Christianity and Cultures

David Singh

• Publisher: Regnum
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781870345699
• eBook ISBN: 9781908355690
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Ministerio cristiano

This volume is a way of marking an important milestone in the relatively short story of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS). The papers here have been exclusively sourced from Transformation, a quarterly journal of OCMS and seek to provide a tripartite view of Christianity's engagement with cultures by focusing on the question: how is Christian thinking forming or reforming through its interaction with the varied contexts it encounters? As Christianity has taken and still takes shape in multiple contexts, it naturally results in a variety of expressions and emphases. One can gain an appreciation of these by studying different strands of theological-missiological thinking, socio-political engagements and forms of family relationships in interaction with the host cultures.

PART ONE

CHRISTIAN THINKING IN CONTEXT

CULTURE FROM AN EVANGELICAL PERSPECTIVE

Carver T. Yu

Dr. Carver T. Yu is President and Professor at the China Graduate School of Theology, Hong Kong

Culture as a Gift for Fulfilment

Barth gives us perhaps the most succinct definition of ‘culture’: ‘Culture means humanity’.¹ In other words, humanity does not live in culture, but its very being is actualized and concretized as culture. In so far as humanity is a gift from God, culture is also a gift from God. At the same time, ‘seen from the point of view of creation, the kingdom of nature (regnum naturae), culture is the promise originally given to man he is to become’.² With that promise intrinsic to its being, humanity cannot stop striving to draw out and complete what nature holds for it. Even as sinners, as those who alienate themselves from self, they nevertheless strive for wholeness as if answering the call to a certain destiny. The French definition of ‘civilization’ as ‘the sum of the aims proceeding from human activity…’ and the German definition of kultur as ‘the idea of the final goal and the totality of norms by which human activity should be guided’ point to the directedness intrinsic to culture. All culture, no matter how inadequate, aims to achieve a certain degree of wholeness for human existence. The wholeness of humanity, however, can only be found in the fulfilment of human beings as the image of God. ‘The image is not in man; it is man’.³

Humanity Shares God’s Sanctity

As the image of God, humanity shares the sanctity that belongs to God, a sanctity, which confronts even God’s absolute freedom and power as its boundary, in so far as God has chosen to use his freedom to affirm it and not violate it. We can even say that humanity shares the kind of absoluteness that belongs to God. In this sense, it is quite understandable that early church fathers like Athanasius as well as Basil the Great, and subsequently the Eastern Orthodox tradition, have put so much emphasis on the idea of the ‘deification of man’. Athanasius if referring to the logic of Christ’s incarnation would say, ‘He was made man that we might be made god’. Basil would also put it thus: ‘man is nothing less than a creature that has received the order to become god’.⁴ Referring to the biblical tradition, Heschel points out:

It is an important fact, however, that in contrast with Babylonia and particularly Egypt, where the preoccupation with death was the central issue of religious thinking, the Bible hardly deals with death as a problem. Its central concern is not, as in the Gilgamesh Epic, how to escape death, but rather how to sanctify life. And the divine image and likeness does not serve man to attain immortality but to attain sanctity.⁵

Ensuring the sanctity of the human person as that which is holy to God is the most fundamental directive of culture as the manifestation of humanity. A culture, if it is to fulfil its task for the actualization of humanity, cultivates a sense of sacredness for his neighbour. ‘Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Leviticus 19:18) is an inevitable implication drawn from the fact that behind and above each human person, there is the absolute God. At the same time, humanity hears the call from God, ‘you shall be holy for I, the Lord, your God, am holy’ (Leviticus 19:2). Culture should also give expression to the sense of the sacred (or holy) intrinsic to humanity. A culture which cultivates commitment to the unconditional is being true to its task. In so far as God’s freedom expresses his absoluteness, humanity has a kind of freedom reflecting God’s freedom of self-determination, self-initiation and self-limitation. As God created Adam, a distinct individual, and not created a mass of humanity as the bearer of His image, the individual with a distinctive identity (with a specific name) and freedom is of supreme significance in the Christian definition of humanity. Yet the individual does not exist in abstraction from the ground of his being, nor from his intrinsic relation with other men. He has his identity only in the very act of communion with God as well as with others. ‘God created man in his image. Male and female he created them.’ The moment Adam knows his individuality, he knows it as something that bears within it the presence of others. Thus humanity’s being is in relation. Sociality and solidarity is basic to his humanity. God’s presence is intrinsic to humanity. Covenantal commitment and individual distinctiveness are inseparable correlates. Freedom is also exercised within this being in relation. There is no genuine individuality and freedom without commitment, and there is no true covenantal commitment without real individuality. Culture in its authentic manifestation of humanity brings freedom and commitment together as two inseparable mutual determinants. An authentic culture cultivates freedom as freedom-for. It cultivates a freedom that enables the self to transcend itself. The magnitude of self-transcendence is another measure of the authenticity of culture.

Individuals in Community

On the basis of humanity thus constituted, each person receives two mandates from God as part of the fulfilment, to administer the created order (Genesis 1:26–27) and to give names to the living creatures. Humanity is to till and guard what has been entrusted to him, so that the land prospers. Ensuring prosperity and enjoying abundance from it as the sign of God’s goodness is also a significant mandate of culture. To till and to keep, humanity is to bring out the values intrinsic to nature, to articulate nature in such a way that it gives glory to God and abundance to human beings. Material abundance is also a sign of authentic culture. At the same time, Adam is to give names to the living creatures. To give a name is to define and thus give meaning and allocate values. Meaning-and-value creation is another task of culture. This gives space for human creativity and imagination. God’s world can be explored and related to in many possible ways. In tilling and keeping, in naming and defining, humanity draws the land, the living beings and all into a unified structure of meaningfulness with God as the ground. Each person builds his/her world of meaning and values based on reality. This is the realm of knowledge, and wisdom mediates his relation with the created order. An authentic culture cultivates openness to the life-world in which each human being is being actively engaged by God’s created order. He does not stand outside the created order as subject over against objects, subjecting the world into a world-picture (world-view) of his sheer imagination. Rather he sees his reality as part and parcel of a totality.

