Comments on: How do Christians relate to culture?

By: Brian Karcher

Brian Karcher — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 22:30:32 +0000

I should probably clarify my last thought here. It is not the “Hannahs” that call out the corruption/abuse, but their sons. Father Barron seems to see God’s work in Hannahs who pray for their sons, which I agree with.

By: Brian Karcher

Brian Karcher — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 18:30:55 +0000

Thanks for sharing this James. I find Father Barron’s words to be excellent advice for being a “new evangelist” in our generation. Even though he speaks in the Catholic context, I find that all Christians should take heed.

Here are his seven great qualities:

Seven Great Qualities

1. In love with Jesus Christ: Offering people friendship with Jesus (prayer).
2. Filled with ardor: People listen to an excited speaker “on fire” (resurrection).
3. Know the story of Israel: God’s creation, rescue operation, promises, law, Jesus (salvation).
4. Know the culture: Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other hand (understanding)
5. Love the great tradition: Scripture and tradition (reverence)
6. Missionary heart: hunger for revival, to save souls, to call to be active (liturgy)
7. Knows and loves new media: make use of tools to communicate instantly to the world (technology)

His concluding 2 minutes are very powerful to me. His concluding remarks speak volumes as he says to young evangelists: “This is your time.” Father Barron says, correctly, the Church has gone through its worst time recently with the abuse scandals.

And Barron sees God working in the midst of that by raising up “Hannahs”, people to call out the abuse and corruption. That kind of attitude makes me proud of my Catholic heritage.

By: James Kim

James Kim — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 01:12:14 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8EqX-bXF_I&feature=plcp

Faith and culture by Father Barron.

By: David Bychkov

David Bychkov — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 22:44:52 +0000

Yes, and I think that’s the beauty of Christian life. therefore we should depend on God – so he shall lead us through this cultural difficulties. If we could salve it right now – we probably wouldn’t depend on God.
Though I think Jesus mentioned pagans as example for his followers – that they shall be different from pagans at least in terms of love. And we can find critiqs on pagans culture in Paul’s letters. But he was the appostle to them.

By: David Bychkov

David Bychkov — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 22:35:04 +0000

I think Niebuhr believes that 5th approach is the correct one. He illustrate it as the very center. If dualist realizes the seriosness of sin and synthesist realizes the goodness of God creation, “conversionist” realizes both. And here is the place where his undestanding of redemption appears. God created the good world, it was currupted, spoiled, misdirected b/c of sin, and the redemption of Christ has to remove this curruption, to “transform” it or better to “renew” it. According to Niebuhr this approach is both – very realistic b/c of awareness of falleness and optimistic b/c of God’s creation and redemption.
I love this approach, but I hardly can accept it fully. B/c I can not believe that whole humanity was redeemed by Christ, but only part of it. So the culture of humans which do not know Christ and which hearts are not transformed by him can not be transformed either. So there at least parts of culture which hardly can be transformed.
And yes. I have one more review on this topic. If I will find time I will translate it. The author claimes that it is time for each of this approaches.
Though I believe Niebuhr made great job in showing how Christian undestanding of relations with Culture has been developing, and the categories was defined pretty accurate.
Related to UBF, I think it should be considered closer to “radical” group. They tend to deny the value of the culture, to oppose to it, hardly make positive impacts to it. If just evangelism and discipleship are important – there is hardly can be found place for positive cultural activity. In the same time they hardly aware of how deeply they are involved with the culture. But “radical” groups have their own place in God’s redemptive history. so it is not necessarely critics.

By: David Bychkov

David Bychkov — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 22:01:12 +0000

Well, let me try to explain how I undestand it. Sometimes this type is called “Christ along or parallel with culture”. This is two worlds, which has not really much if anything at all in common. God is so much higher then the world with it’s culture, And the world is so dirty and sinful. That we don’t really need to compare them. But the problem is that Christians belongs to both – to this world and sharing it’s fallennes, and to Christ Kingdom.
If Christians of 3rd group can not deny the culture b/c God is it’s Creator, then the 4th group can not deny it b/c they know that they belong to the culture and can’t do anything with it. They would like to deny it, to be out of there and to live only with God, but they can not.
As God’s people they are called to love God with all their hearts and to be completely pure. And there are could not be compromises about it. But they are dirty sinners which live in the fallen world with it’s own laws (that’s where culture appearing). And they just can not do anything with it. That’s the paradox. I really love this position

By: Henoch

Henoch — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 19:27:03 +0000

David, thank you for this thought-provoking article. And if you had chosen a more provocative title (e.g. “On top of everything, UBF also got culture wrong”), there might have been more discussion here. (I’m 50% joking and 50% serious).

Very similar to John, i don’t think that these five views are necessarily exclusive, are they? I guess that in every culture, there are elements, which are good and other elements that are in outright contradiction to the gospel. And there is probably everything in the middle…

By: Ben Toh

Ben Toh — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:53:47 +0000

In an attempt to work out contextualization for myself, I tried to read Christ and Culture by DA Carson a few years ago: http://www.amazon.com/Christ-Culture-Revisited-D-Carson/dp/0802867383#reader_0802867383

He of course quoted Niebuhr’s 5 views, as summarized by David. I have to say that I was in a blur when I read the book and thought: This culture stuff is something that I’ll probably have to stay away from, since it’s just way off my alley, and it just stresses my brain too much! Thanks, David, for stressing my brain again.

By: John Y

John Y — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 23:15:23 +0000

Thanks David for summarizing this book for me! I keep hearing this book reference in some many other books that I figured I needed to read it at some point. Haha, now I don’t need to read it since you summarized it so excellently for me!

As is the case with my usual illogical self, I wonder if Christ does a little of all 5 views with each culture. Or to put it another way, just replace culture with human beings, or with John Y, and maybe Christ condemns John Y (my sin), embraces John Y (the image of God), is above John Y (especially when it pertains to my thoughts and my ways), and transforms John Y (through and through).

I’m not making sense, I bet. I don’t understand the 4th view by the way. Can someone explain a little more for me?

By: Joe Schafer

Joe Schafer — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:32:03 +0000

David, it’s great to hear from you. I’m glad that you took the time to summarize for us Niebuhr’s classic text.

I’ve been noticing that different parts of the Church have different stances. For example, as I drive from my home to Washington DC and back, my radio can pick up an evangelical Christian station and a Roman Catholic station. Listening to them and comparing them, it’s quite obvious that the people speaking on the evangelical station stand apart from (and in opposition to, and in judgment of) popular American culture, whereas the Catholic station is much more at home with and welcoming of the culture.

I believe that the gospel affirms every culture and, at some points, critiques and judges the culture. That tension is apparent in Jesus’ words from John 17 which you quoted. The trick is getting the context right. Knowing when to affirm, when to critique isn’t easy.

One thing that I’ve noticed about Jesus is that he saved his harshest criticism for the culture that he knew best, the culture in which he was raised and steeped. I don’t know of any instance where Jesus condemned the Romans, Greeks, pagans, etc. But he was openly challenging toward the leaders of his own religious tradition. When Jesus cleansed a temple, he didn’t go to a pagan house of worship; he went to the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, the center of his own religious faith. To me, that is very telling.