“Van Drunen’s juxtaposition of ‘Christianity and culture’ suggest that we can first look at Christianity and cultural separately, and then decide whether there is any connection between the two and if so what this might be.”
Willem J. Ouweneel
The World is Christ’s; A Critique of (Radical) Two Kingdom Theology — pg. 70
This is a simple yet brilliant insight. Neither Christianity nor culture comes to us as disembodied abstracted gnostic realities. Even with Christianity it comes to us as embodied in cultural trappings, be those trappings, denominations, congregations, Bible Colleges, Seminaries, or just one on one discipleship. Christianity thus can’t be abstracted from a culture carrier. There is no Christianity that can be known apart from some cultural delivery system. Culture likewise is not an inert something that can be dissected apart from the theological respiration system that gives it life. Culture is animated by the theological afflatus of some God, gods or god concept.
To say we can have Christianity without culture is like saying we can have a wedding without a bride. To say we can have culture without a religious impulse is like saying we can have “Charlie McCarthy” without an Edgar Bergen.
And to say we should have culture without Christianity is to say the Kingship of Christ is null and void and is to favor the Kingship of another God in treason against Christ.
