Paul Windsor on Calvin Klein

There’s a helpful post here from Paul Windsor, clocking the ‘remarkable ability’ of the Calvin Klein machine ‘to capture the spirit of the age and to express it in a single word’ – most recently, ‘defy’.

He sees these as contemporary equivalents to the ‘altar with an inscription’ (Acts 17:23) and ‘some of your own poets’ (Acts 17:28) in Athens, noting that the apostle Paul ‘was flexible enough to commence his preaching from “texts” in his culture — and then he was creative enough to move from there to Jesus’.

Centre for Public Christianity (November 2017)

The Centre for Public Christianity has posted an interview with film and TV critic Alissa Wilkinson – ‘Zombies, Faith and Politics’ – on pop culture’s obsession with religion.

Holiness 2, 3 (2016) on Holiness and Contemporary Culture

The latest issue of Holiness, the journal of Wesley House Cambridge is now available online, this one devoted to ‘Holiness and Contemporary Culture’.

The editor, Andrew Stobart, imagines explaining to John Wesley that ‘by “contemporary culture” we are simply referring – albeit with greater sophistication than we normally muster – to “the world in which we live”, the world within which we attempt to speak to and of and for God’. At once, he notes, ‘Wesley is no longer standing on the sidelines of our topic, but fully immersed in it, offering us an example of how “holiness” and “contemporary culture” are to be related in thought and practice’.

He goes on: ‘Holiness is always a lived entity, generated within the community of Christ, but also informed by and worked out within the cultural structures that provide definition to our daily lives.’

The entire journal, containing the below collection of peer-reviewed essays, lecture, and short articles, is available as a pdf here.

Hilary Brand

Whatever happened to sin? An examination of the word and concept in contemporary popular culture

The concept of ‘sin’ is rarely expressed in today’s popular culture. When the word does appear it is frequently in ironic quotation marks and often used in terms of ‘naughty but nice’, minor misdemeanours, something disapproved of, an outmoded Catholic shame culture, Islamic oppression or fundamentalist extremism. Rarely is it used in the way the Church understands it. By analysing the use of the word in recent news reports and examining its use and absence across the range of twenty-first-century media, this study draws some conclusions about how UK secular society understands the word. It then goes on to explore how some twentieth-century cultural changes have impacted on its understanding, and concludes with some observations on how twenty-first-century Western culture still senses the underlying problem and yearns for a way to express it.

Rebekah Callow

‘Lifting the shell’: expressions of emotion and cross-cultural struggle in international students

Research has shown that while humans around the world hold various emotions in common with one another – sadness, happiness, fear and anger – the expression of these emotions can look different depending on the culture. This article explores the different expressions of ‘struggle’ that arise when a person experiences ‘culture shock’ or ‘culture stress’ due to life in a cross- cultural context. The article argues that in the increasingly international context of higher education, urgent attention needs to be given to these different cultural expressions of struggle, in order to better understand students’ experiences and provide effective coping strategies. Richard Lewis’s cultural model is developed for use in this context. 

Pete Phillips

Wesley’s parish and the digital age?

The following article was delivered as the annual lecture of the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship at the 2016 Methodist Conference in London. Beginning with the original context of John Wesley’s well-known phrase, ‘the world as my parish’, this article explores the digital aspects of our global parish today. Putting the digital age on the agenda of the Church’s mission is seen as a similar response to Wesley’s decision to become ‘more vile’ and enter the world of field preaching. The lecture concludes by offering a fresh approach to Methodist identity magnified by aspects of digital culture, calling for the creation of digital Arminianism, digital field preaching, digital creativity and, ultimately, a digital parish. The article proposes that Methodism embrace a digital social holiness to spread scriptural holiness throughout the geographic and digital landscape.

