Category: Culture

“The first will be most clearly perceived when we recall that up to that point in history, religion, and state were everywhere intertwined. This was true, of course, of ancient Israel: at least in theory, Israel was… a theocracy. Similarly in the pagan world: most of the gods of the people were necessarily the gods of the state. When the Romans took over some new territory, they arranged a god-swap: they adopted some of the local gods into their own pantheon and insisted that the locals take on some of the Roman gods….But nowhere was there a state that was divorced from all the gods, what we would call a secular state, with the state and religion occupying distinct, even if overlapping, spheres. But on the face of it, this is what Jesus is advocating. At the very least, insofar as he envisages a transnational and transcultural community that is not identified with any one state, he anticipates the obligation to give to Caesar that is in power whatever is his due.”

D. A. Carson
Christ And Culture Revisited — pg. 56-57

1.) The idea that a state could be divorced from all the gods is a comparatively recent Baptistic notion and it shares in the nonsense that characterizes much of Baptist theology.

2.) This insistence that the scriptures teach that a non-theocratic state can exist is exactly that which has given us a state apparatus that believes itself to be god, which has in turn yielded a state a state dedicated to no gods will be allowed to challenge its primacy.

3.) State and religion can no more be separated then body and soul. Carson asserting that such a situation is a reality doesn’t prove that it is a reality.

4.) Carson’s interpretation of what Jesus says (“Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars the things that are Gods unto God”) is not the same as what Jesus actually said. When Carson invokes the words of Jesus to support the idea that the New Testament model is one that supports a state that isn’t beholden to and reflective of some God or god concept is eisegesis of the worst sort.

5.) The reason that the ancients never had a state that was divorced from the gods is that the ancients were smarter then us, realizing that such an arrangement is literally impossible. Since God is an inescapable category, it is no more possible to posit a non theocratic state then it is to posit a person who can have no god.

6.) All of this in no way denies that the State and Religion occupy distinct spheres. Just as in Israel the King and the Priest fulfilled distinct offices though both were responsible to the God of the Bible so today the Magistrate and the minister have distinct offices though both remain responsible to God. Carson tries to say on one hand that State and Religion occupy distinct spheres while saying at the same time that while some God or god concept should rule the religious sphere no god of god concept need be present in the sphere of the state. Carson seems to think that it is acceptable — nay even Biblical — for the State to de-god God. This kind of theology is madness. Does he really believe that God wants the state to de-god God?

7.) Jesus may indeed envision a trans-national and trans-cultural community but that is not the same as envisioning a a-national and a-cultural community. Carson seems to be suggesting that in the Kingdom people lose their nationality and culture. But there is another understanding of the Kingdom that is more respectful of the diversity that reflects trinitarian thinking and that is to suggest that the community that Jesus envisions is a community that includes all nations and all cultures as their own nations and cultures. This would be a vision that is pan-cultural instead of trans-cultural.

8.) Carson’s view implicitly supports cultural pluralism. If there is no god over the state then there is no one god over the people. But if the State must rule the people then Carson’s state must be that which rules over the people’s varying gods thus making the state the god of the gods.

9.) Carson’s a-millennialism skews his interpretation about Christ and Culture as it pertains to the Christ transforming culture paradigm.

I’ve just begun Carson’s “Christ and Culture Revisited.” It looks to be an interesting read.

Already though we have hit a snag. Carson offers,

“My focus is on how we should be thinking about the relations between Christ and culture now,at the beginning of the twenty first century….Our reflections are shaped by six unique factors,

4.) … debates rage regarding what is ‘cultural’ in ‘multicultural,’ which in turn has precipitated debates over the relative merits of one culture over another. That in turn, of course, feeds into debates over religious claims, since religions, too, under the definition of ‘culture’ already given, are necessarily forms of cultural expressions. What gives a religion, any religion, the right to claim its own superiority or even uniqueness.

