Culture Blog of the Day - should Christians "evangelize"?

Should Christians "evangelize"? Should we try to get people to convert to "Christianity"? Should we call ourselves "Christian"? Friend Carl Medearis talks about these issues in this interesting CNN blog piece. Check it out, as well as all the comments.

Culture Quote of the Day - "God does not give a fig for Christianity"

These words are worth coming back to, letting them stand alone for our consideration:

“It is as Christians’ faith in God has weakened that they have busied themselves with Christianity; and as their personal relation to Christ has virtually lapsed that they have turned to religion for solace.”

“One has even reached a point today where some Christians can speak of believing in Christianity (instead of believing in God and in Christ); of preaching Christianity (instead of preaching good news, salvation, redemption); of practicing Christianity (instead of practicing love). Some even talk of being saved by Christianity, instead of by the only thing that could possibly save us, the anguish and the love of God.”

“A Christian who takes God seriously must surely recognize that God does not give a fig for Christianity. God is concerned with people, not with things. We read that God so loved the world that He gave His Son. We do not read anywhere that God loved Christianity.”

W.C. Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion

I would also add that the Bible does not say that "God so love the world that He gave us Christianity." God gave us Jesus, and life through Him.

Smith is a great scholar in the field of comparative religion, the one whose ideas I have found most helpful; and he is a “believer.” His book traces the development of the idea of religion, and of what have come to be known as specific religions – Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. (More details another time.)

Notice that Smith, in response to a process of reification and distancing of people from immediate experience to reflection on it (from a distance), is calling those who consider themselves “Christian” back to the immediate, experiential, essence of faith – believing in God and in Jesus Christ, preaching good news, salvation, redemption, practicing love, realizing that the anguish and love of God is what saves us. 

Is Christianity "Transcultural"?

“For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that Christianity is not the product of any one culture but is actually the transcultural truth of God. If that were the case we would expect that it would contradict and offend every human culture at some point, because human cultures are ever-changing and imperfect. If Christianity were the truth it would have to be offending and correcting your thinking at some place…”

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

Two questions arise in my mind, as I think about this quote.

1)      Should he (we) be talking about “Christianity,” or something else?

2)      What might be the nature of “transcultural truth” and how would it relate to culture (the human sociocultural context)?

Are we really talking about “Christianity”?

Here are some definitions which I found online at various sites, of “Christianity” (feel free to substitute your definition):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

Christianity (from the Ancient Greek word Χριστός, Khristos, "Christ", literally "anointed one") is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings. Adherents of the Christian faith are known as Christians.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/christianity

The religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Christianity

The Christian religion, founded on the life and teachings of Jesus.

These definitions call “Christianity” a religion based or founded on the life and teachings of Jesus or derived from Jesus based on the Bible.

My question is, where did it come from (either the concept of “Christianity” or the content of what we see as “Christianity,” or both)?

If people of faith are concerned with God – knowing Him, worshiping Him – then I presume we want to know what He has in mind for us, for humanity. Thus, I ask, did “Christianity” come from God? Is this what the New Testament is about, revealing a religion?

It seems to me that the essential message of the New Testament is that people can have life through Jesus (or, you might say, reconciliation to God through the forgiveness of our sins, based on faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus – but that is simply the detail of what it means to have life through Jesus). As I read it, the New Testament is not calling anyone to a religion, but to receiving life through Jesus, and learning to love God and love our neighbor, as we live in and through Him. (You can say more, but this is the heart of it.)

The Meaning and End of Religion

If you want a detailed discussion of the history of the ideas of “religion,” “Christian religion,” and “Christianity,” I recommend Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s excellent book, The Meaning and End of Religion. Here are just a couple of statements Smith makes, relevant to whether we should be talking about “Christianity”:

“It is as Christians’ faith in God has weakened that they have busied themselves with Christianity…”

“One has even reached a point today where some Christians can speak of believing in Christianity (instead of believing in God and in Christ); of preaching Christianity (instead of preaching good news, salvation, redemption); of practicing Christianity (instead of practicing love). Some even talk of being saved by Christianity, instead of by the only thing that could possibly save us, the anguish and the love of God.”

“A Christian who takes God seriously must surely recognize that God does not give a fig for Christianity. God is concerned with people, not with things. We read that God so loved the world that He gave His Son. We do not read anywhere that God loved [or gave] Christianity.”

“God, we have said, does not reveal a religion, He reveals Himself; what the observer calls a religion is man’s continuing response.”

W.C. Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion

(Can you understand, and if you consider yourself a “Christian” can you accept, what Smith is saying?)

