Category: Editor’s Introduction

This issue of Cultural Encounters resulted from the autumn 2010 conference “Two Wailing Walls and the Peoples of Promise” hosted by The Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins of Multnomah Biblical Seminary at Multnomah University. This issue, like the conference itself, has not been easy to coordinate. There are many complexities bound up with the long-standing conflict in the Middle East involving the State of Israel and the Palestinian community. Coupled with these complexities are the religious and political realities here in the United States. What is required is nuance rather than rigid black and white thinking. Hopefully, the conference proceedings and this issue of the journal will make people more aware of this situation’s complexities. Given that the Evangelical tradition in which our institution is situated has often favored the State of Israel over the Palestinians and has not generally attended to the Palestinian people’s concerns—Christian and Muslim Palestinians alike—we have given special consideration to the plight of the Palestinians. Nonetheless, all sides in the conflict are responsible for the current state of affairs in one way or another (including you and me in some form). Therefore, everyone has something to bring to the table of reconciliation and peace. In order to have reconciliation and peace, it is important that all pertinent voices are represented. To that end, we have tried to engage as many representatives as possible in the space available.

In what follows, we have included some of the presentations from the 2010 conference along with articles and reflections that we believe complement and expand upon the discussion. We begin with an article I wrote that is intended to show the relevance of the topic to all parties concerned, including you and me. Cultural Encounters is not simply about understanding issues, but also about engaging them in such a manner that we are transformed in the process—theologically and personally—in view of Scripture and the triune God’s actions in the world.

We then move from the theological and personal to the political realities on the ground. David Austin served as the Executive Director of the State Department’s Interfaith Cooperative Initiative in the Holy Land on a multi-year outreach to the religious leaders there in support of the peace process. Those leaders from various religions involved in the exchanges understood that the political crisis included religious dimensions and that the religious factors must be accounted for in pursuit of a peaceful resolution to the conflict. While seeking to move beyond partisan politics, Austin reveals to us how narrow and one-sided the perspective of many has been and just how bad things are on the ground.

Moving from the political realities on the ground, we turn our attention to Arab Evangelical Christian Tony Maalouf ’s article, in which he provides many of us with new lenses on how to view the issue from the vantage point of Scripture. Hopefully, we are all willing—regardless of our perspective—to take up Maalouf ’s challenge to shape our theology and our approach to the issues before us in light of Scripture. In my experience, this is often easier said than done. Maalouf, Austin, and the rest of this issue’s participants should go a long way toward making us uneasy, moving us beyond status quo thinking, and toward status confessionis in terms of missional living as we learn how to love our neighbors as ourselves. Ultimately, our gospel witness is at stake in how we approach this subject. This issue of Cultural Encounters is intended to give genuine consideration to the need for orthopraxy, not simply orthodoxy.

Given the context, the discussion of the situation would be incomplete without consideration of the topic by self-professed Jewish and Dispensationalist Christians. Judith and Paul Rood have tackled the issue of Christian Zionism and claim that the crisis of contemporary Christian Zionism is based on bad praxis rather than bad theology. Regardless of one’s theological orientation, those concerned over the claims of many Christian Zionists regarding the conflict will welcome the Roods’ challenge to contemporary Christian Zionists to rethink their practice in view of Scripture and alternative approaches.

Moving beyond current events, Mae Cannon and Brad Harper provide us with valuable historical perspectives on the subject: Cannon on the Mainline Protestant approach to the conflict and Harper on the Dispensational-Premillennialist approach to the subject. Too often, we allow our immersion in our contemporary context to dismiss history as if it has nothing to teach us. What Cannon and Harper reveal to us is that history constantly informs our present discussions and can bring valuable perspective to the issues at hand.

Hindsight is often if not always 20/20. Thus, it is important that we account for biblical, theological, personal, political, and historical factors. Rabbi Daniel Isaak brings all these together in his enlightening interview. His remarks, along with those provided by the diverse and discerning contributors to the “Diverse Perspectives” section, assist us in our efforts to approach the conflict with greater insight and a balanced perspective.

