Considering Culture (12)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, the penultimate post on my culture seminar…
We’ve started looking at how our understanding of culture within the biblical story affects how we act and how we think. We have to begin by realising we always live and think within a story. As Christians, we should consciously think within the Biblical story; to let the Bible interpret the world.
But there is another side. We must also keep in mind that not everyone shares that story/worldview. This can be corresponds to John Stott’s assertion that we must learn to listen to the world around us. This is vital to keep in mind so that we can be wise in our influence of culture, to have the necessary understanding to allow us to act and to communicate with those around. What are the keys for understanding the stories around us? Middleton and Walsh do a simply breakdown into three components: stage setting, problem/conflict and solution. So, as an example, for Cinderella the scene setting is the ball, the problem is her lack of carriage and ball-dress, the solution is the fairy godmother. (In fact, there are two applications of this formula in Cinderella — the other is the overarching story with the problem of her oppressed life and meeting the prince/going to the ball as the solution.)
In The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness, Opitz & Melleby give examples of how modernism and post-modernism can be characterised with this pattern:
Modernity has been the culture-shaping story of our time. It is not a story of creation, but of matter. It is not the story of the fall (of sin); it is the story of ignorance. It is not a story of redemption, but one of human progress. the story-frame of modernity (matter-ignorance-progress) is so compelling that most of us, even though we espouse the Christian story, live the tale of modernity.
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The post-modern story begins not with creation or matter, but with culture. Rather than creation-fall-redemption (biblical) or matter-ignorance-progress (modernity), the story-frame of postmodernity is culture-oppression-expression.
We can also learn something about the stories that others live by, by looking at the particular stories that they tell, whether books, film, TV, etc. I gave examples of this in an earlier post.
We could take listening to the stories of others in many directions, but let’s just try one here: By taking this approach, we begin to understand the clashes and misunderstandings that occur between people. Often there is mis-communication in our discussions that can lead both sides to see a mis-representation of the others position. I’ve heard Michael Ramsden make this point well. Often when discussing moral issues we have in mind, for example, God’s justice or plan for authentic human life, so we happily point out the constraints He places on us. Those we are talking to see choice as the highest goal, so any constraints get interpreted as due to a kill-joy God. Through misunderstanding we have communicated almost the opposite of what we want to say. So, we listen, amongst other things to ensure that what we say is heard as intended.
Tags: culture, Culture Seminar, worldview
Things I found this week…
Posted by Paul | Filed under web sights
I stumbled across a number of great web sights this week…
First, Byron Borger has a wonderous article Why we are open to the Emergent Conversation: My journey, and books along the way. A sort of reading-biography following his path from Schaeffer, via Os Guinness, Middelton and Walsh, etc., to recent Emergent publications. A good discussion of Chistianity-in-all-of-life and a defence of why conservative Christians can happily read emerging books.
I am not exactly ready to brand myself emergent and I have deep loyalties to conservative Reformed doctrine, evangelical para-church ministries and institutions, and rather mainline expressions of congregational life. We’ve lived in intentional community, been arrested in peace witnesses, and lived in the inner city; we’ve read critiques of Enlightenment rationalism before anybody knew who Derrida was, and we’ve loved rock and roll culture even when our best friends were listening to only Larry Norman and LoveSong. Does that make us emergent? Not exactly. I’m not bragging at all, not even saying we’ve been right in all of this, just saying that to me, this emergent stuff makes sense to be talking about.
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They ask big questions about hard Biblical matters and want to be authentic and real, without any churchy pretense. They want to impact the world, and are gladly moving towards social justice concerns, getting involved in human rights initiatives and social action missions.
This made my week. Not only does he run the bookshop I always dreamed of starting, Borger is a hero — truly generous and thought-provoking.
Elsewhere, I discovered lowercase people a very interesting on-line magazine from David Dark and friends. Subtitled “the on-line magazine for artists in action.”
lowercase people is a daring new endeavor to revolutionize the way we view beauty, truth and humanity.
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lowercase people is the collective effort of a community of thinkers, musicians, artists and writers. We are humanity beautiful and broken. We want to see change. We want to dream bigger dreams. We want to collide. We want to make better art and better music. We’re curious. We’re moving outside of the lines. We’re thinking out-loud. We are the lowercase people. Consider joining us as we begin to dream and think out loud.
