Christ and Culture. preachers cannot think enough about the people to whom they are preaching Karl Barth, Word of God and Word of Man, p 108.

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1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom ) A. Why think about this? preachers cannot think enough about the people to whom they are preaching Karl Barth, Word of God and Word of Man, p The ministry of God s word To insiders To outsiders Thinking missionally about our own culture B. Some initial considerations 1. Culture is extraordinarily complex 2. Culture is unimportant Ephesians? Romans 1-11? 3. Culture is vitally important 1 Corinthians Titus Does preaching the gospel provoke cultural questions What cultural questions have arisen for you in your local proclamation ministry? What is your area like? What challenges to commitment to Christ have you encountered in your context? How local are these concerns? p. 1

2 C. A Classical Perspective: 1. The perennial issue a. Christ Against Culture (Fundamentalism?) b. The Christ of Culture (Liberalism) c. Christ above Culture (Aquinas) d. Christ the Transformer of Culture (Calvin) e. in Paradox (Luther) 2. Some comments F. All of the above? 1 Peter Aliens and strangers By being born again Insiders/outsiders Difference counts Establishing difference The word does the work It judges It interprets It innovates It renovates Being different Describe Approve Subvert Transform Bit by bit Suffer What work has the word been doing in your context? Are there any examples of the different functions of the word/ways of being different that occur to you from your ministry over the last year? p. 2

3 D. Our Times? 1. The Death of Truth 2. Mass Media brings you the world/globalisation 3. Consumerism and personal choice 4. Right and wrong are matters of individual lifestyle decision 5. Fluid Identity 6. Tribalism and tolerance 7. The irrelevance of Christianity 8. It s all about power What would you add to the list? What challenges are posed for Gospel ministry by these various elements? E. Evangelising/ Doing Church in our Culture 1. More in Common than we think? We can get together / We can t go on together Tell me the old, old story Life s hard, then you die 2. Concerns about contextualisation: thinking about form and substance Article 34: It is not necessary that traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, and utterly alike; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God s Word Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only man s authority, so that all things be done to edifying. Separating form and substance (relativism versus relevantism) Rob Bell Mark Driscoll The Hidden Curriculum? p. 3

4 A Vision of the (Near?) Future... In the 'dialogue centre' people sit around tables, eating and conversing... On the table in front of each person is a round 'holobyte' responder that instantaneously tabulates and records everyone's choices on a large screen surrounding the stage. The screen displays the results in as many languages as are in the congregation. Each person has an earpiece to hear in his or her own language. People at each table discuss the options listed in the worship folder and record their cumulative choice in the responder. The cumulative choice of each table results in one or more holographic images sitting down at each table. The images dialogue with the table group about their choices and how these relate to the Bible. After the dialogue the table groups record the results of their conversation by choosing hypertext links from a given section of a hypertext Bible. One of these links provides music for each table. These links take them deeper into the biblical story and its implications for their previous conversation. In a few minutes they record the results of their conversations. These choices are tabulated and relayed to the pastor (non-seminary trained), who instantly customises her dialogue of the day (sermon) to address their choices. As the sermon progresses, the people can electronically ask questions that give further direction to the pastor. Children are offered virtual experiences of biblical times through interactive computers and visuals. What assumptions about culture, people and Christian ministry are behind this scenario? What do you think? What is gained? What is lost? Appendix: Reading a Culture a. A general model (see over page) b. A cultural analysis model 1. Try to comprehend a cultural text on its own terms (grasp its communicative intent) before you interpret it (explore its broader social, political, sexual, or religious significance) 2. Attend to what a cultural text is doing as well as saying by clarifying its illocutionary act (eg. Stating a belief, displaying a world). 3. Consider the world behind (eg. medieval, modern), of (ie the world displayed by the cultural text), and in front of (ie its proposal for your world) the cultural text. 4. Determine what powers are served by particular cultural texts or trends by discovering whose material interests are served (eg, follow the money) 5. Seek the world hypothesis and/or root metaphor implied by a cultural text. 6. Be comprehensive in your interpretation; find corroborative evidence that best sense of the whole as well as the parts. 7. Give thick descriptions of the cultural text that are nonreductive and sensitive to various levels of communicative action 8. Articulate the way of being human to which a cultural text directly or indirectly bears witness and gives commendation. 9. Discern what faith a cultural text directly or indirectly expresses. To what convictions about God, the world, and ourselves does a cultural text and/or trend commit us? 10. Locate the cultural text in the biblical creation-fall-redemption schema and make sure that biblical rather than cultural texts have the lead role in shaping your imagination and hence your interpretative framework for your experience. p. 4

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6 c. A World View Approach 1. What is the primary real the really real? 2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us? 3. What is a human being? 4. What happens to a person at death? 5. Why is it possible to know anything at all? 6. How do we know what is right or wrong? 7. What is the meaning of human history? Some Reading Sire, J.W. The Universe Next Door (IVP: Latest edition) Vanhoozer, K.J., Anderson, C.A. & Sleasman, M.J, Everyday Theology. How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007). Volf, M. Soft Difference. Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in 1 Peter Ex Auditu 10 (1994): Volf, M. When Gospel and Culture Intersect: Notes on the Nature of Christian Difference, Evangelical Review of Theology 22.3 (1998): p. 6