This is a follow-up to last week's post, "Relevance, Faithfulness and I Corinthians 9:19-23." In that post I was interacting with Mark Dever's comment that "relevance" is something we can assume, and I argued that I Corinthians 9:19-23 tells us we can't assume this.
In this video of Tim Keller, which I got from Anthony Bradley, who got it from DJ Chuang.
The most important statement Keller makes here, IMHO, is that all of our theology is culturally conditioned. I don't want to devolve into hyperbole here but that is a paradigm buster for those think that we are not to allow the culture to influence our theologizing and ministry. The point Kelller makes is that all of our theology is already (necessarily) culturally embedded, because our theology is driven by the questions we bring to the Bible, questions that arise out of our cultural context.
I think there are some who equate their theology with Scripture and thus statement's like Keller's are threatening and/or heretical. Keller, and D. A. Carson and Edmund Clowney whom he cites, are clear that the Bible is not culturally conditioned, but our theology is. This is an important distinction.
Anthony Bradley picks up on this and says:
Your theology is a response to the questions YOU ask the Scripture. News flash: people from different racial, social, ethnic, regionally oriented communities, GENERATIONS etc. are asking different questions.
What baffles many people is that many baby-boomers aren't willing to embrace that fact that Gen-Xers and Millennials in 2006 are coming to Scripture with DIFFERENT questions.
And:
People often ask, "hey why aren't certain people coming to my church, ministry, etc?" Possible answer: the issues you address are probably not relevant to a world other than your culturally conditioned one--so the people that come simply look like you.
Let me add my two cents to this discussion by referencing a comment from Mike Horton, whom I love, but whom I think goes wrong in this particular comment. In his Christianity Today article "How the Kingdom Comes," (which is a very fine article) he says:
But the Word creates its own publicity as it is preached, as the story is told. It creates its own relevance, and as a result, a community that spans the generations.
In that comment he's speaking of youth ministry in particular, but his comments apply across the board to any attempts at cultural relevance. Yet, if what he says is true, then Paul was either a) badly misguided, or b) wasting a lot of time and energy in his attempts to be all things to all men in I Corinthians 9.
I don't know think Horton does this, but I think many of us assume there is one boilerplate gospel presentation that can be applied to all persons at all times in all places. Similarly, I think many of us assume there is one boilerplate creed or confession that can be applied to all churches and cultures at all times and in all places.
Yet, if you look at the ministry of Jesus and the apostles in Acts this is not true. The content of the preaching of Jesus and the apostles is always different, per the situation. Mind you, the content always revolves around Jesus, it is always a telling of the story of Jesus. Yet the story of Jesus is multi-faceted and different facets of the story are told in different situations.
Similarly, the more theological treatises of the New Testament, the epistles, do not evidence a single boilerplate presentation. They are "occasional" letters, written to specific churches for specific occasions. James does not merely repeat Paul, Hebrews does not repeat the letters of John, the letters of Peter do not repeat Philemon or Jude. In each and every case the Christian story is adapted to a particular people at a particular time and place
In Ephesians 4:29, Paul says:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
There is a real sense here in which the needs of the audience are to drive our speech. Our attempts to edify are to be driven by their needs, not our agendas. Which means we need to know people, places and cultures well enough (i.e. be relevant) to know what their needs are, that we might speak the gospel to those needs.
As I was finishing this up I saw C. J. Mahaney's post "Cross-Centered Relevance," and I have just given it a cursory glance. But I think he hits the proper balance here. As he points out, citing Ray Ortlund, oftentimes the quest for relevance becomes an excuse to undermine the gospel.
In that respect I submit that the real issue here is not so much the striving for relevance as it is the forgetting of the gospel. The one is often the occasion for the other, but the one does not necessarily lead to the other. I do believe we ought to strive (strenuously) for relevance, to understand the needs, or questions of the people to whom we minister. And we can't assume we already understand. But once we understand them, what kinds of answers will we provide? Will they be gospel answers or the world's answers? That is the question.
HT on C. J. post to Justin Taylor who says:
My hope is that the T4G guys--who have been blogging on faithfulness and relevance--would now also turn to the flip side of contextualization and explore the issue of whether the issue of under-contextualization is a problem that we struggle with in the Reformed church. I'd love to hear their discerning thoughts on that topic as well.
Exegete the Scriptures and your culture/congregation.
Just finished The Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll. Yeah, Winter Haven is about 2 years behind the rest of the world. Though he doesn't get into the particular issue raised by Keller, I think he does a good job of fleshing alot of this out.
Posted by: cavman | July 06, 2006 at 01:18 PM