Christianity & Culture

Christianity & Culture Part 5: The Identification of Christ With Culture Introduction As a keen observer and interpreter of culture, prominent social critic Os Guinness (“Few thinkers rise to the level that Os does,” says Ravi Zacharias) reminded us last week that “followers of Jesus Christ confront in the modern world the most powerful culture in human history so far, as well as the world’s first truly global culture.” Through the centuries since Christ, some, wanting to avoid the all-powerful tentacles of this world’s corrupting influences, have abandoned all for lives of solitude and silence in sequestered monasteries or in desert caves. Yet, the primary reason we should avoid this kind of separation is, as Martin Luther suggested, that there is no warrant for it in Scripture. “In the end,” Guinness observes, “the monasteries Introduction themselves succumbed to the secularization and became a central carrier of elitism, power, arrogance, and corruption.” One thing is clear from Scripture: We are not to be conformed to this world, for it is impossible for Christ and Satan to make music together (II Cor. 6:15). However, does this mean that we should abandon those whom Jesus came to save or ignore the cultural mandate? Calvin’s understanding of separation is instructive for us: We who have been redeemed and rescued from the pollutions of the world are not meant to turn our back on life, but only to avoid all participation in the world’s uncleanness. Simon Peter urged his readers to “keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable” (I Peter 2:12). Introduction If the first group of believers emphasizes the opposition between Christ and culture (Christ Against Culture), the second group of Christians recognizes a fundamental agreement between Christ and culture (The Christ of Culture). They believe there is a close relationship between Christianity and Western civilization, between Jesus’ teachings and democratic institutions. Therefore, they interpret culture through Christ and, at the same time, understand Christ through culture. In the end, their goal is to harmonize Christ and culture. To start things off, let’s begin our study with an observation from John Frame…. John M. Frame “Christians have often had a hard time distinguishing between Christ and culture.” Is It Christian or Western Culture? “One common criticism of Western missionaries over the last two centuries has been that they have tried to impose Western culture on other countries in the name of Christ. They have brought not only the gospel, but also Western clothing, Western hymns, and Western politics. But drawing these lines is not always easy. When a missionary counsels a tribe about clothing, where does he draw the line between a biblical concern for modesty and Western aesthetic standards? When he recommends music for their worship, how much of his thinking is governed by biblical standards and to what extent is he merely homesick for the music he grew up with? When you grow up in a Christian society, or in a culture deeply influenced by the gospel, it’s tempting to want all other societies to be like that” (Frame). “We cannot escape culture any more readily than we can escape nature” (Niebuhr). Acculturation & Enculturation • Acculturation: n., adoption of or adaptation to a different culture, esp. that of a colonizing, conquering, or majority group. • “Acculturation is a process in which members of one cultural group adopt the beliefs and behaviors of another group” (Rice University). • Enculturation is “the culture inculcating its own values” (OED). Craig A. Carter The Christ of culture “blends Christ into culture as the symbol of what is highest and best in that culture.” H. Richard Niebuhr “Christ is identified with what men conceive to be their finest ideals, their noblest institutions, and their best philosophy.” 1884-1962 Christianity Differentiated From Christendom “Christendom is something quite different from Christianity, being the administrative or power structure, based on the Christian religion and constructed by men….The founder of Christianity was, of course, Christ. The founder of Christendom I suppose could be named as the Emperor Constantine.” Malcolm Muggeridge 1903-1990 Cultural Christianity • If we urge people to return to biblical ways, have we forgotten that many cultures are represented in the Bible? • There are three languages represented in the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Human words are cultural things. • Do we follow those who are in power in our culture and ignore those who are uneducated, poor, or social outcasts? • Are we more interested in changing institutional structures or individual lives? The Best of Culture “And as He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another which will not be torn down’” (Mk. 13:1-2). Theological Concerns • Cultural Christians tend to separate reason and revelation. • Reason, they maintain, is the way to the knowledge of God and salvation. • Jesus is a great Teacher of rational truth and goodness. • “Cultural Christianity, in modern times at least, has always given birth to movements that tended toward the extreme of self-reliant humanism, which found the doctrine of grace – and even more the reliance upon it – demeaning to man and discouraging to his will” (Niebuhr). An Idol Called Jesus • “The number of special objections of this sort are raised against the Christ-of-culture interpretations can be multiplied; but whether few or many they become the basis of the charge that loyalty to contemporary culture has so far qualified the loyalty to Christ that he has been abandoned in favor of an idol called by his name” (Niebuhr). • The Christ of Culture position tends to neglect the biblical doctrine of sin, because it doesn’t see how bad culture is under the influence of the fall and the curse” (Frame). Dietrich Bonhoeffer “Thus a world, which has become evil, succeeds in making the Christians become evil too.” Dethroning God “Christendom has dreamed up its own dissolution in the minds of its own intellectual elite. Our barbarians are home products, indoctrinated at the public expense, urged on by the media systematically stage by stage, dismantling Christendom, depreciating and deprecating all its values. The Malcolm Muggeridge whole social structure is now tumbling down, dethroning its God, undermining all its certainties.” Reconstructing Jesus: An Example “In their efforts at accommodation, Gnostics and cultural Protestants find it strangely desirable to write apocryphal gospels and new lives of Jesus. They take some fragment of the complex New Testament story and interpretation, call this the essential characteristic of Jesus, elaborate upon it, and thus reconstruct their own mythical figure of the Lord” (Niebuhr). Render Unto Caesar • “And Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were amazed at Him” (Mk. 12:17; cf. Mt. 22:21). • “Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor” (Rom. 13:7). The Duty of Roman Citizens • Render means to “give back, return.” • The meaning: “The payment of tribute to Caesar is not only your unquestioned obligation; it is also your moral duty.” • The people were to render Caesar his due. Senatus Populusque Romanus (SPQR) The Senate and People of Rome The Future & the Present “The other-worldliness of Jesus is always mated with a this-worldly concern; his proclamation and demonstration of divine action is inseparable from commandments to men to be active here and now; his future kingdom reaches into the present. If it is an error to interpret him as a wise man teaching a secular wisdom, or a reformer concerned with the reconstruction of social institutions, such interpretations serve at least to balance the opposite mistakes of presenting him as a person who had no interest in the principles men used to guide their present life in a damned society because his eye was fixed on the Jerusalem that was to come down from heaven” (Niebuhr). Two Kingdoms • One is temporal; the other is eternal. • Christ is Lord over both. • God has given us the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission. • We are under obligation to both. • We are to take part in redeeming the fallen world by the power of the Holy Spirit. • We place ourselves under His authority as citizens of His kingdom and as citizens on earth. • We will not be able to change our culture solely through political power. Some Questions for Consideration • Would you say that you have allowed the culture to influence and impact your Christianity, or that your Christianity has primarily shaped the way you see and engage the culture? • Would you agree that our task is to maintain the noblest and best cultural traditions? • Does engaging with your culture require you to live contrary to the spirit and law of Christ? • Frame asserts that “it is unbiblical to limit Jesus to those things He shares with human culture.” Do you agree? Some Questions for Consideration • Do you believe there are permanent solutions to the problems of society in a fallen world? • Do you become impatient with individual transformation, which takes a long time? • When we recommend the gospel to an unbelieving person or community, do we seek to remove the offense of Christ and His cross to make it palatable or more acceptable? • Is Cultural Christianity the same as biblical Christianity? • Do we love the values of our civilization and culture more than we love the Christ of culture? The Temptation of Power “The temptation to consider power an apt instrument for the proclamation of the gospel is the greatest temptation of all….Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.

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