Theological Perspectives Concerning Humanity
Frances A. M. Newman – Box 80
PH 522 Perspectives on Christ and Culture
Dr. Richard J. Mouw
Spring 2008
Theological Perspectives Concerning Humanity
There are several aspects of the Spring 2008 course Perspectives on Christ and Culture that helped shape my theology and understanding of my relationship with other believers and the wider culture. The following discourse will attempt to show that I have re-scripted my theological belief system by delineating various new theological and philosophical perspectives introduced by Richard J. Mouw in this class.
Before I point to these perspectives, I need to express how exciting this theological journey has been for me, in that I am learning about moving from an embedded theology to a deliberative theology, using critical thinking through interpretation, correlation, and assessment. I am learning how dark, oppressive and divisive embedded theology - or absolutism - can be. Mouw himself, who calls every student to be “Reformed,” said it is the goal of Fuller Theological Seminary that every student graduate with a more “nuanced” faith. So it is not enough to say, “I believe I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” just because it is in the Holy Scriptures and Apostle Paul made that claim. Nor is it necessary to build an entire denomination around the doctrine that Christians must be baptized by full immersion to be saved. The theologian carefully subjects his beliefs to critical openness via various interpretations, then correlates these interpretations with other worldviews, so that someone who is not a Christian may understand context, and come to appreciate these interpretations. The theologian then finally makes some critical self-evaluations of their theological worldview, so that the interpretations are tested for Christian appropriateness, intelligibility, moral integrity and validity, though the last element is highly subjective in Christian faith.
The following perspectives helped shape my theological worldview:
1) Redefining Culture through the Lens of God’s Cultural Mandate.
Life in the Garden set the course for all human events. Man and woman were created. They were born for God’s purposes and divine plan. The plan was a good one. This triumvirate was unique, for no other species on earth, no other creative endeavor, could fulfill the desires of God’s heart quite like this relationship. Peace comes from a primal knowing of this God and relating to this God. Our knowing God is limited, for now we see in part, as but a poor reflection in the mirror (1 Cor. 13:12). John Calvin said that as we stand before God, God’s righteousness is our mirror.[1] Our job is not to defog the mirror, but to accept it, to allow our theology to rest in the assurance that someday we will know the whole Truth, and in the meantime, we are to lean on God’s assistance for our very existence.
Humans are social by nature and particularly adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization. These orderly systems gave birth to civilization. Genesis 1 has a cultural mandate that can be viewed as a series of commands: procreate, fill the earth and subdue it.[2] The Earth, and its fullness thereof, is the lord’s. In God’s new civilization, humans could respond to the cultural mandate by God to fill and subdue the earth. From this mandate arose complex social structures. Eve could now make a rake from a tree branch and redefine its purpose, on a schedule mandated by the free will. Before sin entered civilization, before God cursed His creation, there was potential for organization.[3]
How should Christians relate to a fallen culture? H. R. Niebuhr, in quoting Bronislaw Malinowski, explains culture is the secondary layer of reality.[4] Culture is language, habits, ideas, values, customs, tools, superimposed meanings – schedules, labels, economic exchange, and creation of technology.[5] We engage with the culture around us in God-honoring ways to obey God. We do this, ultimately, to glorify God.[6]
Sin only served to perverse this cultural mandate, and to perverse the good in all of God’s creation. Instruments for good are now instruments with potential for rebellion. It is a (Christ who transforms culture through common grace) that allows us to continue to relate to God’s creation according to his original divine purposes; we seek a life that is orderly, organized and civilized as a result.[7]
Social interactions between humans since the fall have led to socio-cultural and political diversification. This diversification, along with man’s now sinful inclination, inevitably led to a strict system of social norms and laws by which all of human society functions. The Mosaic Law led the way (John 1:17), until Christ came to fulfill the Law through His sacrifice at Calvary as a penal substitutionary, moral exemplary atonement for our sins. The Law did not free us from sin. Only Christ could do that. Christ himself said He did not come to do away with the Law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17).
2. The Importance of Adhering to a Biblical Metanarrative to Prevent Fragmentation of One’s Worldview.
Eschatological beliefs define our relationships with each other and the wider culture as well. It is of utmost importance to ascribe to a metanarrative that holds together not only all of the major Christian themes of the Bible narrative, but holds together and underscores the hermeneutical interpretations of these major themes.[8] To have a theological perspective, is to have a system of social constructs held together by a meta-narrative. Christians hold their theological perspectives together via the Biblical narrative of good and evil, and Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Eschaton.[9] That Christ transforms culture — so that we might all one day meet up in the New Zion or New Jerusalem of Isaiah 60, means that we need as followers of Christ to believe that we are being transformed so long as we submit to reform, and continue to engage in, and not separate from, the wider culture, with its potential for reform.
Praxis needs to follow theory. Charles Kraft once said we can contextualize faith, but we cannot contextualize religion.[10] Mouw adds that contextualized faith is bigger than our own faith.[11] Additionally, we learn from Calvin that praxis is exemplified in scholarly pursuit of learning, first for understanding of our faith, and then in patient observation of the culture around us, and then finally in explaining the Gospel narrative in language that is understandable to the wider culture, as in the example of the “Water Buffalo Theology.”[12]
The metanarrative concept also helped me formulate a theological basis for a marriage and interpersonal relationships ministry at my church. The emphasis on an overarching biblical narrative helped me understand God’s purpose for marriage. Marriage is such an important, foundational element of human relationships that before the existence of sin, there was man and “wife.” This realization came about when I revisited Genesis 1-3 in the context of exploring God’s creative purposes for marriage, a pursuit that originated in the metanarrative challenge.
