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Overview
The Christian Today Study Series delves into today's vital cultural issues to get to the heart of what these topics mean to you.
Each 8-week study is based on articles written by some of today's leading Christian authors and published by the Christianity Today magazines. These remarkable studies will foster deep, authentic, and relevant discussion that will challenge and grow any small group.
Engaging the Culture will take on a variety of topics, such as:
- Culture . . . Love It? Leave It? Or Transform It?
- Kingdom-Minded Living in the Kingdom of This World
- Engaging the Skeptics
- Cultural Stereotypes and Misconceptions of Christianity
Based on articles by a variety of authors, such as:
- Philip Yancey
- Mark Galli
- Michael Horton
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781418588328 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperChristian Resources |
| Publication date: | 10/05/2008 |
| Series: | Christianity Today Study Series |
| Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishing |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 176 |
| File size: | 558 KB |
About the Author
Since 1956, Christianity Today has been a trusted beacon spotlighting the way in which Christians can live gospel lives for the strengthening of church and society. Their mission is to equip Christians to renew their minds, serve the church, and create culture to the glory of God. Christianity Today advocates for the church, shapes the evangelical conversation, brings important issues to the forefront, and provides practical solutions for church leaders.
Read an Excerpt
Engaging the Culture
Current Issues Bible Study Series
By Kelli B. Trujillo
Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today InternationalAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4185-8832-8
CHAPTER 1
CULTURE: LOVE IT, EAVE IT, OR TRANSFORM IT
* * *
Some Christians fervently strive to steer clear of "the world" to the degree that they try to sanitize themselves of all things secular. Other Christians seem to embrace popular culture so much that their lives are hardly distinguishable from others around them. And then there are all the rest of Jesus' followers who fall somewhere in between these two extremes, trying to figure out what role and influence human culture should have on their way of life.
"Culture" is not a word you'll find in the Bible, though Scripture has a great deal to say about how we are to relate to the world around us. Using John G. Stackhouse, Jr.'s Christianity Today article "In the World, but ...," we'll examine the five approaches to culture identified by H. Richard Niebuhr in his classic book, Christ and Culture, and we'll explore how this framework can help us discerningly engage with culture's influence in our everyday lives.
* Before You Meet
Read "In the World, but ..." by John G. Stackhouse, Jr. from Christianity Today magazine.
IN THE WORLD, BUT ...
Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture is fifty years old—and still has something wise to say to evangelicals.
By John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
The theological world owes a great debt to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Texas, which invited Yale professor H. Richard Niebuhr to deliver the lectures that resulted in Christ and Culture (1951), one of the most influential Christian books of the past century. Perhaps no other book has dominated an entire theological conversation for so long. Niebuhr's famous "five types" continue to serve as the launching point for most discussions of the interaction of Christianity and culture.
To mark this fiftieth anniversary, HarperSanFrancisco has reissued Christ and Culture with a winsome foreword by Martin Marty, a lengthy and strangely defensive preface by ethicist James Gustafson (Niebuhr's student and friend), and a bonus essay, "Types of Christian Ethics" (1942), in which Niebuhr began to work out his analytical framework.
Like Christians of other persuasions, evangelicals have often used Niebuhr's book as a point of departure to define how we should—and should not—interact with contemporary culture. Evangelicals have inhabited all of Niebuhr's types. And, given the varied circumstances in which evangelicals have sought to serve Christ, each type can be seen to offer its own integrity—despite Niebuhr's own sometimes jaundiced view of this or that option.
Niebuhr's first type, "Christ against culture," characterizes the sectarian impulse. In "Types of Christian Ethics," Niebuhr calls this the "new law" type. Christians in this mode see the world outside the church as hopelessly corrupted by sin. The kingdom of God comes to supersede it—currently in the purity of the church, and ultimately in the messianic kingdom. God calls Christians to "come out from among them and be ye separate" in communities of holiness. Mennonites, Baptists, Christian Brethren, Pentecostals, and most types of fundamentalists have included individuals and congregations that fit this model.
At the other end of the typology lies the model of "Christ of culture," in which the absolute conflict of one against the other gives way to a harmony between them. Christians in this mode seek to discern and then champion the highest moral and spiritual common ground between the teachings of Christianity and the noblest values of contemporary culture. Niebuhr identified this model with Germany's "Culture Protestantism" of the late 19th and early 20th century, with American Whigs such as Thomas Jefferson, and with Victorian liberals such as John Stuart Mill. Evangelicals have manifested this type whenever we have closely associated God and country and assumed that our nations are Christian, or "almost," so that with enthusiasm and effort we can realize that ideal.
Three Mediating Positions
Between these two extremes lie three mediating positions. The first is "Christ above culture," the outlook of Thomas Aquinas and of many Roman Catholics ever since. In this view, all that is good in human culture is a gift from God. But to be fully realized, this good requires Christian revelation and the mediation of the church. Thus Aristotle's insights can be received joyfully by the Christian, even as they are recognized as needing Christian theology to fulfill them. Such truths as the Trinity and the Atonement are accessible only via revelation, just as the sacramental life of the church provides blessings for us that no amount of non-Christian culture can produce.
