Christ and Culture.
I read this the other day in a book that I’m reading. It blew me away. Read for yourself:
“The problem raised by Gnosticism regarding the relations of Christ to religion and of religion to culture became more rather than less acute with the development of so-called Christian civilization. There can be no doubt that medieval society was intensely religious, and that its religion was Christianity; yet the question of whether Christ was the Lord of this culture is not answered by reference to the pre-eminence of the religious institution in it, not even by reference to the pre-eminence of Christ in that institution. In this religious society the same problem about Christ and culture appeared that perplexed Christians in pagan Rome, and similarly divergent efforts at solution resulted.”1
If you’re a Christian and have ever been perplexed by the Scriptures that call us to be “in the world but not of it,” you are not alone. Seems we’ve always had this problem.
Update: My friend and fellow theologian, Dave, gently corrected me with the following: “I liked your posting this morning, but you ticked a pet peeve of mine… “in the world and not of it” is not actually a scripture. John 17:14-16 is probably closest, but as best I can tell “in the world not of it” was popularized by a My Utmost for His Highest reflection on Galatians 6:14. It might actually originally be a Sufi proverb (Islamic mystics).”
- Christ & Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr, pg. 89. [↩]
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