Christianity & Culture
Christianity & Culture Part 8: Q&A
Richard Niebuhr and John Frame Theologian John Frame agrees with Niebuhr’s “five ways in which Christians have understood the relationship of Christ to culture.” In fact, Frame contends that “these are not my models. Everybody who discusses Christianity and culture discusses these.” 1. Christ Against Culture 2. The Christ of Culture 3. Christ Above Culture 4. Christ and Culture in Paradox 5. Christ the Transformer of Culture
Geert Hofstede “Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.”
Gerard Hendrik Hofstede
1928 – Dutch Social Psychologist Professor Emeritus, Organizational Anthropology and International Management, Maastricht University, Netherlands
Carl F.H. Henry “Every culture is seen to have its own motivating impulse and sense of values, raises its own special questions and provides its own distinctive answers. Each culture relates itself to reality by its own peculiar methodology – be it reason or revelation or empirical observation or tentative hypotheses or subjective decision or whatever else.”
Christ Against Culture “The member of the Body of Christ has been delivered from the world and called out of it. He must give the world a visible proof of his calling, not only by sharing in the Church’s worship and discipline, but also through the new fellowship of brotherly living. If the world despises one of the brethren, the Christian will love and serve him. If the world does him violence, the Christian will succor and comfort him. If the world dishonors and insults him, the Christian will sacrifice his own honor to cover his Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945
Christ Against Culture “Calvin rightly points out…that we who have been redeemed and rescued from the pollutions of the world are not meant to turn our back on life, but only to avoid all participation in the world’s uncleanness. Christians, indeed, as our Lord taught, are the light of the world; this they cannot be if their light is hidden or withdrawn. Thus they are to let their light shine before men (Mt. 5:14ff.), though at the same time shunning the depravities of unregenerate society and of unchristian worship” (Philip E. Hughes).
The Christ of Culture
The Christ of culture “blends Christ into culture as the symbol of what is highest and best in that culture” (Craig A. Carter)
The Christ of Culture “The Christ of Culture position tends to neglect the biblical doctrine of sin, because it doesn’t see how bad culture is under the influence of the fall and the curse.”
Dr. John M. Frame
The Christ of Culture
Cal Thomas 1942 -
“The strongholds and pretensions can only be demolished under two conditions: one, that we don’t fight with the world’s weapons, but with divine ones; and two, that our obedience is complete. We have been trying to use the world’s weapons of political power, and we have not been sufficiently obedient to the call of Jesus to care as he cares and do as he did. No wonder conservative Christians continue to run into brick walls” (from Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?).
Christ Above Culture: Synthesis CULTURE
Culture is what God makes though man Good and rightly ordered by God Both divine and human in its origin Both holy and sinful A realm of necessity and freedom A realm where reason and revelation apply
NATURE
Creation is what God makes by Himself
Thomas Aquinas’ View Christ is Far Above Culture The Church of the Center
Christ Against Culture • Aquinas is a monk • Faithful to the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience • Rejected the secular world • The church in the cloister
Christ of Culture • Aquinas is a monk in the church • The church is the guardian of culture, fostering learning, protector of the family, judge of the nations • The church in the world
“The steep ascent to heaven, though always involving human activity, proceeds only by power sacramentally bestowed from above” (Niebuhr).
Grace, the Higher: God the creator; Heaven and heavenly things; The unseen and its influence on the earth; Man’s soul; Unity Nature, the Lower: The created; Earth and earthly things; The visible and what nature and man do on earth; Man’s body; Diversity
Richard Niebuhr and John Frame Theologian John Frame agrees with Niebuhr’s “five ways in which Christians have understood the relationship of Christ to culture.” In fact, Frame contends that “these are not my models. Everybody who discusses Christianity and culture discusses these.” 1. Christ Against Culture 2. The Christ of Culture 3. Christ Above Culture 4. Christ and Culture in Paradox 5. Christ the Transformer of Culture
Geert Hofstede “Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.”
Gerard Hendrik Hofstede
1928 – Dutch Social Psychologist Professor Emeritus, Organizational Anthropology and International Management, Maastricht University, Netherlands
Carl F.H. Henry “Every culture is seen to have its own motivating impulse and sense of values, raises its own special questions and provides its own distinctive answers. Each culture relates itself to reality by its own peculiar methodology – be it reason or revelation or empirical observation or tentative hypotheses or subjective decision or whatever else.”
Christ Against Culture “The member of the Body of Christ has been delivered from the world and called out of it. He must give the world a visible proof of his calling, not only by sharing in the Church’s worship and discipline, but also through the new fellowship of brotherly living. If the world despises one of the brethren, the Christian will love and serve him. If the world does him violence, the Christian will succor and comfort him. If the world dishonors and insults him, the Christian will sacrifice his own honor to cover his Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945
Christ Against Culture “Calvin rightly points out…that we who have been redeemed and rescued from the pollutions of the world are not meant to turn our back on life, but only to avoid all participation in the world’s uncleanness. Christians, indeed, as our Lord taught, are the light of the world; this they cannot be if their light is hidden or withdrawn. Thus they are to let their light shine before men (Mt. 5:14ff.), though at the same time shunning the depravities of unregenerate society and of unchristian worship” (Philip E. Hughes).
The Christ of Culture
The Christ of culture “blends Christ into culture as the symbol of what is highest and best in that culture” (Craig A. Carter)
The Christ of Culture “The Christ of Culture position tends to neglect the biblical doctrine of sin, because it doesn’t see how bad culture is under the influence of the fall and the curse.”
Dr. John M. Frame
The Christ of Culture
Cal Thomas 1942 -
“The strongholds and pretensions can only be demolished under two conditions: one, that we don’t fight with the world’s weapons, but with divine ones; and two, that our obedience is complete. We have been trying to use the world’s weapons of political power, and we have not been sufficiently obedient to the call of Jesus to care as he cares and do as he did. No wonder conservative Christians continue to run into brick walls” (from Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?).
Christ Above Culture: Synthesis CULTURE
Culture is what God makes though man Good and rightly ordered by God Both divine and human in its origin Both holy and sinful A realm of necessity and freedom A realm where reason and revelation apply
NATURE
Creation is what God makes by Himself
Thomas Aquinas’ View Christ is Far Above Culture The Church of the Center
Christ Against Culture • Aquinas is a monk • Faithful to the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience • Rejected the secular world • The church in the cloister
Christ of Culture • Aquinas is a monk in the church • The church is the guardian of culture, fostering learning, protector of the family, judge of the nations • The church in the world
“The steep ascent to heaven, though always involving human activity, proceeds only by power sacramentally bestowed from above” (Niebuhr).
Grace, the Higher: God the creator; Heaven and heavenly things; The unseen and its influence on the earth; Man’s soul; Unity Nature, the Lower: The created; Earth and earthly things; The visible and what nature and man do on earth; Man’s body; Diversity