In the enduring problem of Christ and Culture, Niebuhr points out that “in his single-minded direction toward God, Christ leads men away from the temporality and pluralism of culture,” even though He Himself was the child of a religious culture.[13] If Christ as Son of God holds all things together in a biblical metanarrative, then our modern world continues to be part of His movement toward God. Therefore, Niebuhr helps me understand the various possible roles of Christ in relationship to his culture, as distinct, yet affirmed by His Body (which bears a “family resemblance” to Him), and Mouw helps to deconstruct the destiny and the journey of this family, which has the potential to move, along with Christ, toward God and His Holy City.[14] I am picturing a shepherd tending his flock, and bringing them to a final destination, where they are all put to the service of God. Mouw states in terms of inhabiting a Heavenly City in the future, “we have grounds for looking for some patterns of continuity between our present lives as people immersed in cultural contexts and the life to come;” the Bible encourages us to do that.[15]
A recognition of diversity in cultural identities does not cause fragmentation.[16]
When we with think about diversity and multiculturalism from a Christian perspective, we need to think about the many labels of diversity that differentiate us – like our triune God. “Revelation 5 asks, who is worthy to open the scroll? In the biblical metanarrative, the lamb moves progressively toward the lion. The scroll contains the metanarrative. If the scroll cannot be opened, postmodernism is right in its plurality. But if the lion opens the scroll, we have a unifying metanarrative.”[17]
3. God Loves the World.
Common grace exists because God loves the world. This may sound overly simplistic. John 3:16 and Psalm 24 are now redefined under the lens of Isaiah 60. It is Christ’s desire that none shall perish, and that includes the wider culture. Humans, on the other hand, in their quest for “self,” via a virtue of self-actualization, show a marked appreciation for the aesthetics and cultural innovations through art, literature and music. Humans interact socially through the arts, often to the point of worshipping the arts. Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper reminds us that all cultural spheres are to be subject to the Lorship of Christ.[18]
So long as one is not committing idolatry of work, a believer needs to model one’s faith to non-believers, and not always in community with other believers. Jesus reminds us in Sermon on the Mount: “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? …Do not even pagans do that (Matthew 5:45-47)?” God’s divine intervention makes it possible for a fallen world to continue to exist (and not self-destruct). God’s divine providence and intervention in culture is not without tension. Through a sense of irony, Kuyper states, “The world often acts better than expected, and the church often acts worse.”[19] Mouw clarifies that common grace, according to Kuyper, is not a saving grace, as one does not reject a genuine saving grace.[20] Yet, common grace (as external common grace) has a restraining effect on sin, and a call to civic righteousness – God uses sinful people to accomplish rightful purposes.[21]
Internal common grace, he said, operates wherever there is a civic issue, a spirit of domesticity, practice of human virtues, integrity, mutual loyalty among people and piety, Mouw heeds us with the warning: “Many people will go into common grace ministry, and if you don’t have a theology, you will be in trouble.”[22]
4. The Revolutionary Subordination of Christ as a Lesson in God’s Politics.
When I think of power, I think of just how seductive power can be, especially for whole groups of people who have been powerless and voiceless. My children were watching a popular Japanese cartoon recently called Naruto. Naruto is an orphaned teenage boy who often wonders what it would feel like to have a parent or a sibling. Whenever he bonds with his sensei, he gains strength – the bond makes him aware of his loss, and it is the very pain of the loss – the suffering – that makes him stronger. His enemies seek to break the bond between his pain and his inner strength to weaken and destroy him. This is but one small example of why humans seek temporal power; quite simply, it makes them feel in control of seemingly uncontrollable events.
Followers of Christ are a caused people who, by imitatio dei/Christi, are shaped by the effects of what Jesus did, especially from the time he was betrayed to the day he died, to the day he resurrected victoriously.[23] There are horizontal and vertical dimensions of the cross.[24] The revolutionary subordination of Christ forfeits the right to ego, self, pride, temporal power and false dominion over the world. John Howard Yoder challenged us to stop managing the world, but to instead be managed by or manifest the cross.[25]
“Whenever the New Testament calls us to be like Jesus, we need to be like Jesus in his suffering. We need to be like Him in accepting powerlessness. Our only call is to imitate the work of the cross. We confront the powers and principalities of this world by refusing to play their game. These spiritual beings are lower than God, but higher than human beings…. In a form angelology, these beings came to be seen as territorial spirits, assigned to different spheres. Thus, these are powers that influence education, the arts, government, etc.”[26] Walter Wink refers to them as invisible authorities who manipulate the spheres.[27] These are fallen powers that are part of the Satanic fall. They tempt us to rebellion against God. “If the only way to go into Iraq is to go in and kill people, than we need to walk away,” Mouw says. “We need to witness the peace as a people who proclaim an alternative way, and that is the way of non-violence…. Why fight that which has already been defeated?”[28]
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon remind us we should die more like Socrates than Jesus – death is already a defeated enemy.[29] There is something non-imitable about the work of the cross because He already took care of death – we no longer have to encounter death like Jesus did – he did the once-for-all on the cross.[30] Because he accepted powerlessness we have now the power to do some good things in the world.[31] Yoder adds that the political task of the Church is to be the Church.[32]