The problem here is that Carson has presupposed without establishing that religions are merely forms of cultural expressions. I would contend that the opposite is the case arguing that cultures are merely forms of religious expressions. If we say that religions are necessarily forms of cultural expressions, as if culture is the goose that lays the egg of religion then we run the danger of suggesting that culture is a kind of ultimate starting point. But to make culture an ultimate starting point is to get things backwards since the cult (religion) is that which makes the cultus (culture). If we are to examine culture profitably, as Carson intends to do, then the beginning point is not the culture itself but rather the religion from which the culture springs. And behind the religion of a culture looms the God whom both cult and cultus serve.

Carson’s problem begins to reveal itself even more acutely when just a page later he can speak of ‘secular countries.’ What does Carson mean by this? Does he mean that these are countries and cultures that have never been based on any religions? Such a view would require culture to be seen as something prior to religion and something out of which religion might or might not come. But of course we know that it is not possible to have a a-religious culture and so the whole idea of a “secular country,” or a “secular culture” must be surrendered.

Another sign of looming trouble in Carson’s book is by his early assertion that, “in some ways the world has become more furiously religious.” This cannot be since religion can neither increase nor decreases but can only transmute itself into different forms. Christopher Hitchens is every bit as religious as Osama Bin Laden, and were Hitchens to convert tomorrow to Christianity he would not at that point become “more furiously religious,” just as if Osama Bin Laden decided to walk away from Allah and become an agnostic he wouldn’t become “less furiously religious.” Now, it may be that the world is becoming more furiously epistemologically self conscious about how religious it is but no individual, nor any culture can ever increase or decrease their religious quota.

Carson begins this book by giving a definition of culture that he favors from a gentleman named Clifford Geertz.

“The culture concept…denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic form by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitude towards life.”

Now this is fine as far as it goes but the question that begs being asked is, where do the pattern of meanings that are embodied in symbols come from? Sure, they are historically transmitted but the question is where did they originally come from? The answer to that is that they came from the cult (religion) of a people, which itself originated from how the people thought about God.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean . . neither more nor less.”

Today the news reported that California has actually begun to dispense ‘marriage’ licenses for homosexuals. In the news report it was noted that State officials, being the clever bunch that they are, had changed the licenses which previously had spaces for the names of the ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ to provide spaces for the names of ‘partner A’ and ‘partner B.’

I thought that odd.

I means, hells bells, if your going to go ahead and redefine the meaning of the word ‘marriage’ so that it no longer means the joining of a man and woman in a covenantal bond why not go ahead and change the meaning of the words ‘bride’ and ‘groom.’ If the word ‘marriage’ can now mean the ‘uniting’ (even that word needs to be redefined) of two people of the same sex (and what does the word ’sex’ mean anyway?), why does the word ‘bride’ have to carry the connotation of a female party? And why does the word ‘groom’ have to carry the connotation of a male party? And for that matter what do ‘male’ and ‘female’ really mean?

And why stop there? If we are about redefining words to fit our pleasures then why should we constrain and limit the word ‘marriage’ to two parties? If we are about redefining words to fit our pleasures then why should we constrain and limit the word ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ to refer to human species? Is it only social convention that prevents us from defining marriage as a joining of three or more species?

There was a time when the Lewis Carroll quote we started with was clearly understood as satire.

At the risk of sounding like a cold hearted bastard, I have to ask the question; What gives with the whole Tim Russert dying thing?

Given the media exposure that this is getting you would have thought Princess Diana had died again.

Now, whenever death visits any family I am saddened, and I am saddened for the Russert’s loss but I’m still not sure why this death has to be reported on in the way it is. The problem is not that I am put off by a death being reported. The problem is that great numbers of people die yearly that are more influential public persons then Russert was and yet, comparatively speaking, very little is said about their deaths because they are not part of the Hollywood-Media elite family.