So what should we (or Keller) be talking about, if not “Christianity”?

To address that question, let me ask, from the perspective of the New Testament, what might we say is “transcultural,” i.e., existing outside of and unbound by human culture? It seems to me that the answer must be God Himself; and given the New Testament teaching that Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, one with God (and the Spirit), I would add, Jesus. (The New Testament teaches that Jesus is alive today, that He lives in us and gives life to us; that He transforms our life as we follow Him. An implication of New Testament teaching is that He enters into different human (sociocultural) contexts, and impacts them from within.) We might also consider the Bible (or its message), as the inspired word of God, “transcultural,” with an origin and substance outside of or in some way apart from human agency.

This would be the essence, the content, the transcultural – God Himself, Jesus as one with the Father (the incarnate Word), and the message of God as revealed in the Bible.

In my opinion, the working out of the life of faith, e.g., the particulars of how we worship God, meet with other believers, even how we celebrate “Communion” or practice Baptism, how we organize community life (the church), etc., are cultural rather than transcultural – they are our working out of our life of following Jesus, in our sociocultural context (i.e., they are what we might call our “contextualization” of the life of God, as we follow Jesus).

Let me try rephrasing Keller’s quote,

“For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that [Jesus Christ and His teaching, or you could say the message of the Bible] is not the product of any one culture but is actually the transcultural truth of God. If that were the case we would expect that [Jesus or Jesus’s teaching or the message of the Bible] would contradict and offend every human culture at some point, because human cultures are ever-changing and imperfect. If [Jesus or Jesus’s teaching or the Bible] were the truth it would have to be offending and correcting your thinking at some place…”

The danger of the term “transcultural”

Finally, let me return to the idea of the transcultural. From an anthropological perspective, I am somewhat hesitant to use the phrase “transcultural,” because as I’ve heard people use the phrase, I have often heard it used to describe phenomena which are essentially cultural, but which are being promoted as being somehow outside of culture.

To be human is to be culture-bound, and one of the issues we face, I believe, as people of faith, is that we experience that which is of God with our human selves and context, and tend to deify what is of us (our understanding of God, of life, of the church, of how to live out aspects of faith like baptism or communion, etc.), proclaiming that what is our way of seeing and doing things, is “from God.” This is a constant danger, I think (look at what is done to others in the name of God), which we must guard against.

Nevertheless, if we believe in God, God Himself is obviously outside of human culture (though our understanding of Him is within our minds and language and thought forms and context).

People who do not believe in God might take issue with this idea of what they might see as “religious faith” (which they might see as a human construction) being “transcultural”; and they might deny the idea of the transcultural. In that, they are promoting a different view of reality, than that which people of faith experience. But to try to bridge the gap of worldview, I think a parallel could be other “reality” that we might think of existing outside of human culture, e.g., nature, and natural law. The “law of gravity,” for example, might be considered transcultural. Whatever people called it, or even if they didn’t acknowledge or talk about it, it would exist “out there” in reality. Peoples’ ways of talking about science and scientific principles and natural laws might vary (and thus, be connected to a cultural context), but the essence being understood and talked about could be seen as being transcultural.

To come back to Keller’s quote, then, I agree with the heart of what he is saying and aiming at (as I understand him), but think we need to be careful in our use of terms, and that talking about “Christianity” is misleading and does not help people to connect with what they really need to connect with, the reality of life in God through Jesus.

Culture Quote of the Day - "Christianity Isn't Culturally Rigid"

“Christianity is also reputed to be a cultural straitjacket. It allegedly forces people from diverse cultures into a single iron mold. It is seen as an enemy of pluralism and multiculturalism. In reality, Christianity has been more adaptive (and maybe less destructive) of diverse cultures than secularism and many other worldviews.

“The pattern of Christian expansion differs from that of every other world religion. The center and majority of Islam’s population is still in the place of its origin – the Middle East. The original lands that have been the demographic centers of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism have remained so. By contrast, Christianity was first dominated by Jews and centered in Jerusalem. Later it was dominated by Hellenists and centered in the Mediterranean. Later the faith was received by the barbarians of Northern Europe and Christianity came to be dominated by western Europeans and then North Americans. Today most Christians in the world live in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Christianity soon will be centered in the southern and eastern hemispheres.

[The author then gives two “case studies,” the growth of the Christian population of Africa and in China, and quotes Lamin Sanneh as to the appeal of Christian faith in Africa.]