Anna Robbins

‘It’s always right now’: framing the struggle for meaning in contemporary culture

Late contemporary culture has seen a previously dominant existentialism give way to naturalistic determinism, and yielded a nihilism that is not conducive to human flourishing, as individuals or society. I will seek to frame a discussion whereby the fact of meaning may be posited and discussed in contemporary culture, concluding that Christianity offers a context for exploring meaning in a way that is preferable to other views because it provides a coherent approach to understanding the nature of the human being, and the problems that give rise to a crisis of meaning. The article will also offer several suggestions for further study whereby the work of meaning may be pursued.

Gordon Leah

A reluctant Samaritan: reflections from Carlo Levi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli

Carlo Levi, doctor, organist, painter and political activist, was exiled in 1935 by Mussolini to Lucania, a remote corner of southern Italy. I consider the enormous impact his skills made on the primitive life of the area, and how, when the peasants believed that ‘Christ stopped at Eboli’, the town north of their region, and no Christians or outsiders were interested in them, Levi gradually, through his immersion in their life with practical, undemonstrative service, gave them new hope. Finally I consider the vital importance of practical service as a true reflection of Christ’s active love for a world and for suffering people without other hope.

Richard Clutterbuck

A holiness movement, shaped by mission: encountering God in Oceania

Reflecting on the author’s experience of Christianity in Oceania, this article draws attention to a classic nineteenth-century Methodist text written in the founding years of the Christian mission in Oceania. Letters on Entire Sanctification was written by John Hunt, a remarkable young missionary, published after his early death in Fiji, and can claim to be the first substantial work of Christian theology written in Oceania. Understanding Hunt’s writings in their context helps to define the relationship between holiness and mission, and refocus the Methodist movement as a ‘holiness movement, shaped by mission’.

Rosemary Power

Pilgrims in a barren land: pioneer ministry in rural Ireland

This article considers a pioneer ministry in rural and small-town west of Ireland, at a time of social change and financial crash. It considers what was expected, what actually happened, how the parent de nomination responded, and what on reflection may feed into the wider discussion of new ways of spreading the Christian gospel. This article is a companion to the author’s article ‘Modern pilgrimage in the west of Ireland’, published in this journal (Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 115–126).

Tom Osborne

‘Pretty amazing grace’: using contemporary popular music in church worship

This article reflects upon the use within corporate worship of music created outside of the church environment. Using the practical experience of producing a Passiontide liturgy that incorporated secular popular music, and the shape of the resulting worship, the article explores the appropriateness of such use and, assuming such use is deemed appropriate, best practice in doing so. Engaging with a range of academic and popular sources, the article sees music as a key component of both church and contemporary cultures and attempts to offer a way of bridging the gap that seems to exist between them.

Tim Macquiban

What have the sermons of John Wesley ever done for us? The Wesleyan legacy in issues of wealth and poverty: reflections on Wesley’s sermon, ‘The Use of Money’

Wesley’s sermon, ‘The Use of Money’, still resonates with our contemporary economic context. After a synopsis of the sermon, this article seeks to set it in its original context, understanding the key marks of Wesley’s approach to poverty: the importance of personal contact with the poor, the importance of thrift, and the importance of indiscrimination, grounded in spiritual egalitarianism. The legacy of Wesley’s advice, both within the early Methodist movement, and as a starting point for critical reflection today, is then considered.

Foundations 70 (Spring 2016)

Issue 70 of Foundations: An International Journal of Evangelical Theology, published by Affinity, is now available (here in its entirety as a pdf), with the following contributions. The essays by Ted Turnau and Andrew Latimer will be particularly significant for those interested in cultural engagement and the role of Christians in the contemporary world.

