Tag Archives: Articles on Culture

A Confession of Faith

A Confession of Faith

Kevin T. Bauder One might think that creedalism was a thing of the past, but what’s old is new again. I recently encountered a confession of faith posted as a sign in someone’s lawn. If people take the trouble to post their beliefs on their lawn, then they must think that those beliefs are important—perhaps… Continue Reading

Discerning the Christian Imagination: Consensus and Canonicity

Discerning the Christian Imagination: Consensus and Canonicity

This entry is part 8 of 9 in the series Christian Imagination You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Determining if a poem, hymn, musical piece, novel, devotional work, painting or other work should be considered a helpful work of Christian imagination is mostly an act of considering its meaning. Does its content agree with the truths of Scripture? Does its form remain consonant with that content, and shape the appropriate responses in us?… Continue Reading

Shapers of Christian Imagination

Shapers of Christian Imagination

This entry is part 6 of 9 in the series Christian Imagination You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

How is Christian imagination shaped? A true but not very helpful answer would be to say, “everything shapes imagination”. Visits to the doctor, watering the garden, schoolwork, housework, trading and every other activity shapes our outlook on reality in small or big ways. But it is also true to say that certain actions imprint the… Continue Reading

Christian Imagination Fleshed Out

Christian Imagination Fleshed Out

This entry is part 5 of 9 in the series Christian Imagination You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

What does the Christian imagination look like when it is fleshed out? We can imagine it as a spectrum, beginning with Scripture itself and working its way out from the explicitly biblical to what is only implicitly so. The Bible. Scripture itself is the archetype of all Christian imagination. Its content and form are the… Continue Reading

The Foundations Are Not Destroyed

The Foundations Are Not Destroyed

This entry is part 12 of 13 in the series Musing on God's Music You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Last week we saw David presents three responses in Psalm 11 to the perception that the foundations of society are crumbling around us: In the Lord I take refuge. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord has determined the destiny of the wicked and the righteous. Now, what do these responses have to… Continue Reading

Responses to Crumbling Foundations

Responses to Crumbling Foundations

This entry is part 11 of 13 in the series Musing on God's Music You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

When the foundations of society appear to be crumbling around us, what should the righteous do? Psalm 11 answers that question. But before we look at how the psalm answers that question correctly, notice the wrong answer to the question. Did you notice the quotation marks after “what can the righteous do?” David is quoting… Continue Reading

If the Foundations are Destroyed

If the Foundations are Destroyed

This entry is part 10 of 13 in the series Musing on God's Music You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

The question I have been seeking to answer over the past several weeks is how can we praise the Lord in the midst of a wicked world, and I’ve suggested that answering that question is one of the fundamental purposes of how the Book of Psalms is organized. The book ends with all creation praising… Continue Reading

Island Culture

Island Culture

Le Mont-Saint-Michel is a tidal island off Normandy, France. Water levels have varied over the centuries, but at its highest, the island would be completely cut off from the mainland, and at low tide, foot traffic could recommence. The tidal island is a decent illustration of the relationship between the church and its surrounding culture.… Continue Reading

Forming a Great Commandment Culture

Forming a Great Commandment Culture

In the context of giving the Law at Mt. Sinai and the promise that if they follow God’s commands as a nation, God will bless them, we find a statement that stands at the core of biblical religion: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your… Continue Reading

Taste Formed and Deformed by Culture

Taste Formed and Deformed by Culture

This entry is part 55 of 63 in the series Ten Mangled Words You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Taste is never shaped in isolation. We learn to love what we love from our family, our church, our school, and our society. In other words, taste is largely shaped by culture. Culture can be defined as T. S. Eliot suggested, “the incarnation of a religion”. At the heart of any culture is Richard Weaver’s… Continue Reading

How Christians Have Responded to the Secularization of Culture

How Christians Have Responded to the Secularization of Culture

Over the past several weeks I have been tracing how western culture was impacted in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the rise of secularism. An initial response to the rise of secularism by Christians was to accept a separation of reason and faith and attempt to affirm both. However, adopting the rationalist redefinition of reason… Continue Reading

Secular Culture

Secular Culture

In blog posts over the last several weeks, I have been trying to help us understand what kinds of influences and values have converged to produce the culture in which we Christians in the West now find ourselves. I’ve explored some of the worldview values that have shifted; today, I’d like to begin exploring how… Continue Reading

Secular Worldview

Secular Worldview

As we Christians seek to live Christianly in the culture in which we find ourselves, it is important that we recognize how values contrary to God have infiltrated our culture so that we can respond appropriately. The naturalist and empiricist philosophies that emerged in western civilization as a result of the Enlightenment began quickly to spread,… Continue Reading

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series Worldview-Forming Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

What we have seen over the past several weeks is a dynamic interplay between four realities: worldview, theology, culture, and cultus. Worldview and theology affect one another and constitute religion; culture and cultus affect one another as liturgy. But this kind of mutual formation occurs at a macro level as well, between religion and liturgy,… Continue Reading

The Liturgical Nature of Culture

The Liturgical Nature of Culture

This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series Worldview-Forming Worship You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

I am arguing that liturgy forms our religion, and religion forms our liturgy. When I left off last time, I defined religion as worldview + theology. Now it’s time to define liturgy. Liturgy is a word that I am using to describe the way we “live and move and have our being.” Our English word… Continue Reading

Ten Mangled Words – “Equality”

Ten Mangled Words – “Equality”

This entry is part 36 of 63 in the series Ten Mangled Words You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Equality is one of those ideas whose basic meaning is understood, but whose presence is demanded where it cannot possibly be expected. After all, equality is a fairly simply concept: when two amounts are equal, neither is greater or lesser than the other. But while equality in mathematics is a simple matter, equality in human… Continue Reading

What’s wrong with the recent evangelical “social justice” movements?

What’s wrong with the recent evangelical “social justice” movements?

The term “social justice” has become quite a buzz word in evangelical circles in recent years. Social matters like immigration, racial reconciliation, and sexuality are taking center stage in conferences and online discussions, with loud voices expressing strong options. Other voices are beginning to object to the direction of such discussions, expressing concerns over the… Continue Reading