How to Reach Non-Whites

Michael Horton makes a great point about context-ualization in his recent article "Does Anybody Really know What Time It Is?" He writes:

If we are going to understand our times--and how the gospel addresses us in them--con-textualization itself will have to be "context-ualized." In other words, we have to realize that this concept too belongs a particular pattern of thinking and web of assumptions we have inherited as denizens of a certain time and place.

"The gospel," adds Horton, "has been around a lot longer than has the doctrine of contextualizing."

I can hear the objection as I type: "But doesn't Paul claim to have become 'all things to all men'? Doesn't this prove that contextualizing has been around since the very beginning?" The problem with this line of reasoning is that it assumes, without attempting to prove, that there is a one-to-one correspondence between Paul's "becoming a Gentile" in his own day and a church planter's attempt to pull out all stops to relate to his target audience in our own.

The reason these dots don't connect is simple: The division between Jews and Gentiles was not primarily racial, but theological. In other words, it wasn't merely that Jews hated non-Jews and Paul decided to break those illegitimate barriers down. Rather, the wall of division was erected by God himself under the Mosaic covenant, with a whole bunch of rules and rituals bequeathed from on high to reinforce it. The purpose of this separation was so that God could illustrate what holiness and privilege looked like, and ultimately, to illustrate the weakness and inability of his privileged people to retain their unique, set-apart status.

Turning to today, there simply is no demographic category that even comes close to mirroring Paul's concern in I Corinthians 9. Whether we're talking about race, gender, or socioeconomic status, the fact is that in Christ Jesus there is no longer male or female, Jew or Gentile, bond or free, for we are all one in Christ. To put it simply, the gospel makes these categories irrelevant. The new covenant is catholic in the truest sense of that word, for it opens up God's promises to all tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations.

Furthermore, do we really want to mirror the apostle's supposed demographic sensitivity? What if I taught a seminar at a missions conference titled, "How to Reach Non-Whites"? After all, since Paul lumped all non-Jews into one catch-all category, why can't I do the same? Asian? African? Hispanic? Arab? Oh, I totally understand all those people. They are non-white, after all.

To be honest, if my vast experience at being both an earthling and Adamic cannot qualify me to relate to other Adamic earthlings without also having to learn about monster trucks, fine cigars, or teenage vampires, then I may as well quit now, because I just don't have the time.

.

For two of those pursuits, anyway....

Do Pagans Make the Best Vosians?

I just preached from Romans 8:18-25 where Paul gives, in the words of John Murray, his commentary on Genesis 3:17-18. The creation has fallen under curse and, therefore, groans under the weight of its bondage to decay, longing for the liberty that will accompany the glorification of the seed of the woman.

Yes, this relates to the way the believer should think about popular culture.

If the sub-human created order can recognize that something is amiss, then, to argue from the lesser to the greater, it would follow that the same insight can be found among non-believing humans as well. After all, if Ecclesiastes is an account of life "under the sun," then all who behold this age from that vantage point can reasonably conclude that it is but an unmerry merry-go-round, a wild goose chase without the wild goose.

What is pagan art if not a commentary on Ecclesiastes? What is Edvard Munch's The Scream, or The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," or the Wachowskis' Matrix trilogy if not a commentary on the inexplicable longing on the part of the human soul for something it has never seen but knows is out there?

Paul's point in the passage cited is that the cosmos groans, but "we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit" ache with an even greater frustration. Or at least we should. But if the unbelieving world displays, through its art and other media, an even greater frustration with earth than many believers exhibit, what does that say about where our true devotion lies?

This is why eschatology is so crucial. If Vos's dictum that "eschatology precedes soteriology" is true, then this means that this groaning for glory is part and parcel not of redemption, but of the created order itself. Simply put, you're supposed to feel like a fish out of water (or to correct the simile a bit, you're supposed to feel like a fish in water who longs to be free from it and to enter a new element that it knows, somehow and for some reason, is better).

Could it be that when Christians place their hopes in a transformed culture or a nation recaptured for Christ while their pagan neighbors listen to Bright Eyes while longing for escape, that the latter, rather than the former, are doing a better job at being divine image-bearers?

Homo Faber, Meet Homo Ludens

Playing off of the Latin title for man, Homo Sapiens, which means "man the wise," various authors have sought to describe man by different characteristics. Among these are Homo Faber ("man the worker") and Homo Ludens ("man the player").

I pointed out in a previous post that work is a pre-fall activity, and that Adam was commissioned to guard and care for the garden as part of his image-bearing activity in the covenant of works. The fall and subsequent curse did not introduce or obliterate work, therefore, but altered it and transformed it into something which would be characterized by toil, sweat, and an uncooperative earth.

Although work is not to be avoided (as if laziness were a virtue), neither is it to be seen as an unmixed blessing either (the CEO of Microsoft apparently never got the memo).

In the same way that many Ugandans would scratch their heads at Jesus' statement that no one would start a building project without making sure he had the money to complete it, or many Hungarians wouldn't grasp Peter's point that the disciples at the feast of Pentecost couldn't have been drunk since it was only 9am, many Americans today have a difficult time with the concept of "serving Mammon." As with Rockefeller's answer of "A little more" to the question "How much money is enough?", "serving Mammon" is something that rich(er) people do, but not us.

