Enganging Culture Means All Culture--Not Just What's Hip

Owen Strackan gets it exactly right (HT Christ and Pop Culture):

Readers of this blog will know that I want to “engage culture” even as I want to be what is often called “incarnational.” But as some are increasingly pointing out (see pastor Kevin DeYoung’s hilarious and correct post on this topic), engaging culture does not mean that one must own a Mac, listen to Sufjan Stevens, Bob Dylan, and Bon Iver, watch CNN, listen contemplatively to NPR, drink local-brand coffee only, and cultivate stylish facial hair.

One may be engaging culture with these sorts of life choices. If so, terrific! But isn’t one also engaging culture, so to speak, by listening to Hank Williams, eating at Wendy’s (note: I do not encourage this), and seeking to witness at the local truck stop? Are these things not “culture” that we should engage? Or is “culture” only what is branded cool by the upwardly mobile?

It seems to me that many of us have become so concerned about distancing ourselves from fundamentalism that we have abandoned the low-brow culture entirely. We tell ourselves that this is part of our witness--that we want to show that Christianity doesn't have to be ignorant and backwards-looking--but the truth is, we've grown comfortable with our "upwardly mobile" lifestyle and don't want to give it up. Jesus commanded us to "deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me," but it's a lot easier to pamper yourself, take up your Starbucks and follow what's cool.

How to be a Popular Evangelical Writer

Nice tongue-in-cheek list at The Constructive Curmudgeon (HT Fides Quaerens Intellectum, a great blog which I discovered just in time for it to go out of business!). A couple of them hit pretty close to home, especially the last:

14. Give a plethora of references to popular culture, but ignore theological classics.

Inclusivism and Injustice

On my last post, commenter majorsteve asked some questions about the fairness of the Bible's claims that Jesus is the only source of salvation:

Ken you have written before on the topic of "why I am a Christian". I had a fleeting glimpse of how that topic is related to my leaning away from exclusivism.

If I were to write about why I am a Christian, the discourse would most certainly emanate from the fact that I was born into a Christian household in the U.S., specifically, in northeast Texas, therefore the chance of me turning out to be Jewish or Muslim or Hindu was virtually nil. At the same time, if I had been born into a Muslim home in Saudi Arabia the chances of me being Christian would also be virtually zero. The chance of me converting to Islam is similarly slim as is the chance of a Muslim in another part of the world converting to Christianity. Although every religion has its apostates, does God really expect significant numbers of those who've endured decades of cultural and societal indoctrination to hear The Word and then suddenly see the light? If so, why?

Also, is it possible to get into heaven and NOT believe in exclusivism? If not, then what is the entire list of things I must believe in order to get into heaven? Is there such a list?

These are all good questions, and I didn’t want them to go unnoticed. I don't think he's alone in asking them either, given that a recent poll found that 70% of Americans, including 57% of Evangelical Christians, now believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life" (HT: Exploring Our Matrix). I certainly can’t claim to have final answers to these questions, but I wanted to make a few points, building on what I have said previously:

One the one hand, I don't think God is as much concerned with our particular beliefs as he is with our trust in him, with our love for God and neighbor (see, for instance, Matthew 22:37-40). Though John 14:6 is widely claimed as the proof that the Bible sees belief in Jesus (in this life) as the only means of salvation, this is not the whole story. After all, this verse only says that we must come to God through Jesus, it doesn't spell out what that means, and the answers the rest of the Bible gives seem rather less exclusively focused on belief in Jesus. Saving faith is not about passing some kind of theological multiple choice test.