Ralph Cunnington

Editorial

Benedict Bird

The Covenant of Redemption According to John Owen and Patrick Gillespie

John Owen and Patrick Gillespie made profound contributions to the Reformed understanding of the “Covenant of Redemption”, or pactum salutis. Owen discusses it in at least sixteen of his works  from  1645  onwards.  Gillespie’s work, The Ark of the Covenant Opened, 1677, has  been described as “the most elaborate work in the English language” on the subject. The importance of the doctrine, in Owen’s view, is apparent in the Preface that he wrote to Gillespie’s work. He says “the truth herein is the very centre wherein all the lines concerning the grace of God and our own  duty do meet, wherein the whole  of  religion  doth  consist.” Both  authors  regard  the doctrine as the intra-Trinitarian foundation of the Covenant of Grace apart from which no man is  saved.  Both  explain  that  God’s  salvation  plan was  the  result  of the  eternal  counsels  of  the persons of  the  Trinity,  such  counsels having  the features of  a  covenant  and  including Christ’s distinct personal concurrence. Other theologians have rejected the notion of an intra-Trinitarian covenant, on the basis that it contradicts the undisputed truth that God has one indivisible will, and have sought  instead  to explain  the plan  of  salvation  simply  in  terms  of  divine decree. Yet Owen  and  Gillespie  regard  the  “pure  decree”  explanation  as  an  inadequate account  of  the Scriptural data – and hence an inadequate account of the whole foundation of God’s covenantal dealings with his people which underpin the whole of theology. In their view, the Covenant of Redemption provides a more compelling and faithful account, and does so without dividing the indivisible Trinity. This essay explores the alignment of their thinking on this vital issue. 

Ted Turnau

Dialogues Concerning Cultural Engagement (Part One)

In  this two-part essay,  the author addresses  the  subject of Christian  cultural engagement  in a post-Christian context. In Part One (Foundations 70), the author establishes that cultures of the West can be characterised as post-Christian. He then explores the issue of engagement through a  series  of  dialogues  with  different characters:  1)  the  Knight,  who  represents  a  political approach to cultural change, 2) the Gardener, who represents the Benedict Option espoused by conservative writer Rod Dreher, and 3) the Member of the Loyal Opposition, who represents the posture  of  “faithful  presence”  espoused  by  sociologist  James  Davison  Hunter.  Part  Two (in Foundations 71) gathers the various characters for a round-table discussion. After pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each, the author lays out his own approach which focuses on imaginative  cultural  engagement  using  the  arts  and entertainment.  He  explores  the  issue  of same-sex  marriage  as  a  case  study,  and the  reconciliation  between  gay  activist  Shane Windemeyer  and  American Christian  businessman  Dan  Cathy  as  an  example  of  winsome engagement in which each discovered a common humanity in the other. Our goal is a cultural engagement that is an analogue to that kind of winsome reconciliation that creates space within which  estranged  parties  can  meet,  or  what  the  author  calls “planting  oases”.  He  then  briefly considers two examples of this in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, and U2’s Superbowl performance in February 2002. 

Andrew Latimer

Is the Adamic Work of Christ Shared with the Believer? A Critique of Van Drunen

One of the ongoing debates in Reformed theology is how Christians are to engage with the wider culture. David Van Drunen’s book “Living in God’s two Kingdoms” provides a clear presentation of a two kingdoms approach to cultural engagement and is written to challenge the “vision that the  redemptive  transformation  of  culture  is central  to  the  Christian  life”.  This  article  aims  to show how Van Drunen’s misreading of the covenant with Adam sets him on the wrong course, and  leads  to conclusions  which  are  at  odds  with  the  New  Testament’s  description  of  the Christian life. He fails to see that alongside an “exile paradigm” for believers in this age, the New Testament  also  describes  a  “conquest  paradigm”,  and  he  misses how  the  New  Testament teaches that in Christ believers share in Christ’s Adamic work.