If it is true that market-driven societies value hard work more than they do leisure, then perhaps it is also true that we Americans are more aptly labeled Homo Faber than Homo Ludens.

But if life postlapsum is more than toiling for daily bread, and if divine image-bearing consists of more than being an efficient tool of production (such as enjoying friends and family, engaging in a hobby, or simply lingering over a well-brewed beverage and a book), then perhaps training (or even forcing) ourselves to slow down a bit is the most "world-affirming" thing we can do.

Darwinism in the Workplace

I mentioned in an earlier post that the phenomenon of "job dissatisfaction" is not simply a symptom of a spoiled culture with nothing to do but complain that the AC in our corner office is too loud and interferes with our Blue Tooth, but in fact, it goes back to the fall of man when God cursed his labors and told him that work would continue in the post-fall world, but it will be a total pain.

We're supposed to feel frustrated, and if you think about it, so was Adam, even before the fall. If Vos was right, and eschatology precedes soteriology, then there was a measure of longing during Adam's pre-fall state (and this means, by extension, that you don't need a crisis to see the need for God, nor will getting that big promotion make you cease "looking for to fill that God-shaped hole").

Still, we live in a market-driven society, which teaches us to think of ourselves as consumers and forces us to compete for that which sustains us. This is ironic for conservative Christians, since in a very specific cultural battle we claim to believe in a "right to life," while on the big, broad question we deny that claim, insisting instead that a person only has a "right" to that which he can gain for himself in the open market. So if you don't have any skills that the rest of us deem valuable, then don't come crying to us for a handout.

I guess pro-choice Darwinism is alive and well in our circles after all.

When we are atomized and forced not to cooperate but to compete for wages, promotions, and power, it is to be expected that the built-in frustration we feel will only grow over time.

Are there ways in which the Christian can be countercultural and buck the traditon in the workplace, or should the two kingdoms provide us with the ability to play by one set of rules of rules Monday through Saturday, and another on Sunday?

Edwardsian Anthropology

"The affections," writes Jonathan Edwards, "are no other than the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul.”

Edwards taught that God has endued the soul with two faculties; the first is that by which the soul perceives, discerns, and views things (the understanding), and the second is that by which the soul does not merely perceive things, but is in some way inclined with respect to the things it perceives, either to them, or disinclined from them (the will / heart).

This second exercise of the soul happens in varying degrees:

"It is to be noted that they are these more vigorous and sensible exercises of this faculty that are called affections."

Furthermore, these affections, though they take place in the soul, inevitably effect the body:

"Such seems to be our nature, and such are the laws of the union of soul and body, that there never is in any case whatsoever, any lively and vigorous exercise of the will or inclination of the soul without some effect on the body."

What is interesting to me about Edwards's formulations is that they arose in the context of a two-fold battle that he was fighting against the Awakening's enemies on the one hand, and against its friends on the other (and the case could be made that he was harder on the latter).

To those "enthusiasts" who understood any vigorous display of emotion as evidence of the Spirit's work, Edwards countered that while most emotion is merely common and not spiritual, true and genuine emotion must be the result of some fact, outside of us, that is grasped by the mind. In other words, gaining a fresh understanding of the sufferings of Christ or the eternal hope of the saint not only must precede genuine affection, but must produce it as a matter of course.

It sounds similar to the argument I was making some weeks back that the eschatological always precedes the existential, the historia salutis grounds the ordo salutis, and that "psalms of rememberance" lead to "psalms of trust."

Sure, Edwards gets kooky later in the book, but you have to admit that he does seem to be on to something here....

The Noetic Effects of Grace: Pagan Ethics

When we consider the Bible's assessment of pagan ethics, we are forced, once again, to pause before we press the antithesis between the believer and unbeliever too far.

Jesus says plainly that "sinners" love and do good to others (Matt. 5:46; Luke 6:32-33); he also commends the scribes' and Pharisees' teaching of Torah, encouraging their disciples to obey their instruction despite the fact that their lifestyles are not always in conformity with what they teach (Matt. 23:2-3); Paul actually holds up pagan morality as a means to shame the Corinthians for the perversity allowed in their midst (I Cor. 5:1-2a); In Athens, Paul employs arguments from the intellectual tradition of Greece to demonstrate the folly of pagan idolatry, first quoting Epimenides of Crete, and then the Stoic authors Cleanthes and Aratus of Soli (Acts 17:28, [Apparently, these pagan philosophers had a sufficiently robust understanding of the nature of God to expose the futility of idolatry]). And finally, Paul quotes the Cretan poet Epimenides in his letter to Titus (1:12-13a), adding that the pagan poet's estimation of the morality of his contemporaries is "true."

To what can we attribute all of these things but to God's common grace?

What all of this amounts to is the conclusion that in common, non-redemptive fields such as art, music, philosophy, agriculture, architecture, and even ethics, the believer and the unbeliever are more similar than different due to their both sharing the imago Dei.