This view is uncommon among evangelicals but not altogether unknown. Consider, for example, evangelical missionaries who emphasize anticipations of Christian revelation in the beliefs of non-Christian peoples. Evangelical intellectuals who affirm the essential congeniality of the gospel with this or that non-Christian author—as the apologists of the early church allied themselves with Plato—might also fit in this category.
The most common mediating position in evangelical circles is Niebuhr's "Christ transforming culture." Puritans in 17th-century England; Puritans in 18th-century New England; 19th-century North American revivalists trying both to evangelize and to reform society; and the late 19th-century Dutch neo-Calvinists—all of these demonstrate its traits. Society is to be entirely converted to Christianity. Business, the arts, the professions, family life, education, government—nothing is outside the purview of Christ's dominion, and all must be reclaimed in his name.
The fifth option in Niebuhr's scheme is the one that he has the most trouble making clear. He calls it "Christ and culture in paradox," and associates it with Martin Luther, Ernst Troeltsch, and (in "Types of Christian Ethics") his brother Reinhold.
In this type, Christians live within a strong tension. They believe that God has ordained worldly institutions, and that they must work within those institutions as best they can. At the same time, however, they affirm that God's kingdom has penetrated the world here and now. Thus, under God's providence, they tread a path that can seem crooked and unclear, trying to honor what is divinely ordained in culture (such as family bonds, the rule of law, and deference to legitimate authority) while also living out the distinct values of the kingdom of God as best they can without compromise.
Furthermore, sin mars all of our efforts, evil twists them, and God works in mysterious ways behind the scenes. Thus Christians in this mode are never free of suspicion yet never lacking hope: suspicion that apparently good things are compromised by sin in this not-yet-messianic dispensation, and hope that God nonetheless is working out his good pleasure through all of the means—worldly and churchly—that he has been pleased to ordain and sustain. In this in-between time, even openly evil governments may yet be instituted by God (Rom. 13:1–5); we are told to pay our taxes, though we know full well that the money will be used at least in part for ungodly purposes (Rom. 13:6–7).
It is this model of trying to cooperate with all that God is doing in the world, of bringing shalom everywhere we can while recognizing that we will rarely succeed in making only peace until Jesus returns, that North American evangelicals perhaps should consider more fully today.
Evangelicalism generally eschews paradox. We prefer the clarity of binary opposition, and there are many such pairs in the Bible: light versus darkness, good versus evil, the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan, the church versus the world, the flesh versus the Spirit. Yet we are Bible people, and we must listen also to Scriptures that speak of the kingdom itself as a "mixed field" (Matt. 13:24–30), full of wheat and tares, and of the Christian life as being in the world but not of it.
Yes, we must strive for holiness, as the first type asserts. Yes, we must affirm with the second type what is genuinely good in any culture. Yes, we must rejoice in opportunities to build on good things God has already bequeathed to this or that society. And yes, we must seize every opportunity to improve, transform, and even convert this or that part of the world to the glory of God.
Yet we might also recognize that God has called us to lives of difficult paradox, of painful negotiation between conflicting and competitive values, of seeking to cooperate with God wherever he is at work. Such a position, full of ambiguity and irony, is also full of faith and hope: "in all these things we are more than conquerors" (Rom. 8:37). This is a faith that God can be trusted and honored even when the way is dark and confusing, and a hope that God works all things together for good.
* Open Up
Select one of these activities to launch your discussion time.
Option 1
Discuss one of these icebreaker questions:
• Name one of your favorite TV shows, movies, or songs. What do you like about it?
• Now name a TV show, movie, or song you know of that you think represents some of the worst aspects of our culture. What don't you like about it?
• Think through a typical day in your life. In what way does our culture (its values, trends, etc.) intersect with your daily life? Brainstorm together as many intersections that occur in an average day as you can.
Option 2
Together watch a short clip from a popular TV show that in some way reflects non-Christian values.
• Read the statements below. Which one best reflects your response to TV shows like this one? Why?
1. Christians simply shouldn't watch programs like this.
2. Christians should do what they can to try to influence programming by pressuring TV networks to offer more family-friendly shows or by boycotting advertisers.
3. Christians should get involved in the secular entertainment business themselves in order to try to influence it for good.
4. Christians cannot influence the secular entertainment world; rather, they should create alternative programming and/or networks.
5. Christians should watch these programs together and discuss them, asking themselves what they say about human nature and longing. Or parents should watch these programs with their children and talk about the value conflicts they pose for Christians.
6. These programs really aren't so bad; it's just entertainment describing the lives of real people, after all.
* The Issue
Christians cannot be Christian, nor can the church be the church, without some tension with the world and its cultures. How should we approach the culture in which we live? Should we embrace it? Reject it? Or something in between?
