CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE

The question of how Christianity is related to culture is a continuing issue that confronts us. Many answers have been given and the classic responses were presented very clearly in Richard Niebuhr's excellent book Christ and Culture written 40 years ago.

In this series of studies, I will look at culture and its meaning for us. Next I will review the patterns of the relationship between Christianity and culture as given in Niebuhr's Christ and Culture. We will consider the proposition that Christ is the transformer of culture. While there may be various responses to the relationship between Christianity and culture, scripture informs us that a transformation of our culture needs to take place. Thirdly, I will look at how our culture has determined to a very large extent the way in which we have understood our faith. The struggle at Nicea will be used to illustrate this. I will the go on to look at the contractual relationship in our society and see how far we have departed from the biblical understanding of the covenant relationship. This will lead us to reflect on what should be the covenant response from our part. Lastly, I will explore several areas where this transformation should have taken place and why they have not taken place. In particular, I want to discuss the cultural situation in many Chinese churches where this transformation needs to take place.

Though the series is partly titled, 'Practical Christian Living' there will not be any 'prescription' issued by me here. The reason will be obvious as we go through the studies in the subsequent sessions. Rather, I will try to present a framework from which we can work through the cultural issues that confront us. The last session will be used for some of us to present to the class the way we have work through some of the issues in our own lives and churches. I trust that the studies will be challenging as we all attempt to wrestle with our cultural orientation.