Considering Culture (6)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In the previous post we looked at Jesus as the culmination of God’s Mission. Now we look at the final result — new creation. As has been emphasised a lot recently, the end of the biblical story is not people going heaven, but heaven coming to earth. To quote from Revelation 21:
I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away … I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. .. He who was seated on the throne said “I am making everything new”
What happens to our culture in this new heaven and earth? Darrell Johnson points out the following (from Discipleship on the Edge):
God says from the throne, “I am making all things new.” God does not say, as I have wrongly read the words most of my life, “I am making all new things.” For years the future meant for me God scrapping everything of the old creation, and starting over with a whole new plan. “I am making all new things” is how I read it. Now certainly God can make all new things; and I believe, will, and does; and we are called to join God in it. But the point of Revelation 21-22 is that God is taking hold of all things — creation, humans and cities — and making them new.
So, we are reminded that new creation involves the transformation of all aspects of the current creation, not just a small aspect such as human souls. But, we can take this further and look specifically at culture. Johnson looks at Rev 21:24/26
The nations will walk by the light of [the city], and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it … The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into [the city].
and quotes Richard Mouw (When The Kings Come Marching In)
Ancient kings served as the primary authorities over the broad patterns of the cultural live of their nations. And when they stood over against other nations, they were the ‘bearers,’ the ‘representatives’ of their respective cultures. To assemble kings together was in an important sense to assemble their national cultures together. The king of a given nation could bear, singly, a far-reaching authority that is today divided among many different kinds of leaders: the captain of industry; the molders of public opinion in art, entertainment, and sexuality; educational leaders; representatives of family interest; and so on. This is why Isaiah and John could link the entrance of the kings into the city with the gathering in of the ‘wealth of the nations’.
As Johnson summarises it: ‘The presence of kings signals the presence of cultures!’
So, new creation incorporates purified culture. I guess this includes both old culture purified and new culture that develops as intended. In both cases, new creation is a properly working creation, developing in line with God’s character and bringing glory to the Creator.
A final quote, this time from Miroslav Volf (from The Church’s Great Malfunctions), makes the same point and takes on to the next stage of our discussion:
There is a remarkable image in the closing pages of Scripture that has become a touchstone for the way my colleagues and I think about faith and culture. Amid its descriptions of the New Jerusalem, Revelation includes “the tree of life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2). The tree holds out hope that whole cultures will be healed and mended, becoming places where people can flourish. And it sets an agenda for faith as a way of life that contributes to that flourishing, in anticipation, here and now.
Tags: culture, Culture Seminar, eschatology, theology, worldview
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...