What is Your Culture?

As humans, we are often drawn to a collective identity. We find comfort in knowing we aren’t alone. In one of the classes I am taking this semester, we discussed company culture. We learned that good managers actually sit down and design the way they want their company culture to work and will hire and train individuals who they believe will strengthen their culture. This was an interesting concept to me because I never thought of culture as something to think about. I always thought it was just the way it is, and you can either like it or leave it; however, this made me think of culture in a different light. If managers can create a culture with certain expectations for their employees to help reach the company’s goals faster, then surely I, as a Christian, can be more intentional in cultivating the kind of culture I want in my own life. C.S. Lewis in the preface for On the Incarnation by Saint Athanasius said that the best place to look for wisdom is in old books because they have stood the test of time and provide a different perspective on modern dilemmas (10), so I took his advice and looked to Athanasius for insight into what a Christian culture should look like. In his book On the Incarnation, he methodically approaches Christ’s time on earth and why it was necessary. In it are some fundamental truths that Christians can build their culture around.

The first fundamental truth is that we were created for a purpose. Athanasius states, “For the transgression of the commandment returned them [humans] to the natural state… They were called into existence by the Word’s advent [Parousia] and love for human beings, it followed that when human beings were bereft of the knowledge of God and had turned to things which exist not – evil is non-being, the good is being from the existing God – then they were bereft also of eternal being” (53). In this passage, Athanasius describes evil as “non-being” and good as “being.” One way to explain this passage would be that anything good is living up to its purpose and anything evil would be outside of its purpose. Psalm 5:4-5 says, “You are not a God Who is pleased with what is bad. The sinful cannot be with You.  The proud cannot stand before You. You hate all who do wrong.” (New Life Version) Since God created us for fellowship with Him and He disdains any evil, we can learn that our purpose is to do good. However, as we all have sinned and fallen out of our purpose into evil, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross allowed us the reconciliation necessary to once again live within our purpose. Keeping this in mind while we create our culture reminds us that our actions have weight and it is important to meditate on our decisions before we make them in order to keep from falling out of our purpose again.

The second truth is that if we live within our purpose, we are incorruptible. Since Christ fulfilled the prophecies by becoming human and died in our place, “the incorruptible Son of God consequently clothed all with incorruptibility in the promise concerning the resurrection. And now the very corruption of death no longer holds ground against human beings because of the indwelling Word, in them through the one body” (58). Athanasius later goes on to describe this transformation from being of human to being of God as something that produces “exceeding awe” (107). We know from scripture that all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Yet we are saved from this fate. It’s easy to fall into this trap of believing that our eternity begins when we die and that our life here on earth and whatever happens after the grave are two separate things. However, our eternity started the moment our souls were created. What we do on this earth determines what happens after the grave, and our death isn’t an end but a continuation. If our souls are to be condemned to Hell, we would face the rest of our eternity in corruption because corruption is what we fill our lives with on earth. If our souls are to be taken to Heaven, then we will be clothed with incorruptibility because we accepted Christ’s incorruptibility on earth. Being eternally minded is something that many Christians struggle with but is necessary for building a culture that fosters an incorruptible lifestyle.

The hardest part in creating a culture is to fully buy into the intentionality of it. It’s easy to be lazy. It’s far more convenient to sit and watch TV every night than it is to dedicate one’s time to reading a book like On the Incarnation. It’s more convenient to sleep in than to wake up 30 minutes earlier than you normally would to spend time in prayer and meditation on God’s Word. It’s easier to lie than to have a difficult conversation. It’s easier to go with the flow than to be different. These are things I know too well and decisions that I struggle with every day. Yet if I want to be a part of a culture that has eternity in mind, I’ll choose the more difficult option because what I do now dictates where I will be later. This requires intentional thinking, like reminding myself of the truths that I learned in Athanasius’ writing. We all have a purpose. How that plays out in day to day life is different for everyone, but if I want to be incorruptible, then I must intentionally live out my purpose. I can’t do this while being in a culture that believes otherwise. The same way managers sit down and work out what they want their company’s culture to be, each of us, as Christians, need to design the culture that we live out in our own lives and intentionally stick with it, not just when we are at church but when we are faced with a convenient option and the right option.