I will return to the conflict between the State of Israel and the Palestinians at the close. Before doing so, it is important to draw attention to the “Cultural Reflections” section. There we have discussed matters pertaining to Islam. While the pieces in this section do not have direct bearing on the “Two Wailing Walls” conference theme, they are not unrelated. Given that so many people in the West have a deficient understanding of Islam and Muslims—often viewing them as terrorists—and given that such distorted thinking often influences our approach to the Middle East conflict, we thought it appropriate to provide alternative perspectives and approaches to engaging Muslims. Muslim leaders Richard Reno and Harris Zafar discuss the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s noble efforts to combat terrorism. It is the neighborly thing to hear from Muslims rather than to try to speak for them. Thus, we support their courageous efforts to foster neighborliness in a culture often gripped by fear and suspicion. Further to this mission of neighborliness, Christian U.S. Army chaplains Gordon Groseclose and Steven Hokana share their exemplary approach to engaging Muslim soldiers, one that is truly hospitable. In a searching reflection, Islamic scholar Daniel W. Brown analyzes the concept of Islamophobia and calls us to move beyond the rhetoric of fear to embrace a common language of virtue that celebrates hospitality. Among other things, hospitality involves loving our neighbors as ourselves, moving us beyond sound bite rhetoric, shouting matches, and condemnation—thus moving toward open, sustained conversations, and building connections where walls come down, healing occurs, and trust is built.

Cornelia Seigneur’s engaging feature story on Leonard Rodgers introduces us to a model neighbor. Rodgers has dedicated his life to advocating for the Palestinians and seeking a just peace that benefits all people involved in the conflict: Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. What has amazed me about Leonard is his tenacity to love, even though it costs him dearly. His kind of advocacy work is not popular among many mainstream conservative Evangelicals. But I have observed that Rodgers is driven by Scripture and the model of the Good Samaritan, rather than opinion polls. It is no wonder then, that Rodgers is balanced in his remarks and broad in his engagement. He models the depth of proverbial wisdom and compassionate witness that are required today. Given these qualities, we dedicate this issue to him.

Pithy proverbs rather than sound bites flow from the mouth of the ultimate good neighbor, Jesus, who pours out his life for “the other.” Sound bites about this or any conflict are often simplistic and generally lead to crude responses that isolate and dehumanize those not like us and those whom we don’t like. Proverbial statements, on the other hand, cause us to long for greater wisdom and take to heart what God requires of each of us, so that we look the other in the eye, and he or she becomes one with us, and we become equals. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Mt 5:9); and “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (Mt 5:38–39). A statement attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, who is known to have been inspired by Jesus’ sermon, also bears mentioning here: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Bearing these proverbial statements in mind, the State of Israel and the Palestinians should both care deeply about the peace process—hatred blinds everyone. In view of these and other claims, the rest of us should care as well, for the Israel/Palestinian conflict has a bearing on all of us here and abroad. Whether we are concerned for religion and eschatology pertaining to what many call the Holy Land, or politics and foreign policy in the Middle East, these issues concern us. Not only does the conflict impact the United States in terms of its policy initiatives and its leadership role in that region, but also it reveals how difficult it is for us personally to pursue peace with our enemies who live next door in our neighborhoods, or down the hall in our places of work. Put any of us living in the East or West (or in my case the seemingly tolerant Pacific Northwest) in a similar situation to what is transpiring in the Middle East and we would likely react in a similar manner. As difficult as it is to pursue reconciliation, we can all learn how to be better neighbors based on what transpires there. Blindness and ignorance resulting from hatred or mere tolerance (indifference) is never bliss, whereas enlightenment resulting from a just love promotes peace.

—Paul Louis Metzger, Editor

What do individual and communal ethics, pro-life and pro-choice, pre-modern and post-modern, secular and sacred, Evangelical and Catholic, and Armstrongism and Trinitarianism have in common? They are all topics addressed in this issue of Cultural Encounters.

