We spend most of our time in our community and living in our culture. Christians listen to secular music, attend movies, watch television on big screen TVs, and use the Internet as much as non-Christians. They go to McDonalds and Starbucks and enroll their children in music lessons and soccer as much as non-Christians. They become enthralled with American Idol, The World Cup, Facebook, and U2 as much as non-Christians. They work in all sectors of the workplace and take vacations and yet suffer job dissatisfaction, depression, and divorce as much as non-Christians. Common experiences and networks of relationships bind people together. Evangelicals value exegesis (interpretation) of Scripture.
However, an effective missional spirituality will also exegete (interpret) culture. As helpful as they are, it is not enough to restrict ourselves to a Christian subculture where our primary interactions are with James Dobson, Hill Song, and Beth Moore. It?s not enough, to simply wag our heads about Britney Spears or denounce sexuality and violence in movies, though we would not accept them uncritically.
Like the ?men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do? (1 Chron 12:32), Max DePree wrote, ?The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.?[1] Christian leaders and people need to define reality and ?interpret the signs of the times? (Matt 16:1-3). They need to exegete popular culture and cultivate a missional spirituality that engages and interprets it theologically. Of course the movie Avatar and Oprah communicate syncretistic New Age messages, but what are the messages, how are they depicted and why, what are the values, beliefs, concerns, and anxieties that they portray about our culture? What can we learn from them? How do we interpret their messages from the perspective of Christian theology?
What motivates Lady Gaga?s lyrics, appearance, and view of spirituality? As a pop culture phenomenon, not unlike Taylor Swift who has colossal popularity with very different messages so far, Lady Gaga is a commentary on popular culture?s spiritual, sexual, and social values. How do we help our youth exegete her from the standpoint of Christian theology? On February 13, 2011, Anderson Cooper interviewed her on 60 Minutes?[2] She offers an intriguing glimpse into a person whose views on sexuality, spirituality, and social justice emerge from her own pain and rejection she suffered in her growing up years, especially in a Catholic school. Media both shapes and expresses popular culture through a shared meaning.
It?s not possible to read Scripture and then do theology without involving the context of culture into the theological task. Culture is a lived worldview. The products of culture are cultural texts, which are human actions that communicate meaning and require interpretation. For example multi-level marketing, ponzi schemes, and white-collar crime grabbed headlines in the first decade of the 21st century. Greed motivates these trends. Theologically interpreted, greed is idolatry. Another trend is social networking such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Blogs. Community in Christ will only satisfy this human longing to belong. We must involve ourselves in and read the texts the texts of culture. Mark Driscoll writes,
I am encouraging Christians on Reformission to involve themselves in their local cultures not merely for the purpose of entertainment but primarily for the purpose of education. As a missionary, you will need to watch television shows and movies, listen to music, read books, peruse magazines, attend events, join organizations, surf websites, and befriend people that you might not like to better understand people that Jesus loves.[3]
Vanhoozer states, ?The church is to be a community of interpreters.?[4] Effective missionaries interpret the culture. They don?t expect people from the host culture to come to their turf to learn their language, values, and customs. They cross borders and learn the language, customs, values, and trends of the host culture.
As you exegete the meaning behind texts and trends, you use the filters of Scripture and Christian theology to read them theologically. Vanhoozer states, ?The believing community ?reads? the world in light of the Word of God. In other words, the church interprets the world and the surrounding culture through the lens of the biblical text.?[5] Yet, you can exegete culture and still be formed by its values, untransformed from only being exposed to abstract informational appeals to your mind that you hear in sermons. Unless you actually engage culture as a missionary nothing will change. James Smith makes the point that the values and practices of the mall and the marketplace shape our imaginations about the ?good life.? If culture shapes your heart and what you desire and love, how will the church offer counter measures? Both the market and the mall do not primarily aim at your head (the intellect) but at your heart and feelings.[6]
What are your responses? For further reading on this subject, see our Missional Spirituality.
[1] Max DePree, Leadership is an Art (New York: Doubleday, 1989, 2004), p. 11.
[2] See the full Lady Gaga interview available on multiple Internet sites and YouTube.
[3] Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), p. 103.
[4] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Charles A. Anderson, Michael J. Sleasman, eds. Everyday Theology: How To Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 55.
[5] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ?The World Well Staged? Theology, Culture, and Hermeneutics,? D.A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, eds., God and Culture: Essays in Honor of Carl F. H. Henry (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993), p. 29.
[6] James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), pp. 18-35.
Source: http://missionalspirituality.com/2012/09/1065/
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