Wrote this as a response to a conversation in the comment thread on Rachel Held Evan’s posting on NT Wright’s book.
Trying to illuminate the relationship via prepositions (Niebuhr’s book “Christ and Culture”) is handy but limited as you noted. I think the way “culture” gets called out by evangelicals often (I’m probably guilty of it myself sometimes) isn’t always the most helpful way to lead the church. We’ve had a habit of cultural provincialism. We think that we don’t have a culture, that the Bible doesn’t have one, and at some level culture equals contamination.
I think the key element is not losing the idea that God loves his creation. God makes the creation for his glory and out of his joy and that the story of redemption is a story of not only reclamation and restoration but also advancement. We hold total depravity (all things under the steward of the creator have been tainted by sin) but also common grace (God arrests the slide, the creation still speaks of the Creator’s power, glory and strength) and in Christ’s crucifixion the enmity is laid to rest and in resurrection the renewal of creation has begun.
Adam is God’s gardener. The gardener takes the wild things of creation and “improves” them according to the taste of the master. We are stewards of the creator working with the creator on his project.
Culture is part of the deal. By virtue of total depravity all cultures bear witness to our rebellion. By virtue of common grace God isn’t absent from any culture. By virtue of Christ’s crucifixion, all cultures are redeemable. By virtue of Christ’s resurrection, (again, Richard Mouw’s book on Isaiah 60 “when the kings come marching in”) in the renewed creation God claims the goodness of culture (he seeded it, again, like a garden) and shares is in his generosity.
Culture making continues in the age to come along with our vocations and we just go further up and further in as in the Last Battle.
It’s a glorious vision which if we have a healthy eschatology means we participate in it today simultaneous with our cruciform path which will actually add to the glory. See my post on the New Jerusalem at Calvin College
Christians should be the most joyful, confident, culture making people on the planet. Why? Compare our perspective with all of the other worldviews. If you’re a mere materialist your culture making is in vain because the clock is ticking on the universe. All you have is the now. If you’re a pantheist your individuality and agency is an illusion and will be swallowed up in the great sea of being. As a Christian we labor not in vain, our culture making today bears fruit in the age to come, and even our sorrows add to our future joy.
Hope this helps. pvk
About PaulVK
Husband, Father of 5, Pastor
Leadingchurch.com 
Christ, Culture and the Age to Come
Wrote this as a response to a conversation in the comment thread on Rachel Held Evan’s posting on NT Wright’s book.
Trying to illuminate the relationship via prepositions (Niebuhr’s book “Christ and Culture”) is handy but limited as you noted. I think the way “culture” gets called out by evangelicals often (I’m probably guilty of it myself sometimes) isn’t always the most helpful way to lead the church. We’ve had a habit of cultural provincialism. We think that we don’t have a culture, that the Bible doesn’t have one, and at some level culture equals contamination.
I think the key element is not losing the idea that God loves his creation. God makes the creation for his glory and out of his joy and that the story of redemption is a story of not only reclamation and restoration but also advancement. We hold total depravity (all things under the steward of the creator have been tainted by sin) but also common grace (God arrests the slide, the creation still speaks of the Creator’s power, glory and strength) and in Christ’s crucifixion the enmity is laid to rest and in resurrection the renewal of creation has begun.
Adam is God’s gardener. The gardener takes the wild things of creation and “improves” them according to the taste of the master. We are stewards of the creator working with the creator on his project.
Culture is part of the deal. By virtue of total depravity all cultures bear witness to our rebellion. By virtue of common grace God isn’t absent from any culture. By virtue of Christ’s crucifixion, all cultures are redeemable. By virtue of Christ’s resurrection, (again, Richard Mouw’s book on Isaiah 60 “when the kings come marching in”) in the renewed creation God claims the goodness of culture (he seeded it, again, like a garden) and shares is in his generosity.
Culture making continues in the age to come along with our vocations and we just go further up and further in as in the Last Battle.
It’s a glorious vision which if we have a healthy eschatology means we participate in it today simultaneous with our cruciform path which will actually add to the glory. See my post on the New Jerusalem at Calvin College
Christians should be the most joyful, confident, culture making people on the planet. Why? Compare our perspective with all of the other worldviews. If you’re a mere materialist your culture making is in vain because the clock is ticking on the universe. All you have is the now. If you’re a pantheist your individuality and agency is an illusion and will be swallowed up in the great sea of being. As a Christian we labor not in vain, our culture making today bears fruit in the age to come, and even our sorrows add to our future joy.
Hope this helps. pvk
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About PaulVK
Husband, Father of 5, Pastor