts on “Tim Keller on Underadapting to Culture

  1. Bob,

    I appreciate your blogs, and agree with you more often than not. However, in regard to this review of Tim Keller’s book, I feel the need to ask a question. What is the purpose of the assembly of the saints? Evangelism? Or edification of the saints?

    If you accept, uncallenged, the premise that the church meeting is primarily for the purpose of evangelism, ie. reaching the unreached with the gospel, the cultural barriers that hinder that purpose must be challenged. However, if you believe the Bible teaches that the church meeting is primarily for the people of God, that makes Keller’s argument specious, don’t you think?

    Too often we seem to confuse the purpose for the church with the purpose for the church meeting. I, for one, am not ready to accept Keller’s arguments because I believe he has confused these two issues.

    Warm regards,
    Greg Barkman

    1. Greg. I believe he backs up his take from Scripture. So I’m ready to hear him out.

      I agree that worship and edification is primary, but the believers themselves re to have an effect on the culture and the community. The believers (who are the church), are to be evangelizing and reaching the community. If they can’t speak to that culture, and appear as strange as the Amish to them, doesn’t this result in the same problems that Keller speaks of?

      And for the record, Keller’s church uses traditional style music and is not by any stretch an overadapted church.

      Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. As I work my way through the book, I’ll be keeping an eye out for Keller’s Scriptural defense of this view.

  2. It is with the deepest conviction that I make the following statement: “it is not for us to take a culture, draw a line of right and wrong, and then promote our opinions from the comfort of leadership, to the sheep that we seek to heard. Rather, we must be partnered with the Holy Spirit, in communion with Him; for God is the one who must draw this line. The issue must never be external behaviors, but rather our focus, in the Spirit of God, should always be the underlying thoughts and intentions of the heart that moves our behaviors. For a focus on external behavior is simply a reformed legalism. Every follower of Christ should seek to understand their motives in adopting aspects of culture into their own personal identities. God wishes for all external behavior to become pure, and to the pure, all things are pure. Personally, I have experienced seasons where God had me abstain from certain behaviors, because I needed to overcome the spirit that moved behind those behaviors. Then, The Lord gave me a new understanding and foundation concerning these behaviors, while He changed the desires of my heart concerning these. This is what sanctification is all about. It isn’t running from the world, but overcoming the world by the blood of the lamb and the Word of our testimony.

  3. Bob, I just got done reading Center Church. I bought it almost immediately after reading your post. All I can say is WOW! It’s the most compelling, visionary, balanced approach to a philosophy of ministry that I’ve ever read. I was surprised by how carefully he dealt with contextualization. It was as if he had already anticipated all of what critics would be thinking, and he gently disarms them.

    Mr. Barkman’s suspicions were kept in my mind while I read the book, and Keller answers this fear of making the assembly about evangelism with a Biblical response. He is not advocating a Reformed style of seeker sensitivity.

    I’m going to be writing a review of this at my blog soon.
    Thanks for making me aware of this book.

    1. Thanks, Will for reporting on the book here. I’ll have to check out your review for more. It looks good, if only I had the time to devote to it as well as all the other books on my desk!

      Blessings,

      Bob

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