This is an issue of contrasts and of building bridges in search of resolution. African theologian and ethicist Samuel Kunhiyop shares with us the importance of reframing ethics to affirm the communal reality of the good life and ethical development. Pro-life ethicist Steven Tracy looks for common ground with prochoice advocates on how to reduce abortions, while challenging the pro-life camp to become expansively and consistently pro-life. Jon Robertson bridges the worlds of the pre-modern and post-modern as he weds Athanasius’ understanding of interpretation with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s model of the two horizons, calling on
contemporary readers of texts to see themselves as participants rather than as detached critics and observers. David Congdon and his respondents Ray Lubeck and Matt Jenson investigate the potential significance of Guillermo del Toro’s secular films for the sacred dimension of life, comparing the formerly Catholic del Toro’s work to Catholic theologian William Cavanaugh’s writings on theopolitics. Peter Casarella, Timothy George, and Mark Noll share their insights on what Catholics and Evangelicals can learn from one another, and how they can work together in our contemporary and (in many circles) increasingly secular culture. Lastly, Joseph Tkach of Grace Communion International (formerly the Worldwide Church of God) shares the powerful story of how this formerly non-Trinitarian and moralistic movement has evolved toward a robust Trinitarian faith and a relational, grace-filled view of the Christian life.

It is so easy in our contemporary context to label, write off, and box in this or that person or group in our frantic attempts to advance our own individual and subcultural causes, and in order to increase our market share. For all our talk of relationships and love, we do not think communally enough. Our actions often
betray the misguided belief that we are fitted for an isolated life; but whether we know it or not, we only exist in relation to others. Thus, it is best that we enter into dialogue with those who do not necessarily agree with our individual and subcultural causes, not compromising biblical convictions in doing so, but looking
to be expanded and transformed through our encounters with those from other cultures and continents (such as Africa); with those who take different stances on the human unborn in search of values that are truly life affirming; and with liberals, moderates, and those more conservative than ourselves; and with those
across the religious spectrum.

Not long ago, I was asked to serve on a panel addressing the environment, economics, and spirituality at a conference on the environment held at a secular university. I was there as the token Evangelical. We were asked to define the ‘good life’ from the standpoint of our professions and respective traditions. During my
time of reflection, I drew from Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan, who cared for his enemy when the man’s own people wouldn’t care for him. Based on the principle that Jesus sets forth in the story, I answered that the good life involves living in community with people from very different and even opposing viewpoints
to our own. Just as the Jewish religious leader to whom Jesus spoke was shocked that Jesus used a lowly Samaritan to epitomize for him what loving one’s neighbor was all about, so too we may be shocked when God uses people from very different backgrounds—including conservatives and liberals, secularists and pre-moderns, among others, to challenge us to think again and live anew. After I had finished speaking, I was struck in particular by one student’s response. He had never heard Jesus’ words recorded in Luke 10 about being stretched to love one’s neighbors who have alternative belief systems and lifestyles, and thought that story was the most profound news he had ever heard on the subject. Unfortunately, like the religious leader with whom Jesus spoke, I do not always respond so openly and positively to Jesus’ hard teachings.

You would think that Joseph Tkach and the people of Worldwide Church of God would never have been opened to being stretched and transformed, but they were and are now, as Grace Communion International. I have rarely come across a group so intentional about living into the Trinitarian mystery of God. It should
work both ways—we should be open to learning from those outside the fold. Steven Tracy, a conservative Christian ethicist, has learned a great deal from those on the other side of the aisle and has been challenged to be more consistent in his affirmation of life. He tells us at the outset of his essay on abortion, originally
delivered at a secular university, that an academic from the other side remarked of being ostracized while growing up in a conservative church for raising concerns over justice issues. The academic added that he/she would have never left the church if the community had modeled Tracy’s irenic and expansive presentation
on an ethic that is all-encompassing in its affirmation of life.

