Christ & Culture: The Problem
It’s hard to say exactly when I became interested in the question of the relationship between Christ and culture. Clearly, every religious person is deeply invested in this question whether they have reflected critically upon it or not. As a Christian, there are certain allegiances that are given to Christ, yet each of us simultaneously lives in culture. By lives, I mean that life is culture, there is nothing else.
This perennial issue is embodied in the clashing statements of Christ: “My kingdom is not of this world,” and “Your kingdom come on earth.” To be of Christ is to simultaneously invest in the dream of the kingdom and to equally invest in the reality of the world. This tension filled out Paul’s ministry. He could brilliantly move back and forth from theological loci (e.g. 1 Cor 12- the Christian “body”) to the realism and fallenness of the world (the nasty issues and problems of 1 Cor.). Not surprisingly, the tension was present in many Christian thinkers through the ages. It is absolutely unavoidable, it is something that is ubiquitously faced.
To talk about “Christ and Culture” is to talk about a host of problems. What can be learned from each? When is it appropriate to listen to each? What happens when the two seemingly disagree? What does it mean to hear Christ? What does it mean to hear culture? I can’t count the number of times that some sort of statement is made about not being “of the world” or not being part of the “unfruitful works of darkness,” which all touch on this complex issue. Regardless of impassioned diatribes by conservative isolationists who condemn the world to hell OR equally polemical arguments from social gospel liberal protestants and emerging churchers—It is complex.
And, those are the two main points of “the Problem.” It is universal and it is complex.
