Robert Webber is a pretty smart guy, isn't he? He very clearly summarizes something that I think is crucial and key to how the church must deal with culture, something that's a major theme of Sally's article. "The ancient church teaches us three relationships to culture all at once: It is part of it; it is antithesis to it; it is called to transform it. These relationship are always held in tension with culture. And depending on the condition of culture, they change in the intensity from place to place and time to time."(148) These three categories sounded very familiar to me. Mark Driscoll posted a blog about culture that is very helpful (I'll put the link at the bottom). His three categories are Receive, Reject, or Redeem. Sound familiar? Through this grid, I think Sally is very right where many churches should be scolded for their holding on to tradition for tradition's sake and not looking be cultural at all. These people are not "Receiving" culture at all, which is a problem. The problem that I (as well as most everybody else) is that Sally doesn't seem to want to reject anything in culture. She says "come on in! The water's fine!" But is that what we should be doing? Finally, I think there certainly is a third way, a good way, (perhaps even the best way?), "Redeem". For this, I look to Driscoll's church, Mars Hill (Seattle). I personally know that much of the music that comes from his church is God-honor, Christ-exalting, Spirit-enabled worship, but comes through as hard rock (such as a rendition of Depth of Mercy) or contemporary (a rendition of Love Lifted Me). How can we, being the next generation of faithful, Gospel-centered believers help shape our churches around properly receiving, rejecting, and redeeming culture?
http://theresurgence.com/2010/12/07/why-christians-go-postal-over-facebook-jay-z-yoga-avatar-and-culture-in-general
http://theresurgence.com/pages/kenosis-depth-of-mercy
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