Today in class we discussed the topic of “following Jesus in culture.” I believe God created cultures. There are seeds of God in every culture. But because of the fall of Adam and Eve, cultures have become fallen too. Our fallen cultures now are often responsible for oppression and domination. What then do we do about culture? We looked at how Jesus acted in his own culture to see how we should act too. Jesus was non-conformed within culture. He was fully in culture and fully pointing to the kingdom of God at the same time. Can the Church do this today? I don’t think it has, but it definitely should. Barry Taylor says, “Culture is having a conversation about God and churches aren’t invited.” Church and culture have not had enough interaction in the past. This needs to change. God is actively restoring this world (it’s cultures, it’s people, and all of creation) through His mission, and church has the privledge to join in. God wants to reach humanity. Humanity resides in culture. How can church, join God’s mission in reaching out to all humanity if it doesn’t actively engage in culture? It can’t be done. Transforming the world can’t be done at a distance. The church needs to seek a close, intimate relationship with culture, and to always be pointing it to the kingdom of God.
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March 9, 2007 at 10:02 pm
C. Wess Daniels
Dan – (about the paper)
You’re paper is definitely getting there. Here are some things to tie up for the last paper. A) You need to incorporate the class texts and lectures better, I need to see that you’re dealing with the issues in the books, using them to strengthen your arguments, using their ideas etc. B) In your second section where you talk about Kingdom of God characteristics, I need for you do to theology. For instance I need you to tell me why “breaking down cultural barriers” between whites and mexicans is a part of the Kingdom of God. It’s okay that you show me how it looks, why it’s needed,etc but the main (and most important) point of this section is to show me your theology of the kingdom. C) Then in your last section you need to tie more clearly your ideas of the Kingdom of God from the second section into your activities. I like what you have there, but show me how you activities “break down cultural barriers, etc.” (also if you use something from class, a quote or an idea it’s good to cite those notes in a footnote). Doing these things will help to add to your paper and get you to where you’re headed. (seven)
March 11, 2007 at 4:18 pm
julia
interesting. you say the church needs to be actively engaged in culture in order to influence it – yeah, but what form of the church? i don’t really think the form of church we have here in the west would work everywhere in reaching out to culture. how does this translate to other cultures? sometimes we come in with our agenda of how Jesus should look to this culture and how he should best be followed but we just screw shit up cause we impose on the beauty of the culture that already exists.