Reforming Culture/Making Culture

There will always be arguments about culture that range from the number of reality TV shows on the air at any given time, to the academic dissemination of mores and belief from the university level into the dominant 'culture'. Similarly, Christians have been arguing about how to 'do' culture, what to make of it, etc. since the beginning of Christianity.

A 20th century writer named H. Richard Niebuhr gave five categories for thinking about culture that are broad enough to help us think about it, and narrow enough to actually explain some of how we ought to then live - in regards to 'culture'. In summary:

Christ against Culture. For the exclusive Christian, history is the story of a rising church or Christian culture and a dying pagan civilization.

Christ of Culture. For the cultural Christian, history is the story of the Spirit’s encounter with nature.

Christ above Culture. For the synthesist, history is a period of preparation under law, reason, gospel, and church for an ultimate communion of the soul with God.

Christ and Culture in Paradox. For the dualist, history is the time of struggle between faith and unbelief, a period between the giving of the promise of life and its fulfillment.

Christ Transforming Culture. For the conversionist, history is the story of God’s mighty deeds and humanity’s response to them. Conversionists live somewhat less “between the times” and somewhat more in the divine “now” than do the followers listed above. Eternity, to the conversionist, focuses less on the action of God before time or life with God after time, and more on the presence of God in time. Hence the conversionist is more concerned with the divine possibility of a present renewal than with conservation of what has been given in creation or preparing for what will be given in a final redemption.

Typically, churches like Riverside have taken the fifth option. Now, there are issues with such broad categories. For instance, we (Riverside) would call ourselves 'Reformed' after the Reformers of the 16th century. Well, they certainly didn't agree on this, and Martin Luther is probably in the "Christ and Culture in paradox" camp.

ANYWAY, Riverside has a few programs that come out of our thinking on this topic. The Art Gallery: which exists for art and artists; with sub-hopes about what happens when a church is so fully behind such aspects of culture. On Tap: which exists for an almost naive belief in the power of conversation and dialogue; with similar sub-hopes.

The goal is to promote art and conversation. The assumption is that those two things are not easy to promote. The further assumption is that Christianity ought to bear weight in those places - but that that conversation is a long one, and one that probably begins with a lot of learning and listening. I hope you will join us with an openness to great art, great conversation. And then, to learn together what it means to observe Christianly (art), and to dialogue Christianly about Health Care (our September topic), or movies, or good food.

Thoughts???

Discuss...

-Matt Blazer

Commandment 11: Thou Shalt Not Be A Gamer

So… when Blazer asked me to be one of the reoccurring Riverside Church bloggers, it only made sense that I shamelessly use the platform to wax eloquently (or not so eloquently) about all things addictively entertaining (from Reality TV to low budget Sci- Fi originals (holla out to my boy Brent Roam -- star of Tremors 4), from blockbuster movies to video games and everything in between. (How’s that for a run-on sentence?)

Anyhow… I’ll do my best to keep regular and share a tidbit or two about the latest and greatest of all these things, and do my best to provoke some earnest dialogue about how Christians engage within our everyday culture throughout.

For my first inaugural posting though, I thought I’d step back a second and talk briefly about video games and how they’ve led me closer to Jesus. (You laugh, but I’m serious!) It felt appropriate, in the wake of weekly scoffing from the churched and non-churched alike, that I tell you my story…

Like many, I grew up in a pretty good Christian home. One thing that stood out though, was that besides alcohol, the only other thing we never had around… was video games. All my friends had Nintendos and Play Stations, but for the most part, we had zilch. That is… until college. When college rolled around, I was baptized into the world of late night having, class-ditching Playstation and Nintendo 64 game delight! It was glorious! Then...I got married. (Pause)

To be fair to my wife, it was I who made the call to get rid of the thing, since I would frequently not be aware that she had gotten home from work 30 minutes earlier (as I was deeply engrained into the next mission on Golden Eye etc). It was the right decision!

For more than 6 years the Hogan home was video game free. Kids were born, hands were full, time was busy etc. Then, one day... (the heavens parted)...and a game called Gears of War came out on the Xbox 360. Within 3 months, me and 10 other dudes had all convinced our wives that it was gonna be different this time, and almost overnight each one of us got a system and spent every hour playing games. This time however, WAS a bit different. Technological advancements gave us the advent of the wireless headset (which allows you to talk to your friends as you team up and play games together), and since most of us only started playing after the wife and kids were in bed, games started being tolerated by our families and the world was in perfect balance.

So up until this point, you’re probably rolling your eyes if you haven’t stopped reading entirely. Thanks for bearing with me. Here’s the catch. Over the course of a few weeks, something happened. Similar to when guys get together week after week for a softball game, or to shoot hoops, community started forming. Real, honest-to-goodness community. It’s amazing how close you get to someone, when you’re huddled in a trench or behind cover, back to back trying not to get pwned. Real conversation, which led to real relationship building, which eventually led to (what’s now a 2 years and going strong) 14 man bible study… happened! In fact, guys who I’d only met online (friends of friends in town) started actually becoming real life friends. Bonds were formed, relationships grew and now I’m part of a gang of dudes who love Jesus and one another, and are committed to serving each other as the gospel has taught us to.

I’ve left a lot of details out, and this isn’t all due to the release of Halo3 or that Microsoft paid for this blog spot or anything. I guess I just see it as a good example of how God can use a “secular” medium for his glory. You’ll note a continued theme throughout most of my upcoming postings (via the likes of Tim Keller, Mike Erre) about how we as Christians are supposed to engage in our culture and not remove ourselves from it. Are there limits? Certainly! Are there problems with addiction and excess? Absolutely! But do we throw it all away because it’s not the over sanitized Christians only... Left Behind: The Kirk Cameron Video Game? Come on!

If video games aren’t your thing... that’s cool. Maybe it’s scotch. Maybe its quilting. Maybe it’s HSM (that stands for High School Musical... you nerds know who you are). Whatever it is, can we agree that in an appropriate context, God can use the most unlikely experiences for his glory?

Ask yourself this… WJBAG (Would Jesus Be A Gamer?)

The answer is an emphatic yes… (his gamertag is y@w3h#1)!

-Josh Hogan. Culture Thursdays will alternate (with little rhyme or reason) with Theology Thursday, and will feature many authors.