Samuel Kunhiyop’s African perspective and insights demonstrate that far from being the ‘Dark Continent’, African tradition has much to teach us about living well and loving our neighbor in the overly individualistic and supposedly enlightened West. David Congdon seeks after truth through “secular parables of the kingdom,” found in popular culture—and together with Matt Jenson and Ray Lubeck, he offers important reflections on how to assess the truth claims made in film. Congdon, Jenson, and Lubeck don’t always agree, but they all affirm that all truth is God’s truth, from whatever quarter of society. Pope Benedict XVI’s recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (“Love in Truth”) occasioned the two discussions involving Catholic and Evangelical theologians. I have much hope for the kind of ecumenical dialogue evidenced by Peter Casarella, Timothy George, and Mark Noll, dialogue that moves through rigorous concern for doctrinal truth in a spirit of love.

As you read this issue of Cultural Encounters, I would encourage you to reflect carefully in view of Jon Robertson’s piece: do not stand back as a neutral observer, disengaged and critical, but be open with your convictions and the presuppositions you bring to the table, drawing from your tradition while remaining open to transformation in view of the triune mystery of God disclosed in Scripture, which is at the center of our journal’s aim.

—Paul Louis Metzger, Editor

Where do we locate authority? In Scripture, the Spirit, a brand name product, how much stuff we own, a sports celebrity, Jesus? And what happens when we locate authority in Scripture? Do we marginalize those who can’t reason their way through Scripture the way we do? Do we end up minimizing the visual Arts, as many Word-focused iconoclasts did in the Reformation period? If we locate authority in the Spirit, does that mean anything goes? If we make room for blogging like we did the printing press, theology will be accessible to more and more people. Once again, does that mean anything goes? Even so, who blogs? Those who can pay to have a voice, who have the luxury of time to write? Does blogging, or your theology for that matter, provide a platform and a microphone for the voiceless to speak? If the medium is the message, how does the medium shape us? These are the types of issues that I hope you will grapple with, as you read this issue of Cultural Encounters.

John Franke’s essay explores the relationship of the Word and the Spirit, and the ways in which we approach Scripture. Franke investigates the locus of authority in the church’s life, and explores the import of his assertion that the Spirit speaks through culture today for the church and theology. Franke argues that “the Spirit always speaks through culture and that what we have in the texts of Scripture constitutes a particular instantiation of the speaking of the Spirit that is deemed normative in the life of the church by virtue of the particular act of the Spirit in inspiring these texts,” yet without the process resulting in the “divinization” of the words of Scripture. Albert Baylis and Brad Harper offer responses to Franke’s essay, affirming such features as his call for theological discourse that is culturally and ethnically sensitive and the emphasis on the importance of theological humility. They also raise questions over authority, calling attention to the need for appropriate safeguards against “anything-goes relativism” (Baylis) and suggesting that the Triune God is a culture and that the inspired Bible “is never only a construct of human culture, but is directly related to the unchanging universal ‘culture’ that is the Trinitarian God,” whom we engage dialectically in culture (Harper). In his rejoinder, Franke addresses the subject of how to reconstitute interpretation and authority to create space for other voices, and not totalizing the majority culture’s claims; otherwise, a certain cultural reading of Scripture will (continue to) marginalize other approaches.

Ben Myers’ essay affirms the role of blogging in theology, celebrating the way(s) in which it fosters community and opens the door for those outside the scholarly guild to participate. Certainly, blogging opens the door to theological discourse for those Franke is most concerned about: those embracing minority perspectives against the backdrop of a theological-cultural hegemony. While affirming blogging’s ability to create a friendlier environment for theological discourse, Robb Redman speaks of the need for an ecclesial context for blogging in his response, arguing that theology is first and foremost the domain of the church. This ecclesial dimension must also be accompanied by the personal renewal or transformation of theologians themselves.

Dan Siedell and Martin French speak of the significance of the Arts for human life, the artist’s quest, knowledge, and our relationship with God. French calls for the liberation of the church from its bondage to the mediocre, predictable, and half-hearted. The church does not have to reclaim the Arts, for creativity is deeply Christian. In keeping with Siedell’s claims, we need to participate in God’s creative venture in the fullness of the Spirit in view of the Logos who reveals himself in the logos of art. For Siedell, “Nicene Christianity is not confined to the religion room. It is the foundation of the cosmos. It is the building that houses the rooms of ‘art,’ ‘religion,’ and countless other cultural practices. And it also provides the hallway that connects them.” The theological engagement of culture that occurs in the hallways and byways is never fixed and static, but is ever in process, dynamic, and occurs through dialogue and conversation.

