Evangelical Cultural Engagement: Shifting Grammars
Sometimes we get a feeling in our gut that is more than indigestion. The source of my scholarly discontent has often been related to language. Specifically, I have been concerned with the ways in which some Christians speak about the believer’s role in the world.
This question typically falls under the auspices of a field we might call “theology and culture.” It’s somewhat unhelpful to use this phrase as it is broad enough to include everything under the sun. Nevertheless, we could use other expressions that might resonate with different audiences: Christianity and society, Christians and culture, church and culture, and so forth. Yet they all return to the same basic question: How should Christians primarily think of and describe their relationship to the world?
Evangelicals have answered this question in different ways, but the neo-evangelical movement after World War II gravitated toward the language of cultural transformation, language borrowed from H. Richard Niebuhr’s book Christ and Culture. Niebuhr himself called this ideal-type “Christ the Transformer of Culture.” Similarly, evangelicals, especially Reformed ones, have often described themselves as “transformationalists.”
The intellectual tensions this language often causes me converge with the direction of recent Reformed evangelical thought. Something of a consensus has emerged among some of these authors, especially those influenced by Abraham Kuyper, to maintain a transformational understanding of cultural engagement, while shifting their actual language of engagement. These shifts reveal the underlying relevance of the formative power of language in our theological and practical understanding of culture.
My central argument is that the models, metaphors, language and lingo we use–what I collectively refer to as “grammars”—in referring to the church and culture relationship, are both theologically and practically significant. In this essay, I will provide a brief overview of some of my current research into this subject, and offer a few tentative conclusions.
Historical Context
The neo-evangelical movement, led primarily by Harold John Ockenga, Carl F.H. Henry, and Billy Graham, was predicated on several key ideas and impulses. First, following the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Fundamentalism had largely become ineffective in influencing society due to its withdrawal from many cultural arenas. Second, confessional evangelical theology (especially as seen in Calvin’s thought) provided a foundation for engagement in all major spheres of culture and society. Inaugurated eschatology and a biblical theology of Lordship especially underwrote this conviction. Third, publications, parachurch organizations, and seminaries were pivotal to promoting the message of orthodox Christianity and bringing society under Christ’s lordship.
There are numerous examples of how these three ideas and impulses converged. Carl Henry’s The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947) clearly presented the neo-evangelical argument for a way forward. The advent of the National Association of Evangelicals (1942), Christianity Today (1956), Fuller Seminary (1957), Billy Graham’s New York City Crusade meetings (1957), and other key moments were also integral to the burgeoning of evangelicalism in mainstream America.
Engagement is the key word to consider here. Even when the word is absent, no word better describes the posture, impulse, and imperative sounded forth by neo-evangelical leaders. A generation later, Roe v. Wade (1973), the conversion of Charles Colson (1974), and the election of Jimmy Carter (1976) created a mainstream awareness of the evangelical Christian, a conservative believer who was actively engaged in society, especially in politics.
Theological Foundations
Though it not widely read in mainstream evangelicalism, Albert Wolter’s Creation Redeemed (1985) left a profound impact on confessional Reformed communities. In it he describes a “reformational worldview,” namely, one that is predicated on seeing all of history through the lens of creation, fall, and redemption. Wolters presents redemption as something that touches the soul, as well as every other square inch of creation. In this way, his work is a modern explication of Abraham Kuyper’s thought (1837-1920).
Wolters also effectively provides the building blocks undergirding a transformationalist view of cultural engagement.[1] What are these building blocks?
First, transformationalists believe in a creational or cultural mandate. The call of Genesis 1-2 to subdue the earth and have dominion over it, to work the earth and till it, etc. are still commandments to which Christians are enjoined. They are to be involved in the work of culture making, to use a term made popular by Andy Crouch.
Moreover, transformationalists believe that God calls His children to bring all realms of society under the Lordship of Christ. They would say we should be involved in and attempt to impact culture, or ‘the culture’. God’s common grace is still at work in the many spheres (to use a good Kuyperian word) of society. So although creation is fallen and our cultural undertakings aren’t neutral, they are part of our human calling.
