Considering Culture (10)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
We’re looking at the consequences of the Biblical story on our interaction with culture. We’ve looked at how our lives should reflect new creation — including the healing of culture. However, we can’t escape from the after effects of the fall — we have to keep in mind that not everything matches up with God’s intentions for our cultural activities. As a result there is lots that needs to be challenged and renewed. Similarly, we have to take care in what we give ourselves to; we can’t simply accept everything without question.
What are the consequences? The first is that we have to listen to what is being said by the culture around us and work to interpret what we hear. By this, I mean active listening — trying to understand what is under the surface and its implications. We also need to relate this understanding to the Biblical story itself.
Kevin Vanhoozer talks about how we need to be ‘bilingual’.
Christians must learn to read the Bible and culture alike. Christians cannot afford to continue sleepwalking their way through contemporary culture, letting their lives, and especially their imaginations, become conformed to culturally devised myths, each of which promises more than it can deliver: “Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”
(from ‘Everyday Theology’)
John Stott says something similar, describing our task as ‘double listening’
We listen to the Word with humble reverence, anxious to understand it, and resolve to believe and obey what we come to understand. We listen to the world with critical alertness, anxious to understand too, and resolved not necessarily to believe and obey it, but to sympathize with it an to seek grace to discover how the gospel relates to it.
(from The Contemporary Christian, quoted by Opitz ad Melleby in The Outrageous Idea…)
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(By the way, I’m currently reading ‘Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends’ by Kevin Vanhoozer et al. This is a great book on precisely the topic of reading culture. I hope to get around to blogging about in more detail at some point. Briefly: The book starts with an extended essay by Vanhoozer on the theory followed by a number of eclectic examples of interpretation in practice. Highly recommeded.)
Tags: culture, Culture Seminar, hermeneutics, theology
not to interpret the text, but perform it (sequel)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Having posted recently about the move from emphasising theory to practice in hard Christian thinking, I was fascinated to come across Andrew Pickering’s performative description of science. My starting point was a CBC postcast on ‘Thinking about science’ (see their podcast page), which includes an interview with Pickering. The interview explicitly touches on this idea as a reaction to modernity (albeit one that emcompasses the modern approach).
I found the whole thing making all sorts of connections, so (when I’m more awake) I’ll probably fire off some reactions to this (elsewhere).
Tags: postmodernism, praxis, science
Neibuhr’s definition of culture
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Something I was reading recently pointed me towards Richard Neibuhr’s starting defintion of culture:
Culture is the “artificial, secondary environment” which man superimposes on the natural. It comprises language, habits, ideas, beliefs, customs, social organisation, inherited artifacts, technical processes, and values.
Now, I like the second — an relatively wide compass. But I’m worried about the first sentence. Maybe I’ve missed the point, but it seems to me that you are setting yourself up for a fall by using language like ‘artifical’ and ‘superimposes’. Already you are pulling culture away from the rest of creation as if it is something that man brought along outside God’s original intention. With a starting point like that no wonder you have to battle to get to ‘Christ the Transformer of Culture’
Better is the perspective exemplified by Richard Middleton in A New Heaven and A New Earth: The Case for a Holistic Reading of the Biblical Story of Redemption, where culture is an integral part of creation. Apart from being, I think, more accurate, it is clearer that God acts to transform and redeem this along with the rest of creation.
Considering Culture (9)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
So we are still treking through my no-so-recent seminar on culture (sorry, I didn’t think it would take this long.)
We are at the point of considering the consequences of the biblical story and our place in it. Here are some culturally-related starting points…
First, if we are part of the new creation, our lives should reflect the new creation. We can look at this from many different perspectives. We’ve already quoted 1 Cor 5:17. This may imply more than simply our individual lives are newly created, but it certainly doesn’t say less. We are already — in some sense — part of the new creation and our lives should show that. This must cover all aspects — including our involvement with creation and in culture. To borrow a rough train of thought from Paul — do we think that because the world is going to be re-created that we can exploit the present one and act as if it is optional whether we work in line with the way God want things to function? How can this be?! We have seen the way things should be, the place where mourning disappears, etc. Can we live in a way that subverts this now?
Second, remember that we said that the Creator is glorified by a correctly functioning creation. So, we work with the way things and try to bring them close to God’s intentions be cause that act in itself brings glory to God. Our lives should glorify God by fitting in with that correct functioning.
This isn’t a stale and fixed thing — recall that we said culture was what we did with the freedom that God has given us. One aspect of ‘correct functioning’ is that we use that freedom and act creatively.
Third, in reflecting the new creation now, we proclaim God’s new creation in the present. As Tom Wright points out in an old Veritas talk So What?, we can proclaim in many — including non-verbal — ways. We don’t work for correct operating of creation in the hope that it gives us an opportunity to explain ‘the gospel’, but primarily because such work is a proclamation in itself.
As we said earlier (repeatedly), we know this on the level of personal piety — I bring glory to God by living my life in accordance with His intentions. But we cannot simply restrict ourselves to ourselves to this; we have to let it ripple out into our culture-making — I bring glory to God by working for culture that is in accordance with His intentions (in whatever way is appropriate).