I conclude a few things,

First, the media assumes that America loves the same people they love. If I had access to television and print media I suppose that with the death of each of the lambs in the flock I serve I would broadcast it everywhere. This is what the media is doing. They loved Tim Russert and having the control of the levers of the media they are making America share their grief.

Second, one must understand that you can tell a great deal about a people when you look at who they grieve. America’s Hollywood and Media personality culture is evidenced in the way that we are all being held captive to the elites grief, and inasmuch as average Americans are truly grieving it reveals how America is a culture which has taken the Hollywood and Media elite as their representatives. Since I don’t particularly esteem the Hollywood and Media personality culture I am not particularly prone to grieving one of their own as if he was one of my own.

Third, the Hollywood and Media elite are overwhelmingly comprised of people who have no use for Christian notions of God and religion. As such, when a sudden death like this hits them they have no way to handle it. They are a people without God and without hope. When a death of a comparatively young colleague comes suddenly, like Russert’s has, they are brought face to face with their own mortality and like children scared of the night they have to yell out. Given the fact they have all the microphones, when the Hollywood and Media elite ‘yell out’ everyone is forced to listen.

I am honestly saddened for the Russert’s in their time of loss. It is sad whenever somebody this young and productive is summoned. I sorrow more for a culture whose grief is wrapped up in a Hollywood and Media elite culture.

This response to my recent post analyzing the problems of alternate schooling comes from a young man who is alternately insightful and muddled in his thinking. I thought I would turn it into a post in order to continue to tease out different understandings that contend for the privilege of being called ‘Reformed.’

Bret,

Having strong (W2K, viral, I know!) views on education myself, I can’t help but wonder if at the base of your frustrations are a couple of things: 1) the over-realization of the purpose and function of education, and 2) the necessarily low view or under-realization of the institution of the family.

Steve, allow me to deal with these in reverse order. My conviction is that schooling should not be shipped out and should be done in the family setting. I believe that when we ship our children out to strangers we have a necessarily low view of the institution of the family. I believe therefore this would include you as, as I recall, you farm out your children to be educated by strangers. My conviction on the family is that it should be the primary building block for the Church, the realm that should make modern schools obsolete, and the first Republic. I don’t know how anybody could have a higher view of the family than myself.

As to your suggestion that I have an over-realization of the purpose and function of education I would only reply by saying that I’m sure that would seem to be the case to somebody who suffers from an under-realization of the purpose and function of education. This disagreement stems from our different eschatologies. You are forever going to be accusing me of a over-realized eschatology and I am going to forever be rightly discerning your problem of a under-realized eschatology. This push-me, pull-you on eschatology between us is going to affect every issue and every discipline.

While there is most assuredly an intellectual aspect to it (that is unashamedly undermined in both cult and culture as both take their cues from a modernism that has rendered an epistemological choice between reason and experience), the end result to these presuppositions seems to be an equally aberrant intellectualization of Christian belief. Is the answer to the de-intellectualization of the Christian religion even as it becomes exchanged for the experientialism of revivalism really to indulge the notion that Christian belief is to be farmed out to the classroom instead of the home and church?

Well, I should emphasize for readers that we have a couple points of agreement here.

1.) We agree that our educational models are suffering intellectually.

2.) We agree that there is a danger to the Christian faith both from an unbliblical experientialism and a unbiblical rationalism.

Moving on, I hope in my first paragraph above I have squelched any idea that ‘Christian belief should be farmed out to the classroom instead of the home and church.’ My conviction is that the classroom, and home, and church while decidedly distinct are interdependent and all share the responsibility to be shapers of faith. Education, being a distinctly religious undertaking, Christian parents should be slow to farm out their children to classrooms governed by people who are not epistemologically self conscious regarding their Christianity.