For instance, when Hebrews 11 lists the Bible's heroes of the faith, not one of them had ever heard of Jesus. These Old Testament saints trusted God as far as they knew him, and that was apparently enough. That being the case, I hardly think that mere mental assent to exclusivism (or any other doctrine per se) is a requirement for salvation, even if God is an exclusivist (of which I am not convinced). More to the point, note that in Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus says that those accepted at the final judgment are not the ones who claimed the proper title or belief in this life, but those who fed the hungry, welcomed the homeless, cared for the sick and visited the imprisoned. Similarly, James 1:27 claims: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

On the other hand, the Bible is clear that we do need genuine faith to be accepted by God, and while I can't rule out that those who follow other religions might find a similar faith, neither can I assume that they will. Certainly not all religion (not even all so-called Christian religion) points people to that kind of faith and love, and it's up to us to spread that news. Is it unfair that some go through life in cultures that never tell them of God? Perhaps, but that's an inevitable corollary of human freedom: our choices always affect those around us, and that includes helping to create the societies our children are born into (on that point, see here, one of my very first posts). As so often, C.S. Lewis sums this up well, in Mere Christianity (also quoted here):

Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him. But in the meantime, if you are worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is remain outside yourself. Christians are Christ's body, the organism through which He works. Every addition to that body enables Him to do more. If you want to help those outside you must add your little cell to the body of Christ who alone can help them. Cutting off a man's fingers would be an odd way of getting him to do more. (pg. 64)

Quote - Barth on God and Truth

Sorry posting has been so light this week; I've been engrossed in other writing projects, and will likely remain so for at least the next week. In the mean time, here's another quote that I find interesting, by Karl Barth, in his Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (no, Evangelicalism is not merely an American aberration!). I'm not sure what he means by appealing to the Greek aletheia here, but I like his emphasis on God's truth (or, I would say, our ability to know it) being necessarily historical and revelatory. It is only because God reveals himself in history that we can know him at all:

The object of evangelical theology is God in the history of his deeds. In this history he makes himself known. But in it he also is who he is.... The God of the Gospel, therefore, is neither a thing, an item, an object like others, nor an idea, a principle, a truth, or a sum of truths. God can be called the truth only when "truth" is understood in the sense of the Greek word aletheia. God's being, or truth, is the event of his self-disclosure, his radiance as the Lord of all lords, the hallowing of his name, the coming of his kingdom, the fulfillment of his will in all his work. (pg. 9)

Quote - On Christian Tradition

The recent Evangelical Manifesto's recognition of the importance of the early Christian creeds reminded me of D.H. Williams' book Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, which argues that Evangelicalism's "historical amnesia" is a primary cause of its present disarray. The following quotation refers specifically to the extra-biblical tradition of the church (including the creeds), but it occurs to me that with very little modification, it could just as well describe the Bible itself:

If the Christian Tradition functions in any normative way at all, it is not simply because it lies in the past or because it is an accepted way of doing things. It has a normative role because it represents the corporate voice of the faithful, very often in moments when the faith was being tested by some controversy, proclaiming what it has received in light of what it must confront. The Tradition of the church is just that, the outcome of a testing and sharpening process by which the Spirit moved through the worshipping, praying, baptizing and confessing community of believers, or what can be aptly called a consensus of faith through time. (pg. 207)

An Evangelical Manifesto

I’ve long been unsure whether or not to consider myself an Evangelical. As I have been an active member in no less than five very different denominations, and have worked with a couple dozen more, I usually just called myself a “Christian” and avoided any further labeling. But my roots are in Evangelicalism, and I’ve never completely lost them. Even as I’ve developed a deep appreciation for other Christian traditions, including Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, this is still where I feel most at home. I have many times felt shame and disappointment over the actions and beliefs of those who bear the name Evangelical, but always with the sympathy of an insider, not the derision of an outsider. And yet, as my views have changed, I’ve wondered whether I still qualify as an Evangelical, or whether my rejection of inerrancy and other popular views exclude me from their ranks.

Thus it was with some trepidation that I read the Evangelical Manifesto which was published yesterday by a group of Evangelical scholars. The media is reporting it as a response to overly-politicized segments of Evangelicalism, and to a certain extent it is that, but it is also much more. It is a wide-ranging attempt to clarify what it means to be Evangelical, an affirmation of how Evangelicals have often failed to live up to this, and a proposal for living it out. In spite of myself, I’m impressed, and can find very little in it with which to disagree. Though this document represents just one view of Evangelicalism, it provides a compelling vision of what the movement could be.