Sin and God’s Promise

The reality of sin puts authentic culture on the defensive. What has been a promise now hangs over humanity as a judgment of their unfaithfulness. In so far as the freedom of humanity is a real gift from God, then their will to distort the promise of God is allowed with its full effect, even if it is contained in God’s providence. Thereafter the distortion of humanity sets in and permeates every aspect of culture. The land still prospers, but prosperity can become destructive. There will be thorns and thistles, which will block and disrupt man’s attempt for order and abundance. What should have been positive directives for fulfilment can now become vortices drawing every being into stifling cul-de-sacs.

Culture thus contains implications of the curse from God as well as the working of humanity’s sinful design. In the face of the reality of sin, all cultures, including those deeply touched by the Christian gospel and even those which claim to be Christian cultures, are mixtures of what is reminiscent of God’s promise, God’s preserving grace and human distortion. All encounter God’s judgment and God’s affirming grace so that when Christians are confronted with cultures other than their own, they ought to be humble, knowing that no culture, including the culture in which Christianity prospers, can claim to be true to God’s promise. Even Christians cannot but live in cultures which are still under the judgment but also the preserving and redeeming grace of God. All cultures are to be judged by the Word of God and are to be affirmed by the Word of God as God’s gift, even in their corrupted form. The distortions and frustrations of God’s promise work themselves out in a variety of cultural forms.

Culture thus becomes the arena where humanity acts out his disobedience and rejection of God. In various degrees, institutions in culture may violate the integrity of humanity’s being human. There may be cultural forms which blatantly deny the sanctity of each person, treating them as an object or commodity, or as means to certain ends. There may be cultures where human freedom is structurally stifled, and their individuality is dissolved. There may be cultural forms in which alienation is the condition of existence, where humanity’s communal and communicative character is seriously hampered. There may be cultures in which human solidarity with nature is damaged, and desacralization of nature is a fact of life. There may also be cultures which polarize humanity’s spiritual and physical dimensions. Humanity is either reduced to the physical or his spiritual quest for liberation from the world displaces all concerns for the well-being of worldly life.

God’s Judgment and Grace

Where do we begin to identify these distortions? As each person is bestowed with the gift and the mandate to create meaning and values on the basis of reality, it is the structure of meaning and values that provides the magnetic centre and directive for all cultural syntheses. It is in these structures of meaning – their inner contradictions, the discrepancies between the ideal and the real – that we sense the deviations from the promise of God. To put it in another way, when the creative structure of meaning and value is turned into ideology, we see clues to the problem. It is the ideology of each and every culture that has to be identified, to show the inner contradiction and discrepancies, to see how God’s promise, his preserving grace has been distorted in the light of the crisis of God’s Word. Despite humanity’s wilful distortion, God’s grace continues, his promise still stands. Here we share Barth’s conviction when he says, ‘This gift, his humanity, is not blotted out through the fall, nor is its goodness diminished’.⁶

This conviction is based on the humanity of God revealed in Jesus Christ, that ‘in his sovereign decision, God is human. His free affirmation of man, his free substitution for him – this is God’s humanity.’ ‘From the point of view of reconciliation, the kingdom of grace, culture is the law in reference to which the sinner, sanctified by God has to practice his faith and obedience.’⁷ Culture seen from this perspective has now become God’s instrument as a preservation order preventing humanity from falling into total chaos. From then on, culture is a mixture: it contains God’s original promise and human rebellion as well as God’s providential reference for preservation. The church fathers see laws and government (even the persecuting Roman government) as necessary evils under the providence of God to prevent men from consuming each other.

In this sense, culture has to be affirmed. As an instrument for preservation, culture contains a curse, which is also a blessing in disguise. Humanity is subjected to toils and labour, to the adversity of the created order, which questions his dominion, to disciplines of life which call his freedom into question. Even in this way, culture reflects the preserving and redeeming grace of God. As Augustine puts it in his City of God:

There is a common use among both kinds of men and households of things necessary to this mortal life…For the earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace; and interests itself in the harmony of rule and obedience among its citizens to the end that there may be a certain agreement of men’s wills regarding the things that pertain to this life. But the heavenly city, or rather that part of it which only makes pilgrimage in mortality and lives by faith, is likewise obliged to make use of this peace…Hence while it continues to live in the earthly city as a captive in its pilgrimage … it does not hesitate to conform to the laws of the earthly city whereby are administered the things suited to the maintenance of mortal life; and since this mortality is common to all, a harmony is preserved between the two cities in respect of things which pertain to it.⁸

As preservation order, culture has in many ways become reactive attempts to sustain rather than to create. At the same time, the distortions and aberrations of what originally belong to God’s promise work their way into all aspects of man’s life, even affecting what had been intended as part of the preservation order. Culture has now become at once both a pointer to the fulfilment of God’s promise, a preservation order, and a stifling structure of man’s sinfulness.

Critique of Culture

The contingent ‘absoluteness’ of humanity bestowed by God to ensure his sanctity has in one way or another been distorted in cultural forms as human self-absolutization. The deification of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Part One: Christian Thinking in Context
• Part Two: Christian Political Thinking in Context
• Part Three: Christian Family in Context
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover