In The Nick of Time

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

J. Gresham Machen’s essay on “Christianity and Culture” forces its Christian readers to evaluate their relationship to high culture. While Machen surely did not expect every Christian to become a poet, composer, philosopher, or statesman, he did expect Christians to adopt a generally positive attitude toward such activities. He was particularly concerned with the Christian attitude toward scholarship. He argued that Christians should neither subordinate Christianity to culture (liberalism), nor simply ignore or reject culture in favor of Christianity (obscurantism). Rather, he suggested that Christians should engage in the work of consecrating culture to the service of God.

Not surprisingly, Machen’s approach has been rejected by those branches of Christianity that have been most influenced by populism. At best, such Christians see high culture as a distraction. They may even perceive it as an outright threat to the life of faith. Fascination with high culture is thought to exhaust time and effort on education and the arts that might better be spent in winning souls. High culture is presumed to produce arrogance in those who fall under its spell. Worst of all, high culture introduces Christians to corrosive ideas that have the potential to deceive. According to this theory, Christians might better leave such things alone and choose a plain life of humble service to God.

Admittedly, high culture—and especially academic culture—can provide an occasion for arrogance. People who invest years of their lives perfecting their mastery of an art or a learned discipline tend to become a bit testy when critiqued by dilettantes. Furthermore, they sometimes assume that their study grants them authority outside their areas of expertise. Even within those areas their competence may actually be less than they imagine.

Today (the day upon which I write this essay) is Maundy Thursday. Tomorrow will be Good Friday and this Sunday is Easter.

We used to think that the problem of child molestation belonged to other people, but not to fundamental Baptists. Now we are learning otherwise. We are hearing more and more reports of sexual predation, pedophilia, and cover-ups on the part of fundamental Baptist leaders. The resulting impression upon the public is that the clergy of Baptist fundamentalism is unusually goatish, thuggish, and corrupt.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Read Part 1.

Except for the hypothetical castaway on a South Seas island, everybody lives in a culture. The creation of culture is hardwired into human beings. They encounter the natural world. They encounter other people. They bring their most fundamental convictions about the nature of reality to bear upon these encounters. The result is a culture, and the qualities of that culture will differ somehow from those of every other culture.

This description of culture is presumptuously brief. From a Christian point of view, it is also theologically deficient. Not false, to be sure—every word of it rings true to Scripture. Nevertheless, more needs to be said.

One of the mistakes that some theologians (and non-theologians, too) make is to try to judge culture in general rather than to evaluate specific cultures. One analyst may suggest that culture shows evidence of divine creativeness, and therefore it is good. Another may argue that it displays the marks of human depravity, and it is therefore bad. Both fail to recognize that every culture is a complex phenomenon that will be powerfully shaped by a number of influences. Some of these influences can be classified under five theological categories.

The first of these theological categories is meticulous Providence. Christians believe that Providence is active in all human affairs, so it should come as no surprise that Providence is reckoned as an influence upon cultures. The problem is that Providence, by definition, works behind the scenes. Looking backwards, Christians simply recognize that Providence ordained whatever actually happened.

or
Why I Am Still a Fundamentalist
(And How I Am Not)

Perhaps it would be best to begin this document with a warning. This is going to be a long discussion. If you only read part of it, or if you only focus on a statement here or there, you are going to come away with a distorted impression. Consequently, I ask that you either read it carefully or not at all.