The Church as Culture

[barnhart]

...But I do somewhat mourn the fact that everyone in my life has an extremely shallow view of most human creative expression. Even books are judged and valued on a very surface-level understanding.

I find this interesting. Do you think Anabaptism in general has a creative/arts problem?

[Bootstrap]

But I do somewhat mourn the fact that everyone in my life has an extremely shallow view of most human creative expression. Even books are judged and valued on a very surface-level understanding.

I think a lot of that starts with being nervous about bodies, emotions, ambiguity, and the limits of our knowledge.

Those are woven into most human creative expression — and you see a lot of all of them in the Bible.

Bodies — Scripture is full of physical imagery and embodied action: kneeling in prayer, dancing before the Lord, washing feet, wrestling through the night. If we’re uneasy with our own embodiment, we’ll miss how much the biblical story moves through physical presence and gesture.

Emotions — Joy, grief, shame, longing, hope, fear — the Bible doesn’t just describe them, it makes us feel them in the Psalms, the prophets, the Gospels. They’re not mere reactions but part of the meaning itself.

Ambiguity — Biblical narratives often leave things open-ended: Jonah’s final scene, Jesus writing in the dust, many of the parables. That ambiguity invites us to wrestle rather than just recite conclusions.

Limits of knowledge — From Job’s unanswered questions to Paul’s “through a glass, darkly,” Scripture repeatedly confronts us with what we cannot know or control — and calls us to faith in that tension.

If someone has been taught to value art or Scripture only when it’s “clear” or “instructive,” these layers can feel threatening. But if you lean into them, you discover they’re the very currents that carry the meaning — in great literature, in great art, and in God’s Word itself.

[HondurasKeiser]

One weakness I see in the two Niebuhr typologies summarized above is both seem reactionary, or operating as a response to culture rather than the result of a firm conviction about Jesus. He may be accurately summarizing Anabaptists as we are, but not as we should be.

HK, what elements do you see missing from Niebuhr?

I think there are 2 things that rub me wrong with Niebuhr's analysis.

1. Although he attempts to present a neutral analysis of the different types of Christian engagement with culture; it nevertheless feels like a foregone conclusion that right-thinking Christians should find themselves in the "Christ Transforms Culture" camp. I think that a strong Christian witness in a society will necessarily have a transformative effect on the wider culture. What is modern Liberalism after all but secularized and demystified, Christian values? Our role as Christians though is not to transform the culture. Romans 12 calls for us to be transformed, not the other way around. While Niebuhr admits good and even necessary elements in each of the other typologies, I think he's a bit too optimistic about the the Church's ability to both faithfully follow Christ and transform an ultimately unbelieving, wider culture.

2. Ultimately, I think all of Niebuhr's typologies fall short just like James Davison Hunters' "Faithful Presence" idea because they assume that at root we are still members of X culture and that our Christianity or church culture, while not merely incidental, is nevertheless something that's in addition to our underlying nature. Reading Romans 12 it seems that we are called not simply to add a Christian veneer or Christian perspective to our cultural milieu but rather allow the Holy Spirit to transform our very beings thus giving us a new, peculiar culture. That's not to say we lose all cultural distinctions from the society into which were born, but it seems to me that Christians from different parts of the world should share more in common with each other in terms of their ways of being than they do with non-believing members of their "home culture".

[HondurasKeiser]

...But I do somewhat mourn the fact that everyone in my life has an extremely shallow view of most human creative expression. Even books are judged and valued on a very surface-level understanding.

I find this interesting. Do you think Anabaptism in general has a creative/arts problem?

Yes. Generic American Christianity even more so.

[Bootstrap]

I think there are 2 things that rub me wrong with Niebuhr's analysis.

1. Although he attempts to present a neutral analysis of the different types of Christian engagement with culture; it nevertheless feels like a foregone conclusion that right-thinking Christians should find themselves in the "Christ Transforms Culture" camp. I think that a strong Christian witness in a society will necessarily have a transformative effect on the wider culture. What is modern Liberalism after all but secularized and demystified, Christian values? Our role as Christians though is not to transform the culture. Romans 12 calls for us to be transformed, not the other way around. While Niebuhr admits good and even necessary elements in each of the other typologies, I think he's a bit too optimistic about the the Church's ability to both faithfully follow Christ and transform an ultimately unbelieving, wider culture.

I think you’ve expressed this very well. We do, in fact, end up affecting the wider culture—but often because that’s not our primary aim. Our focus is on being transformed ourselves, and sometimes the ripple effects reach farther than we expect.