A detailed summery is provided by Justin Taylor, who also has an interview with Os Guinness (who helped write it), but I recommend taking the time to read the whole 20 pages (available in pdf here), as I’ll only be highlighting a few points for comment. First:

Nothing is more natural and necessary than the human search for meaning and belonging, for making sense of the world and finding security in life. When this search is accompanied by the right of freedom of conscience, it issues in a freely chosen diversity of faiths and ways of life, some religious and transcendent, and some secular and naturalistic. Nevertheless, the different faiths and the different families of faith provide very different answers to life, and these differences are decisive not only for individuals but for societies and entire civilizations. (pg. 3)

I especially appreciate this recognition of the inevitably pluralistic nature of a free society, combined with a firm affirmation that what choices we freely make nevertheless have profound consequences not only for ourselves but for society as a whole. Freedom demands that we respect the rights of all people to choose what to think and how to live, but it also requires open and civil discussion of the truth and value of these beliefs and actions. The Manifesto’s repeated emphasis both on the important separation of church and state (against those who would seek to impose a theocracy, or who would equate Evangelicalism with any one political party or issue), and on the importance of public religious discourse (against those who would relegate faith entirely to the private sphere) is precisely correct.

We call for an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue politics, such as abortion and marriage, and a fuller recognition of the comprehensive causes and concerns of the Gospel, and of all the human issues that must be engaged in public life. Although we cannot back away from our biblically rooted commitment to the sanctity of every human life, including those unborn, nor can we deny the holiness of marriage as instituted by God between one man and one woman, we must follow the model of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, engaging the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness, by promoting reconciliation, encouraging ethical servant leadership, assisting the poor, caring for the sick, and educating the next generation. We believe it is our calling to be good stewards of all God has entrusted to our care so that it may be passed on to generations yet to be born. (pgs. 13-14)

If we can take seriously their earlier rejection of using state power to impose it on those who disagree, this platform is sensible and biblically sound (including even the more “partisian” views on abortion and marriage, so long as these are not allowed to overwhelm the rest).

Finally, I would like to discuss briefly the two issues I was most nervous to see how they would handle: the doctrines of scripture and creation. Regarding the first, they include among seven defining features of Evangelicalism an affirmation that:

Jesus’ own teaching and his attitude toward the total truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible, God’s inspired Word, make the Scriptures our final rule for faith and practice. (pg. 6)

While I am not entirely comfortable with this statement, it is better than I expected. I’m especially glad they chose not to expand this into the extreme view seen, for instance, in The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, nor claim that the Bible is the only “rule for faith and practice.” More directly, “Total truthfulness” seems a much better term than “inerrancy” (which defines scripture as a negative), though I'm not certain precisely what they mean by it.

As for creation, I’m thrilled that they did not include creationism (much less the young earth variety) among those seven distinctives of Evangelicalism. I could not expect them to reject creationism outright, but I’m thankful they neglected to embrace it, and I fully agree with their rejection of those who would pit faith against science:

All too often we have disobeyed the great command to love the Lord our God with our hearts, souls, strength, and minds, and have fallen into an unbecoming anti-intellectualism that is a dire cultural handicap as well as a sin. In particular, some among us have betrayed the strong Christian tradition of a high view of science, epitomized in the very matrix of ideas that gave birth to modern science, and made themselves vulnerable to caricatures of the false hostility between science and faith. By doing so, we have unwittingly given comfort to the unbridled scientism and naturalism that are so rampant in our culture today. (pgs 12-13)

In short, in firmly rejecting the extremes of both fundamentalism and radical liberalism, I find this Manifesto very encouraging. Indeed, the only significant objection I’m tempted to raise is that it presents a vision of what Evangelicalism should be but often isn’t. There are plenty of people who call themselves Evangelicals who embrace views this Manifesto explicitly rejects (James Dobson, who explicitly chose not to sign it, is an obvious but influential example). But the document’s authors are not ignorant of this, and take pains both to affirm that, as Evangelicalism is inherently non-hierarchical, they can only speak for themselves, and to admit that Evangelicals often have not lived up to these ideals.

Of course, like all attempts at balance and moderation, this Manifesto will be attacked from both sides (for instance, see opposite critical responses here and here), but if such a perspective can win the day, I may find myself proud to be an Evangelical after all.