Moreover, if we mistakenly insist that the these fields of interest are under the jurisdiction of redemption and are therefore to be considered "holy," then not only ought all Christians to withdraw completely from culture into ghettos or compounds where the world's wicked influences can't touch us, but we also run the risk of dilluting the Bible's authority when it comes to the things it actually does address, like, say, the cross and empty tomb.

The Noetic Effects of Grace: Pagan Wisdom

To further our discussion of education, I think it will be helpful to draw our attention to some of the Bible's own testimony concerning the "wisdom" of the pagans (some of what follows is gleaned from Dr. Johnson's article cited below).

As an adopted son of Pharoah's daughter, Moses served in the king's court and "was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (a fact that, along with Jewish tradition, Stephen highlights with apparent approval, Acts 7:22). At the time of the exile, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah took the Chaldean names Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and were given by Yahweh "learning and skill in all [Babylonian] literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams" (Dan. 1:17). Finally, the fact that Solomon's wisdom is said to have "surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt" is intended to be impressive, which it obviously would not be if God's people alone were wise (I Kings 4:29-34).

To be sure, there is a stark antithesis in Scripture between the wisdom of this age and that of the age to come. But the sharpness of this antithesis seems most apparent when the spiritual concerns of God's second book, rather than the temporal concerns of his first one, are at issue.

Given these biblical accounts, together with the fact that all people still share the imago Dei even postlapsum, is it not at least conceivable that a child can learn his three Rs in a context that is consistent with the nature of those subjects, namely a common one? And further, is it not sufficient to insist upon a holy education when it comes to subjects that are themselves holy, namely, those contained in the Holy Bible?

(And please continue to be nice to "em," she is a member of my church. Failure to do so may result in my hunting you down and... well, you get the point).

The Triplex Usus Legis

Despite the fact that the Bible rarely, if ever, uses the term "law" in an a-historical fashion denoting the theological category into which all divine imperatives—whether found in Genesis, Jeremiah, or John—must fit, it is precisely this assumption that makes the taxonomy of the triplex usus legis (the threefold use of the law) possible. A more redemptive-historical and covenantal paradigm, on the other hand, would yield similar conclusions while employing a different method in reaching them.

The schema that I am proposing would avoid extrapolating a general and universal notion of "moral Law" (with a capital L) which is then applied to people in varying ways depending upon their individual status before God. Rather, this approach would seek to discover the application of the divine will to individuals by identifying which covenant, and thence which law, they are under. As I hope to demonstrate, there are three principal covenants identified in Scripture under which men and women throughout redemptive history have stood in relation to God. Each covenant contains its own law, with its own respective uses.

I will unpack this in future posts, but for now I will just set the taxonomy forth:

1. All people, by virtue of the imago Dei, are under the covenant of creation and are subject to its law, the law of nature.

2. Israelites in time past were under the Old Covenant and were subject to its law, the law of Moses.

3. Believers today are under the New Covenant and are subject to its law, the law of Christ.

"Law" in this schema is connected to, and coextensive with, the covenant of which it is a part. Moreover, each law (-of nature, -of Moses, -of Christ) has its uses built into it, which eliminates the biblical acrobatics needed to decode how "the Law" applies to people in their varying covenantal contexts.

OK, fire away....

Missional Marxism?

With all the careful attention given to demographics research by cultural critics and missiologists alike, it seems, to me at least, that amid the myriad of categories we stick people into (Boomers, Gen-Xers, D.I.N.K.s, urban hipsters, Bobos, wealthy white suburbanites) we Christians have forgotten the most important demographic cultural label of all: Adamic.

According to the Bible, all people fall into one of two categories: "in Adam" or "in Christ."

This amazing (re)discovery ought to revolutionize our approach to outreach and evangelism. Not only will it save us countless hours that otherwise would have been spent calculating the effects of our PowerPoint presentations on Asian-Americans versus Anglo-Americans, it will help us streamline our approach by giving us an understanding of our target audience that is actually relevant.

You see, focussing on whether someone makes $25,000 a year and drives a Gremlin or $75,000 a year and drives an Audi is a very shallow way to treat people. As if our detailed analyses of the incomes and spending habits of the people we're trying to reach could really capture who they are (what are we, Marxists? Pretty soon we'll be calling the former the proletariat and the latter the bourgeoisie).

But when we move beyond the surfacy and superficial, we discover that all people -- black, white, rich, or poor -- have one common denominator that makes all their apparent differences pretty meaningless at the end of the day: They are in Adam, and their culture is Adamic.

(And if you think I'm painting with too broad a brush, go read Eph. 2:1-3; 4:17-19.)

Once we recognize this, we can spend less time trying to figure out which TV shows to integrate into our multimedia presentations ("Is The O.C. too white? Is The Shield too edgy?"), and we can spend more time dealing with the tainted presuppositions that our fallen hearers come in with every Sunday (such as: Jesus is supposed to give me a more fulfilling life, or, Church is supposed to meet all my needs). But unfortunately for our hearers, those are often our presuppositions too.

So I'm all for attention to demographics and contextualization, just as long as we focus on what really matters.