Second, transformationalists would affirm an “already/not-yet” understanding about the Kingdom of Christ.[2] To affirm such eschatological views is important because it directs the believer to see the gospel as not only having future implications, but also present, material, and social implications. Thus, the call to engage, impact, or restore culture finds its theological grounding.[3]
Problems
For at least two generations neo-evangelicalism has gained notoriety in America. However, the actual project of cultural transformation has been seen as a failure to some. Numerous books have documented the decline of Christian influence in society, attributing it to everything from Darwinism to secularism, from liberalism to postmodernism. Think of all the books with “Post-Christian” in the subtitle, for example.
No doubt many of these accounts have some degree of truth to them. However, some point to the transformationalist approach itself. Does transformationalism promise too much, such that this is why our rhetoric doesn’t match the results? Is our present crisis somehow the result of a flawed understanding of cultural engagement? Is there something inherently wrong with the transformationalist model?
James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World is the most significant critique which suggests that evangelicals have largely operated with a faulty view of both culture and cultural change. Moreover, they have often reduced public life and engagement to politics, which in turn has led them down some unfruitful paths. Other critics have offered alternatives as varied as “Two Kingdoms theology” to the Benedict Option. Yet within the mainstream of Reformed evangelical thought there appears to be a shifting of grammars in order to save transformation.
Bruce Ashford of Southeastern Seminary, someone whose work I really appreciate, has spoken of being “in and for culture.” The bestselling author Andy Crouch has suggested we orient our thinking more toward the notion of making culture, while affirming that Christians do participate in God’s transformation of culture. Timothy Keller’s work and ministry is arguably the embodiment of a transformationalist vision, even though he does not explicitly embrace that moniker.
Even if there is a united effort to save transformation, what does the recasting of transformationalism in the twenty-first century mean theologically and practically?
Practical Concerns
Some of Andy Crouch’s reflections in Culture Making are crucial. He specifically describes his aim to “offer a new vocabulary.”[4] He explains, “[O]ur ways of talking about culture—how it works, how it influences us and what we hope for from it—often do not serve us well. . . . If we are to be at all responsible agents in the midst of culture, we need to learn new ways of speaking about what we are doing.”[5]
I concur with Crouch’s assessment and admire his aims. But he doesn’t entirely explain why our ways of talking about culture don’t serve us well, nor does he explain how the way we speak about what we are doing is ecclesially significant. How might we respond to this weakness in analysis?
Most major ecclesial traditions develop grammars for naming the relationship between Christians and culture. Some employ spatial metaphors (Christ above culture), others use duty-centered language (Christ transforming culture), and some use exemplars-based models (e.g., St. Benedict, Kuyper). Each of these has strengths, but also significant limitations.
In using such grammars, prescriptive claims are being made alongside descriptive claims. That is, we are attempting to direct either the conduct of Christians in various cultural spheres or their actions toward various cultural artifacts. The problem, however, is that to “transform,” or to be “for” or “against,” to name a few examples, reduce the range of faithful responses to the entire, nebulous phenomenon of culture, as defined by Reformed evangelicals, to one posture.[6]
Additionally, grammars of cultural engagement must be theologically consistent and practically clear. For example, what would telling Christians to “transform culture” require in terms of biblical-theological consistency? One’s theology must allow that transformation is part of God’s aim for our cultural endeavors. Otherwise, why would believers be enjoined to do this? Determining whether transformation is a duty, desired outcome, or both, has implications for the discipleship of believers.
From a more practical perspective, whatever grammar is adopted, it is inherently prescribing an action as well as describing a relationship. A call to transform is saying more than simply God will ultimately transform creation. It is claiming that human cultural efforts do and should contribute to that. Not all Reformed Christians believe this, but it seems to be required in transformationalism.
In summary, the way we speak about cultural engagement has theological entailments and practical implications. We need, therefore, to spend adequate time reflecting on how our grammars of cultural engagement may or may not be helping us fulfill the mission of the church in this “post-Christian age.”
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[1] Interestingly, when one examines later Reformed evangelical writers who write like Wolters, the name Kuyper or language of Kuyperianism almost always surfaces.
[2] Russell Moore’s excellent book on this topic shows this development in later evangelicalism. See Russell D. Moore, The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004).
[3] Some transformationalists differ on whether our cultural products will be incorporated into the New Creation. Most seem to think so, though this specific aspect of eschatological belief does not strike me as altering the precise argument of this project.
[4] Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2008), 10.
[5] Ibid., 10.
[6] Just ask a typical evangelical to define what culture is. You may hear everything but the kitchen sink.
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