A thread that unites the various essays and responses to this point is the necessary role of dialogue and conversation in the contemporary theological enterprise. If we are truly to be open and inviting and guarding against quenching the Spirit, we will engage in theological discourse relationally and dynamically, where all ecclesial communities have the opportunity to be heard, as theologians are renewed by the Spirit, centered in Christ and grounded in Scripture in the ongoing pursuit of the Trinitarian God’s vision for the true, the good, and the beautiful.

The unholy Trinity of consumerism—commodification, alienation and branding, which Skye Jethani discusses, is often neglected by church leaders, and to the detriment of authentic Christian community. In our day, people often find their identity in the consumption of stuff, attaching themselves to a market brand, replacing one thing with a coveted other, rejecting the sacred in favor of the profane, and reducing human value to its perceived benefit to the market and the law of consumer preference. Jethani in his article on consumerism and Rick McKinley in his interview with Braxton Alsop and Richard Fox on the Advent Conspiracy explore how the consumption of stuff may indeed consume our souls and destroy relational presence and meaning in life. Providentially, Jethani and McKinley are being joined by an increasing number of other Christian voices who realize that our gospel witness should not focus on the sensational or be reduced to sound bites. Together they realize that we must speak and live more holistically. Otherwise, we will find that we no longer speak with authority—at Christmas and throughout the year.

A faulty sense of authority leads a sports celebrity to force his faith on others in a public arena; those gathered are a captive audience and not necessarily a receptive one. USA Today writer and public discourse expert Tom Krattenmaker explores how Christian athletes can speak more authoritatively by speaking less forcefully and more holistically. Though Krattenmaker and I inhabit different worldviews in terms of doctrine, I find him to be one of my most thoughtful dialogue partners, opening my imagination to ways in which the eternal Logos who became flesh as Jesus Christ manifests himself today.

The best public discourse will most often take place as we meet in hallways, on blogs, listening to minority or marginalized voices rather than drowning them out with our sound bites and covering them over with our bumper stickers and Jesus decals. We conservative Christians will gain respect and speak with authority when we practice what we preach, not forcing others across the cultural spectrum to listen to us, but gaining the right to be heard as we listen to our enemies and lay our lives down for them—becoming miniature words enfleshed.

—Paul Louis Metzger, Editor

A Christ-follower does not need to be a Kuyperian to resonate with Abraham Kuyper’s claim that, “There is not a single inch of the whole terrain of our human existence over which Christ…does not exclaim, ‘Mine’.” But the Christ-follower in question certainly needs to be wary of modernist attempts to privatize and westernize spirituality. Christ’s lordship and reign from God’s throne has a bearing on all spheres and cultural domains, including architecture, fashion, race/ethnicity, and housing. These are the subjects addressed in this issue of Cultural Encounters.

Unfortunately, the church in the West has so often been shaped by the surrounding culture that it theoretically and/or experientially reduces Christ’s lordship to the private sphere of the soul and individualized affections. In contrast to this problematic orientation, God’s love poured out in and through the reigning Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit into our hearts and lives is intended to impact every aspect of thought and life, including the sciences, humanities, arts, and our multi-faceted relations with one another.

The Lord Jesus who reigns from God’s throne relativizes all human and cultural initiatives, placing checks on our various ambitions and drives—all the way up to the Caesars and all the way down to the common woman and man. Moreover, his reign at God’s right hand also particularizes and gives credence to cultural activities under his lordship as the one who became incarnate in human culture as a Jewish man.

In the biblical world of Revelation 4 and 5, the casting down of God’s creatures’ crowns in worship discussed in this issue is not ultimately a statement of crowns going out of fashion, but rather, as Josh Butler maintains, a claim that all authority belongs to the triune God and that the Caesars must ultimately submit to him. The triune God’s throne signifies the relativizing of all other rule, and also says something of the significance of sacred space now and in eternity as it bears witness to God’s story of salvation.

