Taking every thought captive for obedience to Christ (2 Cor. 10.5)

Disciplines
Culture Wars
The “culture wars” of the past generation have created a heightened awareness in the minds of many people of the power of culture. This is a promising development, but one that sounds a note of sadness as well.

Culture includes all the things we make and use in order to define, sustain, and enhance our lives, including artifacts, institutions, and conventions of various sorts. Culture can shape not only the way we think, but how we live, and the ways we treat people whose culture is different from ours.

Ideas of “cultural superiority” or “cultural inferiority” have become widespread, not only among those for whom Western culture is their familiar turf, but among Muslims and certain other ethnic populations.

For many people, culture has become a matter of pride, bordering, in some cases, on snobbery or elitism. For others, pride in their culture fuels resentment for past injustice, leading certain cultural groups to want to withdraw their heritage from public view. In such cases, culture comes to be regarded as a kind of private club where only those with the proper ethnic or historical credentials are allowed access.

According to Tiffany Jenkins, writing in the 18 March 2016 issue of Aeon, “The idea that one culture ‘owns’ a particular heritage is having a profound impact on museums” (“Does one ethnic group own its cultural artefacts?”). For political reasons, museums in various countries are removing from public exhibition artifacts from native cultures, and are making them available only to the members of the ethnic groups that created the artifacts, or not at all.

This is a sad development, both because it surfaces the injuries done in the past, and too easily forgotten; and because it threatens to deprive the world of artifacts of beauty, intelligence, and historical significance which can instruct and delight in a wide variety of ways.

Ms. Jenkins explains that in America, the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington epitomizes the extremes this movement can take. Everything from the design and building of the museum, to what it can show and how those artifacts must be interpreted and conserved has been ethnically determined. This “identity museum” movement is in part a response to the devastating effects of colonialism on native populations, and indicates a longing to preserve native culture and tradition from the intruding eyes and invasive schemes of outsiders.

Such a response is surely understandable, albeit sad.

Ms. Jenkins reminds us that collecting, archiving, restoring, and conserving cultural artifacts is a science, requiring training, certification, special equipment, and resources. Members of an ethnic community may not necessarily be the people most qualified to collect, display, interpret, and conserve the artifacts they cherish. Nor are they the only ones likely to benefit from viewing and understanding those artifacts and the history they report and preserve.

Culture provides vehicles for the enjoyment of beauty, goodness, and truth. As Paul Johnson explained in his book, Creators, God has given gifts of culture-making to all human beings, so that He might reveal something of Himself in the things people make (Ps. 68.18; cf. Eph. 4.8-10).

Ms. Jenkins insists, “The pursuit of truth and the understanding of history must be open to everybody, regardless of class, ethnicity or gender. There must be universal access. This is how questions can be explored, and old forms of authority challenged.”

Culture can bless the world and thus fulfill God’s purpose for giving such gifts to human beings (cf. Acts 14.17). Historically, the Christian movement has birthed some of the most cherished and valuable cultural artifacts the world has known. Very many of these were created specifically because of the impetus and dynamics of the Christian worldview. Cultural forms flowed from the Gospel as expressions of the presence and power of the Kingdom of God. Not just in the areas of art, literature, and music, but in education, business, science, government, and many other areas, Christians pioneered cultural innovations that continue to bring benefit today. Blessed of God with insight and creativity, the cultural pioneers and curators of the Christian movement have blessed the world with the gifts of God.

Christians must learn to see the culture wars as a front line for Kingdom progress. We weep for those whose cultural heritage reminds them of past injustice, and we rejoice with those whose culture celebrates all that is beautiful and good. Each believer has a calling to make and use culture in ways that bring glory and honor to God. This includes all the cultural forms with which we become engaged in any situation on any given day. There are ways of doing all things so that God’s presence in glory is made known, and this includes how we use the culture that fills our lives each day (1 Cor. 10.31).

Christians should rejoice that so many artifacts of their own faith are distributed and displayed in museums, and put to use in other ways, throughout the world. We are stewards of our Christian heritage, and should take justified pride in the work of our forebears in the faith. And it should be part of our calling in the Lord to delight in the study of His works as these are reflected in our Christian cultural heritage, so that we can better explain, by so many beautiful and lasting gifts of culture, our own journey of faith.

For reflection
1.  What would you cite as evidence of Christianity’s power to shape culture?

2.  What might you do to improve your use of “everyday culture” so as to glorify God with it?

3.  How might you begin to gain a better understanding of the importance of culture and how you as a Christian should relate to it?

Start your own study group to begin discovering what the Scriptures have to say about culture and a great many other matters. You can download the free study, “Redeeming Culture,” by clicking here. You can also order the book, Christians on the Front Lines of the Culture Wars, from our online store by clicking here.

The Week features insights from a wide range of topics and issues, with a view to equipping the followers of Christ to take every thought captive for Jesus. Please prayerfully consider supporting The Fellowship of Ailbe by sending a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 19 Tyler Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452.