Christianity & Culture Part 17: Concluding Thoughts & Bibliography
Introduction After a journey of almost six months (we began on September 20, 2015), we have at last come to the end of our study of Christ and Culture. Ken Meyers of Mars Hill Audio warned us from the start that defining culture, as it turns out, is not at all an easy task. As we moved from week to week, we discovered that there is a complexity to this subject that requires every believer to approach the God of the universe with awe and humility and the Scriptures with reverence and diligence in order to gain true wisdom and for living life coram Deo. While culture is dynamic and changing around us each day, Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever and promises to guide us into all truth by the Holy Spirit whom He has given to us.
Cultural Patterns In Our Lives Culture is seen in what people do unthinkingly, what is natural to them and therefore requires no explanation or justification. Everyone has a culture or, really, multidimensional cultures of various levels. These cultures structure their lives. And of course by far the most of everyone s culture is right and good and essential. But not all. For culture Dallas Willard, Ph.D.
Cultural Patterns In Our Lives is the place where wickedness takes on group form, just as the flesh, good and right in itself, is the place where individual wickedness dwells. We therefore pray for our Father to break up these higher-level patterns of evil. And, among other things, we ask him to help us see the patterns we are involved in. We ask him to help us not cooperate with them, to cast light on them and act effectively to remove them.
The Place We Live We should live in the tension of claiming every square inch for King Jesus, even while we know full well that the consummation is not yet, that we walk by faith and not by sight, and the weapons with which we fight are not the weapons of the world (II Cor. 10:4) (D.A. Carson). The Not Yet The Already
Saying It Another Way In trying to understand Biblical teaching about culture, we can t just look at one phase of the history of God s redemptive work. The Bible tells a single story of redemption, but it has many chapters. It begins with creation and ends with a vision of a new heaven and a new earth. In between are the formative experiences and expectations of the patriarchs; the holy but often disobedient nation of Israel
Saying It Another Way (living at times in liberty and at times in captivity); the earthly sojourn of Jesus, the God-Man, to bear judgment and to defeat sin and death; and the Spirit-led exuberance of the early Church. We live between the times, in the already but not yet tension between the accomplishment of redemption and the final judgment. Figuring out what to make of culture will involve determining how the experience of God s people in this distinctive time of redemptive history resembles and differs from that of other periods.
The Dual Citizenship of the Apostle Paul For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:20). They have beaten us in public without trial, men who are Romans, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they sending us away secretly? (Acts 16: 37).
How To Have A Good Society C.S. Lewis 1898-1963 What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behavior, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think
How To Have A Good Society hard, about improvements in our social and economic system. What I do mean is that all that thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realize that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make men good by law; and without good men you cannot have a good society.
Broadening Our Vision One of the things I have tried to show is that the ostensible test of Scripture is inadequate if it turns on a convenient arrangement of proof-texts and biblical precedents. In addition to close exegesis of a wide range of biblical tests, we need to think through how they fit into the great turning points of redemptive history, into the massive movement from D.A. Carson
Broadening Our Vision creation to the new heaven and the new earth, with critical stops along the way for the fall, the call of Abraham, the rise and fall and rise again of Israel, the coming of the promised Messiah, his teaching, ministry, death, and resurrection, the gift of the Spirit and the birth of the church. Nor can we ignore great theological structures, including the Trinitarian nature of the Godhead, all that the cross achieves, and the unavoidable implications of New Testament eschatology with its unyielding combination of inaugurated and future eschatology.
Great Turning Points in Redemptive History 1. Creation: All things created good. 2. Fall: Revolt against the Almighty 3. Israel and the Law: God chooses His own people and must remain God s people in every dimension of their existence. 4. Christ and the Covenant: Incarnation, Kingdom of God, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Session 5. A Heaven to Be Gained and a Hell to be Feared: The current relations between Christ and culture have no final status. They must be evaluated in the light of eternity (Carson).
An Alternative to Niebuhr Would it not be better to remind ourselves of other complementary truths, such as the fact that God remains sovereign over the entire created order, that we ourselves are sinners constantly in need of grace so that we are never more than poor beggars telling others where there is bread, that the gospel transforms people such that they begin to function as salt and light in a world that is decaying and dark, that God s gifts of common grace are good gifts even when they are embedded in a culture dominantly characterized by rebellion against God, and that on the last day justice will not only be done, but will be seen to be done? (D.A. Carson).
Society In Tune Think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player s individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others (C.S. Lewis).
Selected Bibliography 1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. Translated by R.H. Fuller. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1949. 2. Bruce, F.F. New Testament History. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1969. 3. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Mac Dill AFB, FL: MacDonald Publishing Company, (date not given). 4. Carson, D.A. Christ and Culture Revisited. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company ebook, 2008. 5. Carter, Craig A. Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post Christendom Perspective. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press ebook, 2006. 6. Clark, David K. and Rakestraw, Robert V. Readings in Christian Ethics. 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996. 7. Crouch, Andy. Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2013.
Selected Bibliography 8. Dillenberger, John. Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings Edited and with an Introduction. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961. 9. Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971. 10. Eliot, T.S. Christianity and Culture. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1939. 11. Farrand, Max. The Framing of the Constitution of the United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1913. 12. Frame, John M. The Doctrine of the Christian Life. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2008. 13. Guinness, Os. Entrepreneurs of Life: Faith and the Venture of Purposeful Living. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2001. 14. Guinness, Os. The Call. Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998. 15. Henry, Carl F.H. God, Revelation and Authority. 6 vols. Waco, TX: Word Books, Publisher, 1976.
Selected Bibliography 16. Hofstede, Geert and Hofstede, Jan. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. McGraw- Hill ebook, 2005. 17. Kittel, Gerhard and Friedrich, Gerhard. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1964. 18. Kline, Meredith G. The Structure of Biblical Authority. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972. 19. Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of the Expansion of Christianity. 7 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1937. 20. Lennox, John C. Seven Days that Divide the World. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. 21. Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1961. 22. Metzger, Bruce M. The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1965.
Selected Bibliography 23. Meyers, Kenneth A. All God s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1989. 24. Moore, Russell D. Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel. Nashville: B & H Publishing Group, 2015. 25. Muggeridge, Malcolm. The End of Christendom. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980. 26. Nash, Ronald H. Is Jesus the Only Savior? Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994. 27. Newbigin, Lesslie. Foolishness to the Greeks. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986. 28. Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1951. 29. Nouwen, Henri. In the Name of Jesus. New York, Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992. 30. Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. Translated by Dr. A.J. Krailsheimer. New York: Penguin Classics, 1966.
Selected Bibliography 31. Polkinghorne, John C. Belief in God in an Age of Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. 32. Schaeffer, Francis A. A Christian Manifesto. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1981. 33. Schaeffer, Francis A. Escape from Reason. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968. 34. Schaeffer, Francis A. The Great Evangelical Disaster. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984. 35. Smith, James K.A. How (Not) To Be Secular. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014. 36. Sproul, R.C.; Lindsley, Arthur; and Gerstner, John. Classical Apologetics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984. 37. Stott, John R.W. and Coote, Robert T. eds. Gospel and Culture. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1979. 38. Thomas, Cal and Dobson, Ed. Blinded by Might. Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1999.
Selected Bibliography 39. Van Groningen, Gerhard. From Creation to Consummation. 3 vols. Sioux Center, Iowa: Dordt College Press, 1996. 40. Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1948. 41. Donald Whitney. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1991. 42. Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.