It is important that we take seriously the significance of God’s throne in worship, and with it architectural forms; they are not window dressing, but constitutive of the faith and are central features of the biblical drama. Butler and Nicholas Choy help us see more clearly how far we have come from the biblical worldview in privatizing and spiritualizing the faith, failing to see how sacred space truly matters. As Choy makes clear, “the environmental backdrop of the Biblical narrative is not an amorphous black stage cloth;” and so “the architectural production of the church should not be mute or indifferent.” Robert Covolo’s essay takes it one step further by bringing Kuyper’s Dutch Reformed worldview to bear on the world of fashion, offering us an important framework for reflecting on fashion, even while going beyond the great Reformed theologian of culture at points. Keep in mind that if we simply dismiss the topic as irrelevant, we will only give further opportunity for its autonomy in the realm of industry and society at large that reduces this form of creative expression to base commodification and consumerism. On the other hand, when granted proper space within limits, fashion can bear profound witness alongside architecture and other cultural forms to the manifold glory of the triune God.

Contrary to popular—white—opinion, multi-ethnic and racial concerns are not really in politically correct style, at least not on a wide-scale structural level. Sure, we have a black President in the White House. But multi-ethnic and minority-expressed Christianity in the West does not receive the attention it deserves biblically or culturally in centers of ecclesial and academic power. As Soong-Chan Rah makes clear, the church is growing in the West, regardless of what the doomsayers say, but the true growth is not really among young, white Emergents, but ultimately among the emerging multi-ethnic and minority churches that are springing up all over the place. People from every tribe and nation will worship at God’s throne, not just those of this or that demographic. Because this will be the case in the triune God’s eschatological kingdom, it is exciting when we see it occurring across the land. It is important that we account for this phenomenon and make sure that our ecclesial and Christian academic institutions reflect this reality—which is not a fashion trend but a movement of God’s Spirit—so that they move forward in faithfulness and don’t get left behind.

Adam McInturf’s interview with J. Kameron Carter grounds the discussion of race and ethnicity theologically—where the ultimate case needs to be made if we are to recover lost ground in the Western church and Christian academy. So many of us, including me, are largely blind to the westernizing forces that have impacted negatively our reception of the Gospel; and yet, the Western church is often viewed as the great ambassador of Christianity to the world. Among other things, we need to realize that the Lord Jesus was and is not only the Lord God Almighty but also the Jewish Messianic man, the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham—the Father of the people of God’s covenantal promise, which is not limited by skin pigmentation or DNA. As such, Jesus is the interracial human. Taking Jesus in his covenantal particularity and universality seriously helps us move beyond the gulf of racism and racialization that is endemic of the Western Christian experience.

Taking Jesus as Messiah seriously also assists us prophetically in confronting the fashionable custom of usury present today in the American housing crisis. Jill Shook brings Jubilee justice to bear on the uphill battle our society faces in providing affordable housing to people in need. The Jesus we find in Luke 4 in the house of worship reading from Isaiah’s scroll and saying that the ultimate year of Jubilee has now appeared in his Spirit-endowed person means that we must take seriously the plight of the poor and that we must get beyond our religious barriers of prejudice, something his audience in the synagogue was unwilling to do, as illustrated by their violent reaction to Jesus’ message recorded in Luke 4.

I find it exciting to read the prophetic, biblically-framed words of an activist for affordable housing like Shook and a theologically-trained architect like Choy speak of the need to build housing structures (Shook) and houses of prayer as church-houses (Choy) that reflect the biblical world’s call for hospitality and new community. The new community that is opened up to us in view of Jesus reigning from God’s throne—signifying that, “There is not a single inch of the whole terrain of our human existence over which Christ…does not exclaim, ‘Mine’”—is not one that violently excludes the orphan and widow, the homeless or the alien, the majority or minority culture person, the Black, Asian, First Nation, Hispanic, or White for one’s own kind of people. Rather, God invites all of them to enter into the household of faith of the kingdom of his Son, bearing their Occidental and Oriental and other cultural treasures, speaking in various tongues and radiant raiment befitting the manifold glory of God that will never go out of fashion.