“Why has Christianity, more than any other major religion of the world, been able to infiltrate so many radically different cultures? There is, of course, a core of teachings (the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments) to which all forms of Christianity are committed. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of freedom in how these absolutes are expressed and take form within a particular culture. For example, the Bible directs Christians to unite in acts of musical praise, but it doesn’t prescribe the meter, rhythm, level of emotional expressiveness, or instrumentation – all this is left to be culturally expressed in a variety of ways. Historian Andrew Walls writes:

Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith…in Acts 15, which declared that the new gentile Christians didn’t have to enter Jewish culture…. The converts had to work out…a Hellenistic way of being a Christian. [So] no one owns the Christian faith. There is no ‘Christian culture’ the way there is an ‘Islamic culture’ which you can recognize from Pakistan to Tunisia to Morocco…

“Contrary to popular opinion, then, Christianity is not a Western religion that destroys local cultures. Rather, Christianity has taken more culturally diverse forms than other faiths. It has deep layers of insight from the Hebrew, Greek, and European cultures, and over the next hundred years will be further shaped by Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Christianity may become the most truly ‘catholic vision of the world’ [A.J. Conyers], having opened its leadership over the centuries to people from every tongue, tribe, people and nation.”

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

Yes, this quote is long, and so will be my response to it.

Areas of Agreement

I agree with Keller on what I see as the heart of his argument – the adaptability (Sanneh uses the phrase “translatability”) of Christian faith, and that Christian faith (and Jesus himself) is not the enemy of pluralism or multiculturalism (that’s a topic for another post).

Corrections

His representation of Islam is not strictly accurate. Islam, like the Christian faith, spread over the centuries from its heartland to the “ends of the earth.” Islam, like the Christian faith, has had different peoples and cultures who were dominant in the worldwide community over time, from the Arabs to the Persians to the Turks and many others. Only perhaps 15% of the world’s Muslims are Arab. The largest Muslim nation today is Indonesia. The Muslims of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh comprise 30% of the world’s Muslims.  It is not correct to call “the Middle East” the area of Islam’s origin – the area of origin was clearly the Arabian Peninsula, and the expansion to other linguistic and cultural areas changed the Muslim community in significant ways over time.

Islam vs. Christian Faith

Having said that, I see some significant differences between Christian faith and Islam. I think that Muslims would agree that there is something of a “Muslim culture” – or at least there was, or there were significant elements of a culture, in the Shariah, which was understood as prescribing a total way of life, in all the details. I agree with Keller that there is no such thing as a “Christian culture.” This is one of the ways in which Christian faith differs from Islam. (Having said this, it is important to acknowledge that Islam, too, has adapted culturally in different regions of the world – the ethos / “feel” of Muslim life, though marked by similarities from one place to another, is also colored by local cultural flavor.)

As I read the New Testament, following Jesus is about inner transformation which works itself outwardly, but not through prescribed ways of living. The great commandment is to love God and to love one’s neighbor. The heart of Christian faith is thus relational – relationship with God, and relationship with others. What is prescribed is essence, not form – kindness, goodness, patience, honor, purity, etc., which can work themselves out in different ways, in different cultural contexts.

From a Muslim perspective, the Qur’an is defined by content and form – it is only truly the Qur’an in Arabic. A translation is typically referred to as “the meaning” of the Qur’an, but not as the Qur’an itself. Christians believe, in contrast, that the Bible is about content or essence, which can be translated into any language; and that God is able to speak to people through a translation in any language. This belief is partly rooted in the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), in which God did speak to people in their native languages. And it is also rooted, I believe, in the fact that the parts of the Bible were revealed through different languages, i.e., Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Thus, it was never bound to one particular language.

This is just to say that when it comes to Christian faith, it lends itself to a process of an inner essence being worked out in different contexts (what some refer to as “contextualization”).

Are we talking about “Christianity” or about something else?

Finally, I can’t avoid getting into the issue of whether what we’re really talking about is “Christianity.” I think not. Muslims do believe that God revealed the religion of Islam, that it exists, and that Muslims (and all people) are meant to know and follow the religion (though scholars like Wilfred Cantwell Smith will talk about the origins of Islamic religion the same way they talk about the origins of Christian religion, with a starting point of faith in God and belief in certain precepts and truths, and the gradual growth of the religion over time).

Do Christians believe the same about “Christianity”? I.e., do we believe in the existence (in the mind of God, I would suppose) of a religion, that was revealed to mankind through Jesus (and perhaps clarified by the Apostles and the early church)? I can make the sociological and historical argument for Christianity as a religion, but do we make the faith argument for it – that this was the intention of God? Or to put the question another way, did Jesus intend to start a religion? As a believer in and follower of Jesus, I don’t think so.

So, then, what are we talking about, if not “Christianity”? That, too, will have to wait for another post…