Ben Rogers

Ryle and Evangelical Identity

This  article  examines  J.C.  Ryle’s  understanding  of  Evangelical  identity.  More specifically,  it examines his discovery, definition, and defence of Evangelical principles. He was convinced that Evangelical religion, which is characterised by five distinguishing principles, was the religion of the Scriptures, the Thirty-nine Articles, the English Reformers, the leading Pre-Laudian divines, and the leaders of the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century. This conviction was born out of his own conversion and reinforced by his study of the Bible and church history, and it led him  to  become  an  outspoken  advocate  of  Evangelical  principles  and  an apologist  for  the Evangelical cause.

Samuel Crossley

Recent Developments in the Definition of Evangelicalism

The  second  half  of  the  twentieth century  saw  a  spike  in discussions pertaining  to Evangelical identity. During these discussions the term “Evangelical” came to be used with greater intensity and was deployed in an increasingly technical manner. This phenomenon was in no small part due  to  the Evangelical  renaissance, where New and  Conservative Evangelicals  came  to  global prominence. This paper  examines the  two distinct  approaches  to defining  an Evangelical  that were used in this period, with particular reference to the propositional approach of John Stott and Martyn  Lloyd-Jones  and  the phenomenological  approach  of David Bebbington. The paper finishes by considering the merit of these two approaches in the present day. 

Book Reviews

Richard Simpkin

The Message of Worship (Risbridger)

Tim Ward

Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Scepticism

Connecting with Culture, Connecting with People

I contributed this week’s ‘Connecting with Culture’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

What dominated your conversations with friends and colleagues in 2015? The terror attacks in Paris at the beginning and the end of the year, the General Election, the tragic plight of refugees from Syria, the Greek debt crisis, the Ashes, floods, climate change, Poldark, The Great British Bake Off, Star Wars, Ashley Madison, Princess Charlotte, Sepp Blatter, Jeremy Clarkson, Jeremy Corbyn?

And what does 2016 hold? It could be the year the UK decides to leave the EU. We’ll see the US election, missions to Mars and Jupiter, the Queen’s 90th birthday, and the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. For literature buffs, 2016 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Roald Dahl, and the 150th of Beatrix Potter. In cinema, we’ll have Batman vs. Superman, Captain America vs. Iron Man, and the latest installment of Star Trek, while international sporting events will include football’s European Championship in France and the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

2016, like 2015, will offer plenty of opportunities to ‘connect’ with culture. And as we do so, we can feel confident about bringing a Christian perspective into everyday conversations.

Theologian Ted Turnau notes how popular culture provides ‘a touchstone for our deepest desires and aspirations’. It reflects ‘a messy mixture of both grace and idolatry’ that we would expect from created-but-fallen human beings. So, ‘fragments of grace’ are woven into songs, movies, TV programmes, books, social media, political campaigns and sporting events, but are often bent to the service of gods who will not deliver salvation.

In all such cases, for Christians, the good news of what God has done in Jesus offers a better alternative. Whether it’s the search for love, the need for heroes, the desire for community, the longing for redemption, the yearning for a better world – all these are echoed in the biblical story and find their deepest answer in the gospel.

We don’t make connections as a cheap evangelistic ploy, trying to shoehorn a reflection about the meaning of life into every episode of EastEnders. Still, for the sake of our witness to Christ, learning to read culture with eyes informed by the gospel provides a way of enabling open conversations – not just engaging with ideas in the abstract or even primarily with culture as such, but connecting with people in order to introduce them to Jesus.

Steve Turner on Pop Culture from a Christian Perspective

I was asked to write six brief book notes for the November 2013 edition of EG, published by LICC. I’ve been posting them individually here at various points over the last few weeks.

Steve Turner, Popcultured: Thinking Christianly about Style, Media and Entertainment (Nottingham: IVP, 2013).

A great reminder that the pervasiveness of pop culture provides a common language to connect with others. Broad in his coverage, Turner looks at cinema, journalism, celebrities, fashion, thrill-seeking, comedy, photography, advertising, technology, and photography, each chapter ending with questions for refection, recommendations for reading and suggestions for action. And all with the encouragement to consume discerningly, critique faithfully, and create wisely.