Friday, February 27, 2009
Culture and Faith
Matt Anderson recently looked at a post by Carl Trueman and commented:
I think the dynamic is a bit more complex. Some of this has to do with the simple democratization of society. I mean look at it this way, throughout history the vast majority of Christians did not have a clue about a "robust natural theology or doctrine of creation." The sad fact of the matter is, whether through inattentiveness or intellectual inability, most people never will.
But society and the church used to be a lot more hierarchical and authoritarian than it is today. In the glorious days of old, most people did not need to understand those things - someone else did it for them, they just did what they were told.
The biggest issue here is that the very nature of leadership has changed - and we have not, particularly those inside Evangelicalism, figured out the new paradigm yet. We keep trying to graft the old leadership models onto the new democratic reality.
Which leads me to the Matt's phrase, "captive to political idols." Much of the Evangelical political experiment has been an attempt to seize some sort of leadership, but again they have done so in old school ways. The fact of the matter is that America has been democratic from the beginning, while the church is inherently monarchical (God is King after all) so, out of habit, the church just keeps reaching for something that will legitimize its authority. A truly wrong motivation for political participation.
Which brings me to the bottom line of this post. The answer to Evangelicalism's problems do not lie in abandoning the political field of play. There is too much important at stake for that. Rather, it lies in figuring out how to do it properly - which means a careful examination of motives, and some serious lesson is internal leadership.
Here's a hint. God is king because of His inherent goodness. True Godly authority stems not from political or ecclesiastical power position, but from reflecting that glorious goodness.
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Trueman is right to see the (re)new(ed) emphasis on culture as an expansion of pietism (though I might instead characterize it as a reintroduction of the idea of ‘Christendom’). Ironically, it is the lack of a robust natural theology and doctrine of creation that inhibits evangelicals from simply enjoying artworks or movies or culture without any other agenda or end. If we grant the point that evangelicals have been held captive by their political idols, it would be because their doctrine of creation is amiss, which prompts them to put too much emphasis–or not enough–on anything touching the created realm. That new evangelicals now do so with culture instead of politics does not mean they have solved the problem–they’ve simply transferred their allegiances to a different idol.OK, guys like me need to break that really smart comment down into words of one syllable or less, so I am going to take a stab. What Matt is saying is that Evangelicalism is about a mile wide and an inch deep ("lack of a robust natural theology and doctrine of creation") and that such has caused us to hang spiritual significance in places it does not belong (politics or culture). In other words, the "dumbing down" of Christianity is giving us problems.
I think the dynamic is a bit more complex. Some of this has to do with the simple democratization of society. I mean look at it this way, throughout history the vast majority of Christians did not have a clue about a "robust natural theology or doctrine of creation." The sad fact of the matter is, whether through inattentiveness or intellectual inability, most people never will.
But society and the church used to be a lot more hierarchical and authoritarian than it is today. In the glorious days of old, most people did not need to understand those things - someone else did it for them, they just did what they were told.
The biggest issue here is that the very nature of leadership has changed - and we have not, particularly those inside Evangelicalism, figured out the new paradigm yet. We keep trying to graft the old leadership models onto the new democratic reality.
Which leads me to the Matt's phrase, "captive to political idols." Much of the Evangelical political experiment has been an attempt to seize some sort of leadership, but again they have done so in old school ways. The fact of the matter is that America has been democratic from the beginning, while the church is inherently monarchical (God is King after all) so, out of habit, the church just keeps reaching for something that will legitimize its authority. A truly wrong motivation for political participation.
Which brings me to the bottom line of this post. The answer to Evangelicalism's problems do not lie in abandoning the political field of play. There is too much important at stake for that. Rather, it lies in figuring out how to do it properly - which means a careful examination of motives, and some serious lesson is internal leadership.
Here's a hint. God is king because of His inherent goodness. True Godly authority stems not from political or ecclesiastical power position, but from reflecting that glorious goodness.
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