Rumors of Another World ...

Rumors of Another World is the name of a Philip Yancey book that I highly recommend. I borrowed the title for this blog entry because I think the message here captures a bit of the spirit of Yancey's book, to wit: to what extent do we bear witness to another world, i.e. the kingdom of God?

We still live in the world, but we are called to be as aliens or strangers in the world (1 Peter 2:11). We're supposed to march to a different drummer, be out of sync, out of step. None of this is is to be done to glorify ourselves. Rather, the daily direction we receive from God should be apparent to others (should they be paying attention) when we go into the world. Do you believe that?

The question for today, then, is:

How should we engage the culture in which we live; specifically, what should we do with songs, movies, activities, etc. that may run contrary to our beliefs as Christians?

Just to ground this in a real-life example, there is a film coming out soon, The Golden Compass, which is has been highly criticized by the conservative Christian community. Reviewers have asserted that: (1) the author of the trilogy on which the film is based is an atheist, (2) the books/film have an anti-church message, (3) the books are about "killing God" (a direct quote by the author during a 2003 interview in The Sydney Morning Herald). snopes.com, a website established to quash rumors of all sorts, validates all these assertions.

Now I haven't read the books; certainly I have not previewed the film, scheduled for release in December, 2007. How should I—more importantly, how should you—engage this work of art AND engage people who have seen the film/read the books and want to talk?

Richard Niebuhr in his famous book Christ and Culture, suggested five paradigms of how Christ interacted with culture (the implication being that these five options are available for us to follow as well). For Niebuhr, Christ & culture are a duality, just as law & grace, body & mind, or revelation & reason are dualities. In each of the five paradigms, how the dualities co-exist leads to a different Christian ethic:

Christ against culture: The dualities are mutually exclusive. It's a fallen world and, for us to be holy, we need to separate ourselves from the world. Adherents might say, "The Bible is the only book I need to read." By this logic, we would have nothing to do with the movie, and, if people asked our opinion about the movie, we would only quote the Bible to support our position.

Christ of culture: If Christ against culture is one extreme, this is the other. The dualities co-exist easily. If there is good in any culture, that goodness ultimately points back to Christ. Adherents might say, "God can be found in Koran, the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, the Torah, etc." By this logic, we would be open to watching the movie—deciding for ourselves if there was any good in it—and, if people asked our opinion about the movie, we would speak about what was good in the movie in terms of the movie.

Christ above culture: The dualities are vertical; Christ is over and above a fallen, sinful world. Christ comes down to humanity with gifts that humanity cannot attain without supernatural intervention. Whatever good may exist in a culture, the grace of God through Jesus is necessary to complete it. While "Christ in culture" adherents might talk about goodness in terms of the culture, "Christ above culture" adherents might take the goodness of the culture as a starting point for talking about the goodness that comes through Jesus. By this logic, we would be open to watching the movie, and, if people asked our opinion about the movie, we would be ready to help them "connect the dots" between goodness in the movie and Christ's goodness.

Christ and culture in paradox: Life is an uneasy tension as we live in both realities simultaneously. There are places where Christ is good for culture, and places where the culture is good for the Christian life, but ultimately the Christian's heart is ruled by Christ, not culture. Adherents here might talk about living "in the world" but not being "of the world." By this logic, we would have a "take it or leave it" attitude about the movie, depending on whether we thought the movie was edifying.

Christ transforming culture: Life is an uneasy tension as we live in both realities simultaneously here as well; however, the role of Christ in the world is to change the world, just as a bit of yeast works through a whole batch of dough, changing it (Matthew 13:33). Adherents might talk about being the light of the world. By this logic, we would be open to watching the movie, and, if people asked our opinion about the movie, we would be ready to talk with them about their reactions to the movie and in the process sow the seeds of the gospel in their lives.

My apologies to anyone who thinks I've trivialized or misrepresented Niebuhr—you're invited to describe Niebuhr's 5 paradigms in your own terms in a comment.

By the way, being clueless and just getting by day-to-day without thinking about it any more than you have to is no an option. If you're so steeped in the culture that you don't think about where you are, where you're going, or where Christ is the the scheme of things, you may think that you believe in Christ, but your actions don't bear it out. You're part of the culture. Now, what would it look like if Christ really came to you and showed you a different way to live, a way that wasn't just about getting by day-to-day, wouldn't that be a good thing? Something in your life would have to change--probably something involving your reward system, i.e. what floats your boat--but what if you gained more than you gave up? It turns out this is exactly what following Christ is all about (Mark 10:28-31).

You can find Biblical justification for all five paradigms. Each of the five may be necessary at some point in your life. However, which of the five best describes how you live in the world? Your response will determine how you live out Peter's charge to "be prepared to give a reason for the hope you have" (1 Peter 3:15).

For me, the problem is not the culture, but being called to witness to people within the culture. My problem when I try to discuss movies with kids at the high school, for example (although I have the same problem with many adults), as that they usually don't know what they've seen and frequently can't describe it very well. If a kid at the high school comes up to me and says, "How did you like that movie? What did you think when X happened?" frequently they'll totally misunderstand / misinterpret X. So I end up: (a) having to explain X; (b) explaining why X is wrong; and (c) giving a Biblical interpretation. If I trusted a kid's understanding of what they'd seen, we'd never get very far. (Pop quiz: what paradigm does that make me in this case?)

PS: I realize there's more to the story. You go to a movie and you're voting with your dollars as to what is important. Some went to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ in order to make a statement after it got panned by mainstream critics. Some boycotted The Da Vinci Code because they disagreed with its revisionist church history and unorthodox theology ... even as others said, "Hey, it's only a movie." In the tension between Christ and culture, only culture can ever say, "It's only a movie, [so, God, just stay out]." The story of Christ redeeming the entire world has no place for a worldliness apart from Christ. Therefore, what are we saying as Christians when we say, "It's only a movie."?