Finally, there is a new book out about faith and cinema: Faith, Film and Philosophy: Big Ideas on the Big Screen. Dallas Willards contribution is available on-line: Liberation Through Sensuality: Cinematic Moral Vision in an Age of Feeling. Definitely worth a look. In 10 pages he gets from Pleasantville to
…the person of good moral character does not stand back and hope for something to happen, so they won’t have to soil their hands. Rather, they act for the greater good in the situation—often, to be sure, “with fear and trembling”—but they do act. They act with genuine love, as a matter of the will and character, not just feeling. This is what it means to be responsible.
Tags: art, cinema, culture, web sights, worldview
Considering Culture (11)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, lets try to finish off the seminar write up before the end of the decade…
If you haven’t been following, then best to start way back here. But basically, we looked at how culture fits into the Christian story and some of the consequences.
There are many places we could have ended up, but I tried to have a brief look at how we should think about culture as a result. One problem have now is that I’ve just finished reading Everyday Theology (ed Vanhoozer et al). This is so good that it has pointed out loads of ways this bit of the seminar could have been improved. But never mind, let’s go for the original form and maybe when I come to discuss the book, alternatives will be clear.
We wound up in the previous section by concluding that our cultural lives should reflect God’s new creation and also that we should remember that the fall implies not every area of culture matches God’s intentions. All this leads us to conclude that we need to think carefully about culture from a Christian context. A prime reason is that understanding helps us in our involvement in the mission of God. One obvious example of this help is that we cannot communicate with the culture around us if we do not understand it, so our preaching, etc. will miss the mark. Another is that, is part of our mission is to work with God in the transformation of culture, then we need to be able to discern what fits God’s intentions and what needs work.
So, how do we think? In some ways, the whole seminar up to this point was an example — we tried to think about culture in general from within the Christian worldview or story. (The place of story in worldview or vice versa is a whole other discusssion. Suffice it to say, I’m keen on the story view at the moment. Perhaps because I spend many hours reading the Gruffalo to my children!)
More generally, we need to keep in mind that we all live/think within some overarching story (or worldview). The story that is influencing a person will have a direct impact on how they approach things. This works in two ways — first, we need to keep in mind the story that we hold to and, second, we need to realise that we constantly come up against cultural products that do not have that story as a basis. We have to find the way to negotiate these two components and act appropriately. For the starting point, we can go back to the quote from John Stott: we need to listen to the word and listen to the world.
So, first, we need to keep a very firm grip on the Biblical story and allow this to be the controlling narrative in our interpretation of the world. (Just to remind us, the key plot points of this story are Creation-Fall-God’s Mission/Jesus-New Creation.)
I think it is Eugene Petersen who said that the Bible is not primarily something we interpret, but is itself an interpretation of the world. We need to allow the story to shape our thinking and imagination; to ‘renew our minds’. I think perhaps we have seen how the thinking aspect works, but we need to go further & let the thinking filter into our imagination. Middleton and Walsh touch on this in the following quote:
A liberated imagination is a prerequestite for facing the future. Consequently, we need to ask ourselves some honest questions. Can we imagine a politics of justice and compassion in place of the present global politics of oppression and economic identity? Dare we imagine an economics of equality and care in place of the dominant economics of affluence and poverty> Can we imagine our work life to be at one with our worship — an act of service and praise, rather than a grim necessity of a means to an affluent lifestyle? Can we imagine a society which has broken through its morbid preoccupation with death and instead truly affirms life, both at the fetal stage and in all of its dimensions? Is a relatinship of friendship, instead of exploitation, with the rest of creation imaginable? Is it imaginable that the mass media could be an agent of spiritual awakened social, cultural and spiritual renewal, rather than the one thing that most numbs us into cultural complacency and sleep? And is our imgination open enough to conceive of a business enterprise that is characterised by stewardship, environmental responsibility and real serviceability, rather than profits, pollution, and the production and marketing of superfluous consumer goods? If we connot have such a liberated imagination and connot countenance such radical dreams, then the story remains closed for us and we have no hope.
Tags: culture, Culture Seminar, imagination, worldview
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
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...