Of course, it will take thinking to understand what this means in the areas we touch. It is not necessarily obvious and we must be sure not to restrict it to catagories that we are comfortable with. For instance, we might be clear about the way all this applies to our personal actions at work (treating others fairly, etc.) but what about the impacts for the products of our work, etc.?
In all this we need to work to understand where we are and to act for healing:
…we should seek to comprehend the good of God-made structures, counter the lies and heal the scars of sin, and contribute to the development of neighbour-loving relationships and God honouring cultural development. The biblical gospel is the good news of the kingdom, the healing and restoratin of creation itself. Jesus himself is constantly referring to his work as the gospel of the kingdom. He offers not only forgiveness but also healing and guidance toward a new way of being human in the world. Jesus cares about healing his diseased creation. He is the good physician, and we are the orderlies instructed to attend to the healing process.
(From The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness by Opitz and Melleby)
Tags: culture, Culture Seminar, praxis, worldview
Considering Culture (resources)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, here, as best as I can remember, are the relevant references, etc. for seminar:
Two helpful articles available on-line are:
* Richard Middleton’s article “A New Heaven and A New Earth: The Case for a Holistic Reading of the Biblical Story of Redemption” does exactly what it says on the tin.
* Douglas Moo has a great paper on environmental issues in the context of the New Testament: “Nature in the New Creation: New Testament Eschatology and the Environment”. I also recently discovered the mp3 of an associated talk.
The combination of these two underpin a lot of the cuture-in-the-biblical-story section. Although Moo is limited to nature, Middleton provides the link that culture is part of creation, hence allowing Moo’s argument to be applied more widely.
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Books that were in my mind, but not quoted much (if at all):
* Eat this Book by Eugene Peterson; this is very good on living in the biblical story
* The Mission of God by Christopher Wright; which has an impressive overview of the Old Testement from a missional hermeneutic point of view. It complements Moo’s paper in it’s discussion of responsibility for creation as part of the mission.
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Books that are good on Worldview are
* The Transforming Vision by Middleton and Walsh. I dipped into this while preparing the talk and realised (again) what a classic it is. It’s a long time since I read it & I discovered that a lot of things I’ve learnt since are in this book, if only I had been awake enough at the time…
* The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness by Opitz and Melleby. I bought this to help the talk preparation, mainly because Byron Borger recommended it highly. A good book for students pitched at a nice introductory level. See also the associated website.
* Discipleship of the Mind by James Sire. Another classic. Again, aimed at students, but of wider interest. More depth than Opitz and Melleby. Probably a good next step if that convinces you to investigate futher.
* The Universe Next Door by James Sire. Sire’s worldview overview — looking at the main contenders around today.
* I’ve also dipped into Albert Wolters’ Creation Regained
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Quotes from Jeremy Begbie come from:
* Resounding Truth, which I have just got, but have only read the introduction. That is impressive enough in itself.
Quotes from Kevin Vanhoozer come from:
* First Theology, normally the essay ‘The World Well Staged?’, but all the essays in the book are stimulating and thought-provoking
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Books I have acquired recently, which would have helped:
* The Drama of Scripture by Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen
* Everyday Theology ed. Kevin Vanhoozer, Charles Anderson, Michael Sleasman
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Books that I have become aware of, don’t actually own, but suspect would have been useful:
* When the Kings Come Marching In by Richard Mouw
* Plowing in Hope: Toward a Biblical Theology of Culture by David Hegeman
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Please comment with other recommendations…
Tags: books, culture, Culture Seminar, worldview
debating performance
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Apologies for being overly obvious and repetitive, but I wanted to link together two previous posts: not to interpret the text, but to perform it and hermeneutics and, umm, hermeneutics (and probably also interpretation and living and living proof — see what I mean about repetitive?)
The on-going thought is how we display the truth through the way we act when disagreeing. We noted that the modern view point focussed primarily on knowledge. If you take that as the key to everything, then there are limited constraints in the way you treat those who disagree with you. You primary goal is to ensure that they, and your listeners, end up with the correct knowledge in the heads at the end of the debate. So, the approach is not as important as the end result and there is no inherent need to take care and be respectful along the way. (I know, this is exaggerating and there are other constraints, but you get the point.)
On the other hand, if performance of the truth also matters, then the way we argue is as important as getting the information across. I guess we’re saying ‘the medium is the message’ in a conversational way as well as in a purely media sense. We need to be sure that our performance in the face of disagreement is honouring the the truth we follow.
An obliquely related point that has intrigued me for a long time: both Francis Schaeffer and Richard Dawkins(*) abandoned debates as a vehicle for their respective apologetics. For both, it seems that the problem with debates is the possibility of winning the argument, while losing, or having no impact on, the person…
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(*) I realised after writing this that Dawkins has done debating of some sort recently. I was thinking of the story — I think in the introduction to ‘The Blink Watchmaker’ — where he debated someone on creationism, then found out that they didn’t believe in the position that they were defending. This apparently made him disillusioned with the whole debating process. My understanding is that he found he wasn’t really in a position to persuade others of his position, but was simply taking part in a sophisticated game. Possibly now that he is debating genuine opponents in a way that spreads his message, his view has altered.
Tags: apologetics, church, hermeneutics, provocations
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...