—Paul Louis Metzger, Editor

Historic Christian orthodoxy has profound resources from which to draw in its engagement of contemporary culture. I can think of no greater grounds and motivation for engaging culture in its beauty and brokenness than that the transcendent and eternal God has determined that the Word become human flesh and blood as Jesus of Nazareth in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The four essays in the “Articles” section of this issue of Cultural Encounters deal with incarnational themes where God Almighty addresses our situation, not standing over against the world, but transforming it from the inside out through the incarnate, crucified, and risen Son in the Spirit. Whether we are dealing with writers and moviemakers of fiction, systematic theologians, or missiologists and missionaries, the same truths come into play. And no matter what one’s views on religion are, religion broadly defined as addressing ultimate questions of life and love, power and passion, still plays a definitive role in many if not all cultural works. What matters more than anything from our perspective at Cultural Encounters is the presence or absence of Trinitarian patterns of God’s engagement of the world in Christ in the Spirit, explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously.

Take for example what Grant Macaskill says of the works of Philip Pullman and Hal Duncan. In both their works, religion plays a key role in the flourishing or disfiguring of human identity. To take the former, Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy involves anti-religious themes, where religion plays a coercive role. Far from dismissing Pullman’s critique of religion though (or Duncan’s either), Macaskill says that the church should acknowledge and repent of its power play moves manifested throughout history up to the present time rather than deny such actions. Still, Macaskill notes that Jesus does not play a central role in Pullman’s work; if he did, the question remains for me, what difference would Jesus’ presence make for his view of religion? More importantly, what difference would Christ’s identity and presence make for the church, if Jesus were to have the central place in our theology and ethical practice? Contrary to all those critiques of Pullman’s work in view of The Golden Compass that fault him for his anti-religious themes, we the church need to critique ourselves and learn what it means to preach and model existence in view of Christ crucified and risen. In conclusion, Macaskill writes, Pullman’s and Duncan’s works “must be engaged by the voice of Christ, speaking through a Church that is the embodiment of Christ crucified in this world. For such a response to be made, however, the Church itself must come to terms with the challenge of preaching not just ‘Christ,’ but ‘Christ crucified’ and, indeed, ‘Christ risen.’”

The same gospel of the crucified and risen Lord in the power of the Spirit centers Brent Laytham’s reflections on the movie Pleasantville. Our inhuman will to power inside and outside the church keeps us from experiencing life in its fullness. Throwing off all external limits on human freedom, our Pelagian conviction that “we can do it” thwarts us from ever living a truly meaningful existence. Laytham argues that whereas this fantasy movie would have us believe the fiction that we can create our own destiny, the gospel makes clear that human flourishing can only be achieved as we dwell in the Father through the Son by the Spirit’s power. The Son is our “proper form” and the Spirit the “formative power” through whom the Father transforms us into the Son’s likeness. Modern day Adams and Eves would have good grounds for wariness of God’s ordering of creaturely life if God imposed limits on us from the outside as an outside authority figure, removing from us the possibility of authentic freedom; but the gospel makes clear that God realizes our human freedom in his authoritative workings through Christ in the Spirit in history. While all kinds of people exercise external power in the name of God, oppressing others and undermining their authentic existence, leading them to seek to save themselves from false deities, the triune God’s power is authoritative in that he enters lovingly into our history through the Son and Spirit to empower us to live life to the full in relation to him.

Macaskill and Laytham address particular literary and cinematographic works in view of the God revealed in Christ Jesus through the Spirit. Scientific theologian Thomas F. Torrance’s reflections on the creation in view of the Trinitarian God make possible a robust theology of culture. Eric Flett’s essay claims that the “permission” for calling Torrance a theologian of culture derives from “his doctrine of God as triune Creator, his doctrine of creation as contingent, and his doctrine of humanity as a mediator of order and priest of creation,” among other things. I will leave it to the reader to follow the various lines of Flett’s nuanced argument that leads him to this conclusion. My aim here is to highlight Trinitarian trajectories that I believe resonate with Flett’s proposal, while differing from his and Torrance’s paradigm. In keeping with what has been argued so far in this introduction, creaturely life and cultural products are best approached from within a theological framework that accounts for a God who is supremely personal and transcendent as well as immanent. As personal and transcendent, the triune God who is supremely other provides the necessary grounds for a theology of culture that awards space to the human creation within creaturely limits to be approached meaningfully in all its otherness without fear of theological hegemony; in addition, this personal God who is supremely other becomes immanent to history and culture through the Son and Spirit. As such, the triune God makes possible a theology of culture that sets forth the parameters for the cultural enterprise to be what it is intended to be from the inside out—through the instituting, constituting, and perfecting work of the Son and Spirit in history.