Stackhouse's article "In the World, but ..." explores the five different stances on this issue that H. Richard Niebuhr identified in his classic work Christ and Culture:
1. Christ against culture
2. Christ above culture
3. Christ transforming culture
4. Christ and culture in paradox
5. Christ of culture
• As you read "In the World, but ...", which of Niebuhr's approaches toward culture did you most identify with? Why?
• Which did you least identify with? Why?
* Reflect
Take a moment to read John 3:16–21 and Ephesians 4:17–5:8 on your own. Jot down a few notes and observations about the passages: What stands out to you most? In what ways do you think these passages speak to the way we should view culture? What questions or issues do these passages bring up?
* Let's Explore
God loves the world in spite of its evil.
• When you think about our culture, do you generally tend to focus on the things God loves in it or the things God hates in it? Why?
• Read John 3:16–18. "For God so loved the world," the first phrase in this passage, is so familiar that we may take its meaning for granted. What does this phrase mean? What do you think "the world" refers to here?
• Consider the five approaches to culture that Niebuhr identifies. How might people with these varying perspectives understand the phrase "For God so loved the world" differently?
Christians are called to influence the world (culture) as salt and light.
• Read Matthew 5:13–16 aloud. Now read both John 3:16–18 and Matthew 5:13–16 aloud again, but this time insert the word "culture" wherever "earth" or "world" appears. What is your reaction to this re-casting of the passage? Do you think this altered perspective accurately reflects God's stance toward human culture and our role in it? Why or why not?
• Examine Ephesians 4:17—5:8. Which of these instructions for Christian living jump out to you as powerful ways to be salt and light? How could living in this way impact the culture? When have you observed examples of this?
• In what concrete ways do you see Christians serve as salt within our culture? Where in our culture are Christians serving as light, dispelling the darkness?
The sin and evil in our culture demand a discerning response from us.
• The strength of the Christ-against-culture view is that it reminds us that evil is a dark reality in this world and that as God's holy people we should flee from it. Read John 3:19–21 and review Ephesians 4:17–19. What are some examples of "darkness" and "evil" in our culture that immediately come to mind?
• How does your stance towards the aspects of culture you consider to be obviously dark or evil compare with your approach toward aspects of culture that aren't quite as "bad"?
In his exploration of the "Christ and Culture in paradox" stance, Stackhouse claims that paradox is a difficult and uncomfortable place for evangelicals to occupy. He says, "We prefer the clarity of binary opposition, and there are many such pairs in the Bible: light versus darkness, good versus evil, the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan, the church versus the world, the flesh versus the Spirit."
But Stackhouse himself seems to prefer this "Christ and culture in paradox" position, concluding that "we might also recognize that God has called us to lives of difficult paradox, of painful negotiation between conflicting and competitive values, of seeking to cooperate with God wherever he is at work. Such a position, full of ambiguity and irony, is also full of faith and hope: 'in all these things we are more than conquerors' (Romans 8:37). This is a faith that God can be trusted and honored even when the way is dark and confusing, and a hope that God works all things together for good."
• Describe a recent instance in your own life when you were forced to make a moral decision in which there were not obvious "black and white" alternatives, only different shades of gray? How did you discern what you should do?
In a trenchant critique of Niebuhr's Christ and Culture typology, John Howard Yoder argues that culture isn't monolithic. Even the Amish, for example, aren't anti-culture; they accept some aspects of the dominant culture while developing alternatives for other aspects. Some aspects of any given culture Christians will be able to use and accept; others, they will need to reject. This calls for discernment that takes place in the context of the church, the body of Christ, informed by Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This discernment will lead Christians to reject some aspects of culture, adopt and adapt other aspects, and work toward the transformation of still other elements of culture.
• Where do you draw the line between aspects of culture Christians should flee from and parts of culture they can embrace or enjoy? What elements of our culture do you think Christians should seek to transform?
* Going Forward
It can be very easy to get into the habit of approaching culture on "autopilot"—making decisions about how we respond to it simply based on habit or personal taste. But God desires us to take these choices very seriously—to seek his will and to be guided by the Holy Spirit.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Engaging the Culture by Kelli B. Trujillo. Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today International. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Contributing Writers, 7,Introduction, 9,
Session 1: Culture: Love It, Leave It, or Transform It, 12,
Session 2: Kingdom-Minded Living in the Kingdom of this World, 28,
Session 3: Answer the Skeptics, 46,
Session 4: Is Cultural Relevance Irrelevant?, 58,
Session 5: A Spirituality Smorgasbord, 76,
Session 6: Pulling Weeds in the Church Yard, 100,
Session 7: The Dream Life?, 118,
Session 8: Globally Minded Faith in a Globalized World, 142,
Bonus Small-Group Builder: "Missional Small Groups—A Worthwhile Risk", 156,