Christian Worldview and Culture Essay

Todays ethnic landscape has been shaped by the likes of MTV (entertainment), Steve Jobs (technology), and muggins Zuckerberg ( accessible networking). Society often prefers accepting the worldviews of these and other influential people, rather than hearing the cognitive content of the Good News of savior messiah which offers redemption to a move world. We cannot ignore the reality that a vast majority of heathenish advancements argon produced by non-delivererian gloss-makers, who, as they become more self-conscious and consistent with their anti- delivery boyian stance, will stock their unbelief in their artifacts with increasing boldness. saviourians cannot dismiss the impact and relevance these contributions have made on smart set. One of the great challenges believers are confronted with is developing an understanding of the immensity of expressing and sharing our Christian worldview in the midst of various competing ideologies. One of the hidden ideologies that secular culture put ups is that we can pull in care of ourselves thus, refuting any notion that we are dependent on Christ to meet every hu homosexual being need, including the need for salvation. Christian dis tiement from culture is contrary to Christs example of Incarnation.Christ did not consider adult male culture unworthy of his attention and love. He set aside his divinity and put on human flesh so that he could engage us on a social and cultural level. The great commission is an affirmation of Christs desire for his followers to go into all the word, engaging culture and preaching the gospel. What is Culture? Culture can be defined using three different admittancees agricultural, sociological, and anthropological. The agricultural approach to defining culture is derived from the Latin cultura meaning to plow or till. Culture is understood from a farming or agricultural perspective which entails the practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and aggrandisement livestoc k. The reference to someone being cultured is drawn from this farming metaphor. Education in this sense is the cultivation of the spirit. The sociological approach to defining culture deals with social class distinctions of high (elite) and low (mass) culture. This aesthetic standpoint is mainly concerned with the intellectual and artistic achievements of a hostelry. High culture is associated with the highest ideals of what is (in a subjective sense) dependable.A cultured person is one who has been acquainted with and educated in the finer things of art, literature, music, etiquette, socialization, as so on. The anthropological perspective regarding culture is concerned with the alone way of life of a group or society, not just its better achievements. Unlike the sociological perspective, this approach does not make distinctions mingled with sophisticated and primitive social groups.It simply acknowledges that all activity which is produced by a social group (texts, art, m usic, food, artifacts, philosophy, ethics, etc. is that groups culture. H. Richard Niebuhr states, Social life is always cultural and culture is the product of human achievement. Humanity Was Created For Good Works Culture, as expressed by the creativity of human activity, is a reflection of idol who Himself is a creative being. Human understanding of order and beauty is only possible be arrange of immortals magnificent creation of the heavens and the earth. immortal formalize the beauty of creation when He saw all that he had made was very good (Genesis 131).Man and woman were created in the divine insure and likeness (imago dei) of deity and were entrusted by God to care for and tend to His creation. Man was given the responsibility of cultivating the Garden of Eden and in doing so bringing reputation to the Creator. Here we should take notice between the similarities of the word cultura (plow, till) and cultus which is a veneration of the divine. This should give us a great er insight regarding how the human race was called to interact deliberately with the earthworking, tilling, cultivatingwhile at the same condemnation lovingly serving his divine Master and worshiping his Maker.Adam performed his culturative activities in response to and as a reflection of Gods creative acts. Competing Worldviews All of good-wills artistic and creative flora reflect the worldview of those who created them. As a result of the Fall the imago dei has become distorted, causing earthly concern to shift the focus of their creative and culturative activities away from exclusive worship to God. As a result humanity has developed unholy motives even though superficially our creative activities may be of some benefit.Mans creative outlet is disoriented want to glorify himself through with(predicate) the works of his own hands. Once we understand that all human creative trends are a reflection of the inner beliefs and values of the mind and spirit, we can assess the int ention of human activity properly. The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) was the product of human efforts to succeed, using human ability, independent of God. Todays pop culture seeks to create a new Babel in which human achievement and technological advancement create the false notion that we can live independent of God, or even worse, have no need of God.Thus, culture always reflects a societys religious and philosophic values, flowing out of the heartas it wereof the society which produces it. A Christian worldview based on Gods Word will discern the the ideological bias of the medium and ideological content of the message of non-Christian (and Christian) artifacts. This is essential for the Christian because there is no neutrality in the message embedded in the works of man. We are not idle spectators, We essential take sides at all times in everything we do. Christian Approach to Culture (Christ and Culture)There has been much debate as to the extent in which Christians are to e ngage the culture that we live and worship in. Should Christians adapt a Monastic approach secluding ourselves from society? Or, are we to engage the world in such manner that our Christian distinctiveness is lost? H. Richard Niebuhr, in his book Christ and Culture, suggests several Christian answers to the task of Christ and culture. Niebuhr offers five approaches Christians have historically taken in an effort to understand their position in Christ and involvement with culture.These