Christ Against Culture?

Forgive me while I psychoanalyze...

I'm reading Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr--I'm about half way through and it is excellent. Niebuhr pieces together historic Christian approaches to how Christians ought to live in the World (which he calls culture and spends a chapter defining. Niebuhr in short: the World is the value systems, philosophies, art forms, politics, and economics that make up a culture).

The problem, it seems, is that Jesus promises eternal salvation, but we're not dead yet. How ought Christians live (and how should I live) in the interim?

Niebuhr examines five answers that Christians have posited to this question, and each answer is fascinating. Each approach has taught me more about my self and my faith.

Of particular interest has been the approach that Niebuhr calls 'Christ against Culture' or the 'radical' approach. These Christians--represented by groups like the Benedictines (back in the day) and the Mennonites, and people like Leo Tolstoy--were convinced that the Christian must separate from culture in a radical way, either through vows of poverty, disavowal of political action, or, in Tolstoy's case, disengagement with culture altogether. These men and women are to be commended.

"In history these Christian withdrawals from and rejections of the institutions of society have been of very great importance to both church and culture. They have maintained the distinction between Christ and Caesar, between revelation and reason, between God's will and man's."

Amen.

I have been drawn to this approach in the past and am drawn to it now. I dream of living a radical life and were it not for video games and girls I might pursue it more seriously. It seems to me that Christ is worth being radical for. Some people are radical Marxists or radical libertarians--that's fine--but those ideologies have very defined material ends, while Christ promises change and transformation that transcends politics, culture, and economics; affecting and saving the soul. He promises a new society, a new ethics, a new life, and a second chance for anyone who has failed. What a Man to follow radically!

But at times the 'radical' approach is not the right approach:

"Now that we have recognized the importance of the role played by anticultural Christians in the reform of culture, we must immediately point out that they never achieved these results alone or directly but only through the mediation of believers who gave a different answer to the fundamental question. Not Tertullian (a radical), but Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Ambrose, and Augustine initiated the reformation of Roman culture. Not Benedict, but Francis, Dominic, and Bernard of Clairvaux accomplished the reform of medieval society often credited to Benedict...in every case the followers did not so much compromise the teachings of the radicals as follow another inspiration than the one deriving from an exclusive loyalty to an exclusive Christ (against culture)."

Augustine, Francis, and the other followers took ideas and values from the radical approach and used them to engaged culture. They saw tremendous change. Whole countries, whole empires became more just and more God-fearing because of their work.

Now, I'm trying to figure out how I want to live my life, and I keep getting pulled back to this desire to be a radical Christian. For some reason, I can't pull it off. I try to be a radical, but lose my desire after about 45 minutes. It seems like I just wasn't made to be a radical. In light of this struggle, I appreciate Niebuhr. Perhaps I can live for Christ as a radical-inspired non-radical. Perhaps I can take the ideas of Benedict and St. Antony and apply them in the context of my normal life. And as Niebuhr suggests, perhaps living this way I can have more of an impact than if I were a radical.

What do you think?

a kinder, but still shrewd, manager

(A couple of weeks ago I posted about the parable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16. I meant for this post to be the start of a three part shrewd manager series. Here's part 2.)

Davidthird comes from my position in my family. My dad's name is David, my grandfather's name is David, so I am David the third. Davidthird.

This post is about David the first, David Edgar Dilworth, or Grandpa D. He was a great servant of the church, first as a missionary, then as a theology professor, and finally as a pastor. Grandpa D passed away four years ago this week, and as a memorial I wanted to share a story of the shrewd manager in his life.

My Grandpa suffered from neuropathy, a disease that affected the nerves in his extremities. The disease became so bad that he could hardly move his hands or feet toward the end of his life; regardless, he taught classes at a church in La Canada every week until he was 82. He would roll into the classroom with his walker a few minutes before class. A few times he asked me to write some notes for him on the white board, but frequently he taught without notes--for his class and for himself. His final series of classes, the ones I remember best, were on the parables of Jesus, and he knew them so well that he did not need notes.

It worked out that he taught on the parable of the shrewd manager just a few weeks after I had studied the passage in my dorm. I was surprised at the timing--I had not heard of the parable in eighteen years of life, and suddenly it had popped up twice in one month. He began his exegesis slowly, constructing the world in which the shrewd manager lived and then walking his students through the sticky text of the parable. He took his time, savoring the text and the students. Grandpa D loved the Bible, and he used quiet charm and disarming smile to teach others to love it too.

But his charm did not cause him to mince words--I think especially in his old age. He knew that Jesus was serious when he said, "No servant can serve two masters...You cannot serve both God and money." So in his calm, compelling way, he called the class to conviction, and the room grew silent--La Canada is a wealthy place.

Grandpa D could have shied away from this last verse, shielding himself from the class's forthcoming hard questions and criticism, but he did not. My Grandpa did not draw his worth and his purpose from the class's approval, though he frequently had it; neither did he draw his worth from money, though he was not poor. He lived for a higher honor, which he has now received.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

a basement, a shrewd manager, a conversion

I joined a Bible study in the basement of my dorm during my first semester at Pomona College. But I'm not entirely sure why. I guess I was spiritually interested. I was involved in a lot of different activities as a freshman, and Bible study seemed like a good addition.

My church in Portland had been a liberal Presbyterian church. We didn't study the Bible much, and there were a lot of members who didn't believe in Christ's unique ability to save. Nonetheless, I was a spiritually confident freshman, and I came to Bible study assuming that I knew everything about Jesus and the Bible. I was, of course, wrong in my assumption. The Bible and this group slowly opened my eyes to a number of my misconceptions about Christ and spirituality.

My Bible study leader's name was Amber. My first impression of her was her height--she was pretty short (well, I mean, she was...); my next impression was her demeanor--she was quiet, a history major who liked to study (I think she's getting a PhD. now, studying the history of the Holocaust). We met in her tiny dorm room in the basement, and we studied the parables of Jesus. Amber started us out on the well known parables: the Good Samaritan, the Talents. She did a great job of pulling out the nuance and mystery of what Jesus was saying, and I began to appreciate the depth of each parable. Jesus' teachings had begun to scratch at my heart.

After a few weeks we came to the Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-15, click here for the passage). I read the passage, and the group began to discuss. Amber, in her quiet but forceful way, would not let us settle for a simple explanation of the text. No, Jesus was not saying that we should cheat and connive like the Manager, and no, He also wasn't saying that the Manager was just a jerk--Jesus had a deeper lesson for our group and for me.

I was utterly confused. That night was my first experience of being confounded by the Bible (I think not understanding the Bible can be a good thing). I remember that night was the first time I prayed: "Jesus, what the heck are you trying to say?"

Slowly, He made himself clear. Jesus was addressing the idea of stewardship. We gain wealth, possessions, and power in this life, and there are many different ways to spend these resources. Jesus says, "Use them for the one thing that will not pass away!" When this teaching sunk in, I was left humbled. Jesus was saying something profound through this passage, and I had missed it entirely. In his own meek way, Jesus showed me that my SAT scores and hot grades meant very little when trying to understand the Kingdom of God. His wisdom is different than the kind of knowledge I was learning in school. I could be brilliant and still miss the point.

That night God converted my mind. He convinced me that the Bible is mysterious but true and that I can trust what is written there. It would take another seven months to convert my heart (that's another story), but this study in Amber's dorm room was crucial to God's victory in my life.

Thank you Jesus for your mysterious wisdom. Thank you Amber for not letting me settle.