2. Ultimately, I think all of Niebuhr's typologies fall short just like James Davison Hunters' "Faithful Presence" idea because they assume that at root we are still members of X culture and that our Christianity or church culture, while not merely incidental, is nevertheless something that's in addition to our underlying nature. Reading Romans 12 it seems that we are called not simply to add a Christian veneer or Christian perspective to our cultural milieu but rather allow the Holy Spirit to transform our very beings thus giving us a new, peculiar culture. That's not to say we lose all cultural distinctions from the society into which were born, but it seems to me that Christians from different parts of the world should share more in common with each other in terms of their ways of being than they do with non-believing members of their "home culture".

I see what you’re saying here, but I think there's more to culture than that. For me, culture is like the air we breathe—so close and constant that we hardly notice it. It shapes the words we choose, the emotions we recognize, the way we interpret a gesture or a tone of voice, and even what we consider “just common sense.”

Even when the Spirit is deeply transforming us, we’re still living and speaking as people formed within a particular culture. That means two believers from different parts of the world may share the same faith, yet still express it in ways that sound and feel quite different. I find that difference beautiful, because it reminds me that God works through the rich diversity of human cultures, not in spite of them. I think it's easy to imagine that other cultures would be more like Western culture if they were more Christian, but I don't think that's how God intended it. Jews were surprised when God allowed Gentiles to remain Gentiles ...

How do you see that? I know that you have also lived in more than one culture.

[PeterG]

...But I do somewhat mourn the fact that everyone in my life has an extremely shallow view of most human creative expression. Even books are judged and valued on a very surface-level understanding.

I find this interesting. Do you think Anabaptism in general has a creative/arts problem?

Yes. Generic American Christianity even more so.

Which is extremely frustrating given the extraordinary artistic heritage that Christianity possesses.

[barnhart]

:

I find this interesting. Do you think Anabaptism in general has a creative/arts problem?

Yes. Generic American Christianity even more so.

Which is extremely frustrating given the extraordinary artistic heritage that Christianity possesses.

What is the missing belief or philosophy.

[barnhart]

...But I do somewhat mourn the fact that everyone in my life has an extremely shallow view of most human creative expression. Even books are judged and valued on a very surface-level understanding.

I find this interesting. Do you think Anabaptism in general has a creative/arts problem?

Yes. Generic American Christianity even more so.

For the same reasons? Different reasons?

[barnhart]

One weakness I see in the two Niebuhr typologies summarized above is both seem reactionary, or operating as a response to culture rather than the result of a firm conviction about Jesus. He may be accurately summarizing Anabaptists as we are, but not as we should be.

HK, what elements do you see missing from Niebuhr?

I think there are 2 things that rub me wrong with Niebuhr's analysis.

1. Although he attempts to present a neutral analysis of the different types of Christian engagement with culture; it nevertheless feels like a foregone conclusion that right-thinking Christians should find themselves in the "Christ Transforms Culture" camp. I think that a strong Christian witness in a society will necessarily have a transformative effect on the wider culture. What is modern Liberalism after all but secularized and demystified, Christian values? Our role as Christians though is not to transform the culture. Romans 12 calls for us to be transformed, not the other way around. While Niebuhr admits good and even necessary elements in each of the other typologies, I think he's a bit too optimistic about the the Church's ability to both faithfully follow Christ and transform an ultimately unbelieving, wider culture.

Fair. Maybe Niebuhr and I disagree about what actually transforms culture.

[Ernie]

I like this. I feel that I bring a lot of "appreciative" to my encounters with other culture, but overwhelmingly my brothers and sisters bring "polemical" to the table. I loved not only engaging in, but thinking about writing about, studying, and overall "deeply appreciating" a lot of things that most conservative anabaptist churches would dismiss as "worldly": movies, books, television, and especially video games.

What brothers and sisters are you referring to?

The most immediate brothers and sisters in my local church; but this is largely true of the wider conservative anabaptist movement. There are specific constituencies (ADC, BMA) that are, by most measures, conservative, but many people disagree that they are because they don't have firm, sweeping bans on all media like television or radio.

I certainly don't mind if churches do not have sweeping bans on TV and radio. I care more about where a church is headed. I know of a couple churches that are not Anabaptist, and have similar standards to ADC and BMA. But the rank and file are headed in opposite directions. In one group, the majority of the rank and file are trying to move in the direction of more biblically principled living. In the other group the majority of the rank and file are transitioning towards less principled living, like that of many rank and file Evangelicals.
If I was to address anything, it would be that. Not whether they make sweeping bans on things.