You seemingly fault me for heading in a direction that you fear will result in a aberrant intellectualization of the Christian faith. We should say that Christianity is eminently, though not exclusively, rational and as such the intellectual aspect of Christianity should be pursued with vigor. Indeed, I would contend, that this is supported by the teaching of Jesus when he said that eternal life is to know the only true God and the Christ that He sent. The only way to know God is through the intellect. This is a truism that is accepted by all save the mystics. Now, to qualify, I understand that there exists such a thing as arid rationalism that is to be hated but the pursuit of rationality need not end in arid rationalism.

In my experience with the Dutch Reformed community (the CRC) that places such a high premium on Xian education there seems to be this notion that what the home should be doing—nurturing faith—can be co-opted by the school. I find that completely, well, sub-Christian. The project of education is primarily intellectual, not affective. It is the role of the home to be primarily affective. My wife and I nurture Christian belief in our kids, not Mr. or Mrs. VanVanderVandeMeer.

Speaking from what I have seen after 13 years of affiliation with the CRC, I would agree that there existed a idea that the school and the catechism at Church should do what should have been going on in the home. I agree that such a notion is sub-Christian. But allow me to suggest that one reason this failed is that the schools and the Churches became co-opted by the larger culture. Consequently, the nurturing of Christian faith, was not be accomplished anywhere, though the nurturing of the faith of modernism was happening in the church and in the school.

I would take issue with you in your third sentence above. You seem to desire to separate the intellectual from the affective. This is not possible. If the education is successful in its project of the intellect it will also have been successful in the work of the affective. Similarly, if the home is successful in its affective work it will only be due to the fact that it has been successful, in doing intellectual work. Steve, you can not separate these two the way that you seem to be doing. Certainly the two are distinct but they are not un-related. Where ever you send your children to be educated you can be sure that they are learning the affective, and are being nurtured in some faith system.

This disagreement between us stems from our disagreement on the Lordship of Jesus and how that is exercised. You, of course, are wrong.

In the same way that theonomic thoughts ends up politicizing true religion, I strongly detect on your part this same assumption that results in an intellectualizing of Christian belief. Instead of seeing that Christianity in the business of making believers you seem to see it as a project of making students.

Look, Steve, you’ll have to take this problem up with Jesus. It was Jesus who called us to be disciples. Hard to be a disciple without being a student Steve. Further, it was Jesus who said that we were to teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you.’ If I am teaching people to observe all things and they are learning to observe all things doesn’t that make them ….students?

Steve, this culture, is designed to keep people ignorant and stupid. Dumb people are easier to control. Legion are the names of the books that have made this point. In light of this reality the accusation that you level against me of wanting to seeking to make students is, shall we say, ‘odd.’

Finally, nobody need to worry about any lack of affections or emotions on my part. They work just fine.

Your hunch that Xian schools are just glorified government schools is correct, at least around here. (I also see it as very much a carried over effort in the effort to maintain a particularly ethnic project, to keep the Dutch migratory culture sufficiently cohered; this against the fact that cultural assimilation has been finalized and renders the effort quite irrelevant. The only thing left to lean on to justify Xian education is that mistake which leads people to believe that Xians doing education is the same thing as Xian education.) But, unlike you, I only see that as a problem because I see no value in paying for a glorified public school education. And I am not compelled to to go on the wild goose-chase to find real Xian education since it doesn’t exist.

Well, we agree completely in this paragraph until your last sentence. I wouldn’t pay a thin dime for my children to attend Dutch ‘Christian’ schools. Indeed, I would pay good money in order for my children not to go to them. I even agree that you shouldn’t go on a wild goose chase, because I seriously doubt there is any real Christian education in your area. Where we disagree is when you utter complete tripe by saying that there is not such a thing as genuine Christian education. That is just a stupid statement.

But I understand your ‘theology’ forces you to that conclusion.

Thanks for the letter. I honestly believe you to be, in many regards, a sharp fellow. But like so many in your school you sharpness in one statement is immediately negated by your dullness in a succeeding statement.

Take care. I continue to pray for your Church that it might find a godly pastor.