Not only does the triune God make possible the development of a theology of culture that safeguards the distinctive particularity of the human creation within creaturely limits and guides the human enterprise toward its perfected state through the actions of the Son and the Spirit in history, but also this God makes possible a missiological enterprise that safeguards authoritative biblical meaning on the one hand and conditions that meaning’s authentic reception in any given culture. The triune God is ultimately responsible for inspiring and preserving meaning in cultural works, including Scripture, and through the Son and Spirit this God makes it possible for each culture to engage God’s Word as the divinely inspired cultural work that it is in translations that account for the structures and language of each culture in all its uniqueness. The Word was made flesh in a specific cultural context, and through the Spirit that particularity is made particular to the plethora of human cultures with sensitivity and clarity. It is the “privileged” status of missional witnesses from the West to approach those peoples in places like Africa to which they are sent in humility and vulnerability, not from positions of power imposing dominant Western values and thought forms on them. In his article on linguistics and translation in the African context, Jim Harries argues that missional witnesses from the West are to become “incarnate” in the African cultures to which they go, learning the people’s languages and cultural anthropological structures so that they might serve as vehicles for the translation of God’s Word unadulterated and unadorned with Western trappings. As Harries says, “to seek a solution from the throes of Western academia in European languages is to postpone the call for African people to come to terms with their own ways of life and position in the world. Such postponement, if it continues to detract attention from key issues to its own invented solutions, could spell catastrophe for African societies in the years ahead.”

The first of the “Cultural Reflections” pieces comes to us from an African who serves as a missional witness to the West, revealing to us our individualism and calling the church in the West to live relationally and communally in view of our Trinitarian God. Drawing from John’s Gospel and the African notion of “Ubuntu” which conveys that our lives are inextricably bound up with one another, Amon Munyaneza prophetically calls on us in the West as well as those in his genocide-ravaged Africa to return to a conception of the self that includes the other rather than pressing on toward increasing independence and tribal exclusivity. Only as we engage Scripture from this standpoint and allow it to address us as the Trinitarian and communal book that it is in our concrete, individualistic, and consumerist brokenness in the West will we be able to move beyond our colonial and postcolonial subjugation of other peoples that in turn enslave us in our autonomy. The second reflection piece from Charlotte Graham takes us to Laurel, Mississippi, and her encounters as an African American with racism and oppression at the hands of white supremacists in overt and subversive ways. Her life story is a witness to us of someone who finds victory in Christ in the midst of victimization, and whose testimony puts flesh and blood on Macaskill’s theological point that “God gives himself over to death, victim and victor at once, showing solidarity with the other, the victim, and love for the enemy and showing definitively his expectation of the thought and conduct of his people.” The last of these reflection pieces by Daniel Fan addresses the subject of what Jesus really looks like: not well-to-do, nor a part of the majority culture, but poor, oppressed, and a minority. Fan ends his poem with the question— “Got room in your heart for my Jesus?” In keeping with Fan’s point, it’s so easy for each of us to read Jesus through the lenses of our cultural grid, imposing on him our own thought forms and practices, especially for those of us in the majority—those of us with power.

In the end, any theology of culture worthy of the name Trinitarian will make clear that all theological-cultural reflection begins with dying to imposing our Messianic ambitions on others and seeking to control their and our own destinies, and ends with rising to new life through the crucified and risen Jesus. Got room in your heart for this Jesus?

—Paul Louis Metzger, Editor