Believe Differently

I am not certain where I first heard this phrase – I think it might have been Brian Mclaren – but I am absolutely convinced that “there is no such thing as a culture neutral gospel”. All of our ideas concerning God, Christ and his Gospel have been apprehended within, and communicated though, a cultural context. Further, all of our modern day theological convictions are similarly culturally mediated. The Protestant cry of sola scripture is just plain daft. Scripture, at the end of the day, is just words and there is nothing more culturally bound than language.

Language is not only the medium through which we express our thoughts but it is also the medium in which we think our thoughts. It is that which brings structure to what would else be chaotic. All of our presuppositions and plausibility structures that enable us to interpret our world and scripture, or anything else for that matter, whether it be art, philosophy, music, or interestingly, a scientific theory etc., are culturally determined (for more in this connection, see my post entitled Relativity).

Assertions such as these bring consternation to some for whom scripture provides a “God’s eye view” of our world. Indeed, when I first came to this realization, it was more than a little unsettling. It happened when I went to study theology, back in what I would describe as my more fundamental days. I had chosen what I thought would be a challenge, a college that did not share any of my theological convictions. I went prepared to deal in a context that would test my understanding of the historicity, “accuracy” and inspiration of Scripture, but I was not prepared for the more radical post-modern epistemology which would ultimately put into question my whole understanding of the notion of truth.

The historicity of a biblical narrative became a mute question. Even if I could be sure that the genre of the text was intended to be historical – and I could by no means even be certain of that – I could neither trust the author’s(s’) interpretation of events, or my own modern interpretation of the text, as both readings would necessarily be the product of a particular political, ideological, theological, philosophical - insert your own “…tical” or “…gical” - perspective.

In this respect, exegesis is always eisegesis – we cannot help but read into scripture what we take out and any interpretation will include much more of ourselves than we are deft to realize. The reality is that the interpretation will be shaped by the interpreter and the interpreter will in turn be shaped by her context; she will only see in the passage what her culture tinted glasses enable her to see. It is our context that supplies our interpretative apparatus; we simply do not have unmediated access to reality.

For me though, I have now come to realize that this only presents an issue if culture is viewed negatively, as was the predominate view of the Christian tradition I grew up in. Culture was essentially a synonym for “world”, and we were to taught to be “in the world but not of the world” – one of those horrible Christian aphorisms I really don’t like very much. From this perspective, culture, AKA world, could only function negatively.

This view is not representative of wider Christian understanding(s) though. The historical and worldwide church has adopted a broad spectrum of positions in this respect. H. Richard Niebuhr, in his work entitled “Christ & Culture”, an essential read in this connection, identifies five broad categories of thought.1 Some, like that I grew up in, have considered themselves to be above culture, as it were, and to have an untainted understanding of the gospel – though in actual fact, though they may have naively considered themselves as such, they were of course, absolutely as soaked in culture as the rest of us - whilst others, at the opposite extreme, have tended to identify the gospel with culture. A good (bad) example of this position would be that of the church in Nazis Germany. Clearly, we would want to situate ourselves somewhere between these two extremes; realizing that whilst we cannot escape our culture, neither do we have to accept all that it teaches.

Niebuhr’s last category of engagement identifies “Christ [the] Transformer of Culture” and I think this is the view which makes most sense.2 According to this perspective, the church functions as a kind of prophetic voice; it is neither for nor against culture but prophetically judges everything. God is understood to be intimately involved within all human expression. He is seen as the inspiration behind the best of our human endeavour and can be recognised in its highest achievements.

From this perspective, it is our context that embodies the gospel and gives it a voice. Words do not simply join with words, verbal and cultural signifiers work in concert to supply meaning - a cultural neutral gospel, if such a thing could exist, would be speechless.

Accordingly, we must learn to hear God’s voice in all things. Not everything our context endorses will be of God but neither will everything be devoid of him.  We need to train our ears to listen and our minds to discern, and on those things in which we do recognize the divine, we must meditate. Saint Paul writes:

[W]hatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.3

1. H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ & Culture (New York: Harper Collins, 2001 [↩]
2. Niebuhr, Christ, 190 [↩]
3. Phil 4:8 [NASB] [↩]