Summit Ministries

The folks at Le Tourneau have made the four talks I gave there available online. You can find them here. These were given as part of the spring chapel series "Why I Believe..." My talks were entitled "Why I Believe..." (1) Christianity Drives Us Into Culture (and not away from it); (2) God is Good (despite the evil and suffering in the world; (3) In Imago Dei; (4) Christianity is Essential to Engineering, Emerging Technologies, and Bioethics.

I realize that this is a strange choice of topics for an apologetics series, so let me comment on what is behind them. I have become fascinated and convinced over the last few years with the concept of the church's responsibility to offer a corporate cultural apologetic. In other words, I deeply believe that the church's ability to comment and engage important cultural issues will greatly enable our ability to communicate the Gospel to individuals in that culture.

G.K. Chesterton said it this way: "If Christianity should happen to be true... then defending it may mean talking about anything and everything" (emphasis mine). Unfortunately, the church is strangely quiet on a number of issues. And, when it is not silent, it's message is often only reactive, rather than truly contributive to that culture. Essentially, contemporary Christianity seems to lack anything that can be considered truly thoughtful cultural engagement.

T.M. Moore, dean of the Centurions program of Prison Fellowship Ministries, argues this in his latest book: Culture Matters. In his view, true engagement in culture matters by Christians must include the following: (1) thoughtful critique of culture, (2) creative contribution to culture, (3) education towards cultural reform, and (4) a prophetic use of culture for the Gospel.

Moore has given us no small task here, has he? (Though, he helps us greatly by offering historical examples of Christian individuals and communities who lived out each of his suggested components.)

A few thoughts now on critiquing culture.... Probably the most helpful thoughts I have ever heard on this comes from a former professor at TEDS, Peter Cha. According to Cha, there are three questions that must be asked as part of any thoughtful Christian cultural critique.

First, what is going on, really? Note: not just what is going on, but what is really going on? This is a question that requires deep discernment that goes beyond mere reaction. For example, immodesty is going on, but what is really behind it is the profound dehumanization of contemporary pop culture.

Second, why is it going on, really? Ideas have consequences, but they also have antecedents. For example, the current crisis in women's clothing has not emerged in a vacuum. It is the result of a deep confusion over what a human being is, and therefore what a woman is...

Third, what's it like to live here? Because Christians assume that humans, though deeply fallen, are of infinite value as those who bear God's image, this question is of enormous importance. How God's image bearers are treated sheds much light as to the identifying and analyzing the ideas behind the various expressions of culture. (For an historical example, look into the Clapham sect of which William Wilberforce was associated).

Of course, without a strong grasp on the Biblical picture of reality, we will never get beyond simplistic and naive answers to these questions. Biblical illiteracy makes cultural literacy simply impossible.

The task, then? Biblical and cultural exegesis. A suggestion? Pick up Moore's book.