are Christ against culture, Christ of culture, Christ above culture, Christ and culture in paradox, and Christ the transformer of culture. The Christ against culture approach proposes that loyalty to Christ is a rejection of cultural society. He critiques this stance as a radically Christian answer to the problem of culture. Indeed, it is impossible for a Christian, or any person, to totally reject and remove themselves from the influence of and involvement with culture. God has taken the opposite a pproach.He did not reject the world when Adam sinned, but rather engaged the world and put into motion the plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. Christ stepped into our terrene realm and became subject to the influences and temptations of human culture yet was without sin (Hebrews 415). Christs kin to culture was to use the elements of culture to reveal God the Father and the Kingdom of Heaven to fallen humanity. The second model, Christ of culture, is the opposite of the against culture model. It seeks social and cultural engagement with the world.It attempts to make the gospel meaningful to society by extending its reach beyond a selected little band of saints and is able to engage those of high and low social strata. While the effort to make Christ a part of culture may reach those who would remain otherwise unreached, there is a susceptibility to distort the figure of the New Testament Jesus in an effort to accommodate a social-gospel agenda. This is done by relegating Jesu s into what we need him to be in an attempt to address our social and cultural problems.Jesus is a great humanitarian if we are fighting for human rights or a great teacher if we are engaged in philosophical debate. Again, this model can be useful in reaching out to the culture, but we cannot compromise the truthfulness of the gospel for a specific social agenda. The tierce paradigm is Christ above culture. This view proposes that the fundamental issue does not lie between Christ and the world but between God and man. By placing Christ at the center, and not against culture, this approach avoids separating the experience of grace from cultural activity.There are three distinct groups in this crime syndicate synthesists, dualists, and conversionists. Synthesists affirm Christ and culture (both/and) rejecting a Christ or culture (either/or) approach. They maintain that Jesus is both God and man, one person with two natures and that the works of human nature cannot be separated from the grace of God, for all those works are possible only by grace. Essentially, Christ cannot be against culture because God created nature.Likewise Christs incarnation allowed him to actively participate nd engage with the culture of his day. One area that could lead to problems in this approach is by synthesizing Christ and culture in such a manner where Christ becomes subservient to culture. If culture assumes the dominant role in this synthesis, the Church will risk becoming more cultural and less Christ-like because it has elevated culture to the same status as Christ through whom all things were made and exist and without him vigour was made that has been made (John13). The dualist approach sees Christ and culture in paradox.This view makes sharp distinctions between the temporal and the spiritual life, or between what is external and internal, between body and soul, between the reign of Christ and the world of human works and culture. There is a line drawn between God an d us. In the dualists view all of human culture is fallen. For dualists the works of Christians within the church and non-Christians outside of the church are equally corrupt. The dualists are in a state of paradox since they cannot reconcile the concept of law and grace.They fail to realize that Christ came to earth to remove the line of separation between man and God. As Christians we must understand that while the world is in a fallen state and under law, at the same time it is under grace and we are to go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation (Mark 1615). The third group that embraces a Christ above culture paradigm is the conversionists. What distinguishes conversionists from dualists is their more positive and hopeful attitude toward culture. Conversionists see Christ as the transformer of culture. They embrace the redemptive work of Christ in the here and now. They are not looking to some eschatological future where one day they all will be restored. The conversionists have a hopeful outlook regarding culture and look forward to its restoration from a corrupt state. Christ transforms the fallen culture in that he redirects, reinvigorates, and regenerates the life of man from a corrupted state. Once man has been regenerated, he will produce good works.The transformative power of Christ in the life of fallen humanity redeems us For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Eph. 210). It is not our works which cause us to be redeemed but rather, our works are a testimony to the world that we are no longer bound by the fella of sin and corruption. Conclusion Because we live in a period of world history that offers the greatest tools and opportunities for cultural engagement, we cannot ignore the importance of understanding Christ role, through the Church, in todays culture. To engage with culture, theology and ecclesiology needs to be both critical and ar tistic such engagements require theology to be open up to the insights of cultural studies and alert to the ways in which contemporary culture is shaping religion. Social networking sites, email, iPhones, cable TV, movies, music, art, and literature are the vehicles that are being used to promote the beliefs and values of our society. Satan has done a great job in using culture to enslave society, tempting us to sin and forfeit our relationship with God our Creator.Our fleshly appetites are satisfied by images of sexuality, greed, power, and self-assertion. The danger of a culturally advanced society is that it seeks to replace God with its achievements. It seeks salvation, joy, peace, and prosperity via its own human efforts and imaginations. Because we have been brought from darkness to light we must shine the light of the gospel of Christ by engaging the culture in which we live, work, play, and worship. For this reason, every Christian must seize the opportunity that the conte mporary circumstances present to us and boldly set out to transform the earth.