Why this journal? Cultural Encounters — A Journal for the Theology of Culture fills a significant need in the academic, theological world. There are many journals on theology, pastoral ministry and missions, but one would be hard-pressed to locate journals that offer a biblically based and trinitarianly framed engagement of contemporary culture.
This journal is about Christ-centered cultural encounters. How can theology truly be Christ-centered on the one hand and promote meaningful cultural engagement on the other hand? Is this a contradiction in terms? Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not seem to think so. The Bonhoeffer who claimed that, “The present is not where the present age announces its claims before Christ, but where the present age stands before the claims of Christ…” is the same Bonhoeffer who argued that, “…The word of the church to the world must…encounter the world in all its present reality from the deepest knowledge of the world, if it is to be authoritative.”
Perhaps the resolution to any apparent tension should follow the contours of biblical revelation: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” The eternal Word of God took on creaturely form, entering into the very fiber of this fallen though favored world in order to redeem and perfect it through the cross and resurrection. What philosophers, sages and kings would take to be foolishness and weakness are the wisdom and power of God. And this is where all true theological engagement of culture must begin.
— Paul Louis Metzger, Editor