(The following is something Gana wrote for his Christ and Culture class.)
I found this book of particular interest, especially in light of my history. I grew up in a culture that could possibly create a sixth stance: Culture without Christ. I had never even heard the name of Jesus or the word Christ until well after the “Peaceful Revolution” which brought down communism in Mongolia in 1991. There was not a single church in Mongolia--underground or otherwise. When missionaries came to Mongolia, I was brought to the Church out of mere curiosity (what was this strange idea of gathering together with other believers every Sunday? I had never heard of such a thing!) and later to Christ out of need--a need that when revealed actually surprised me. As a Mongolian I do not have a Christian history, nor is Christianity written into our culture. I have read that Kublai Khan (the grandson of Genghis Khan) respected the Christian faith and sent a letter to Rome asking for priests. But for reasons unknown they never arrived in Mongolia. That is the only Christian culture’ history in Mongolia.
In looking at these five types I could see myself and my journey in several of them. How I see Christ and Culture now and how I reflect on this question at this stage of my Christian walk is perhaps different than it was when I became a Christian fifteen years ago. It is perhaps different now than even five years ago. I have been through a process.
Growing up I attended Soviet schools and was mandated to attend Soviet youth camps. We were not taught about God. It’s not that we were taught religion was bad--we were taught nothing about it at all. No one had to teach us that Jesus wasn’t the Redeemer. We didn’t know who he was to begin with! There were no churches; there were only a few Buddhist temples. Traditionally, however, Mongolians were not so much Buddhist as they were shamanists. (Buddhism came to Mongolia via Tibet.) All that being said, my religious cultural understanding was very limited. On one hand the blatant disregard of religion under communism and on the other hand fear-based superstition that came with Buddhism and Shamanism.
When I came to Christ I probably adhered to “Christ Against Culture” as there was so much in my culture that did not reflect Christ. For Christians in a post-communist countries, those strict lines are often drawn, affirming “the sole authority of Christ over the Christian and resolutely rejects culture’s claims to loyalty.” My emphasis was certainly on complete loyalty to Jesus and to the local church and the utter rejection of Mongolian tradition and culture. This could be the reason why those of an older generation didn’t show equal excitement for budding Christianity. (I will interject, that as the church has grown in Mongolia much of it is that of an older generation. I think that this occurred because we moved from Christ Against Culture to more moderate stances, allowing for national/cultural traditions.) One factor that contributed to this was the reading of Russian literature, especially after the fall of communism. I was impressed that Niebuhr recognized the contributions of Tolstoy to this stance. At this point in my walk with Christ, I did not understand the power of the Spirit, not to just get us to heaven, but to bring heaven to earth. My uncle, who was a correspondent for the communist government before he retired, summed it up perfectly as he explained his unique belief and perspective to my in-laws (who come from a completely different background. They are Americans and pastors at that!): “I had to be an atheist because of communism. I was a Buddhist out of respect for my mother. But, if there is any hope for this country, it is in Christianity.”
Which brings me to where I am now. I feel I am now increasingly embracing Christ as the Transformer of Culture. I first became aware of Christ’s power to not just survive culture, but to transform it, as I saw more and more of Western Postmodern Culture changing Modern Mongolian Culture. I realized that the culture was a changing, not a stagnant, thing. In an Asian culture each one is a part of the community and must play his/her part--likened to being a part of a larger family where roles are well-defined. Therefore, one is not just observing culture, but is an agent of the culture. Culture doesn’t stand still--it is constantly evolving. If we try to hang on to it or reject it we are missing opportunities to win people to Christ!
Add to this line of thinking that in 1998 I planted a church in the capital city of Mongolia, which is becoming increasingly urbanized. Members of my church were politicians (one of whom actually helped write our constitution in the new Parliamentary Republic), actors, models, and musicians. These did not just attend on Sundays but became small group leaders--reaching out to those in their “celebrity” or “political” spheres. I started to realize that if Christ was a Savior of all it included those that held influence in society. God was not asking converts to give up their livelihoods, but to make Christ Lord of all of life and to make a difference where they were--offering others the hope of heaven and bringing heaven to earth.
It was easy post-communism to use Christianity as merely a better substitute for the law we had been under. It was as if it was difficult for me to truly grasp that Jesus did not come to bring a “new law” but to bring a period of transforming grace. “…they refer to the redeemer more than to the giver of the new law, and to God whom men encounter more than to the representative of the best spiritual resources in humanity.” I do find myself, as Niebuhr proposes, becoming more hopeful in my theology and my approach to culture.
Niebuhr asserts that the conversionist’s position rests with three theological positions relating to creation, the fall from goodness, and the view of history that all things are possible. I am still considering these three theological positions from my perspective of one in transition--between two worlds, so to speak.
I see the atoning work of Christ as reversing the curse. I believe it is possible to live above the curse in Genesis 3 and recover the “it is very good” of the first two chapters of Genesis. For a while I could not dare to believe this. I saw too much wretchedness in my youth. I stood in breadlines; fought for food to eat. I was caught up in alcoholism and violence. Even though my soul was saved in 1993, I had trouble believing that the world could actually be changed. When I prayed, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done” I saw it only as something in the eternal--something that waited for us in heaven. I neglected the next phrase: “On earth as it is in heaven.” Now I am daring to pray the whole of this prayer and to believe that Christ can transform culture.
In pondering where sin actually lies, one has to truly consider the definitions of sin and salvation. In regards to behavior, there are three areas that are perceived as sin: Biblical Absolutes, Cultural Expectations (of both church and larger society), and Personal Preferences. Often the latter two are projected as sin because of cultural conditioning, but it is only the first which can be preached as “sin.” This goes farther than mere behavior. I see sin as residing in the hearts (or liver as we say in Mongolian) of men, which manifests itself in institutions, governments, and culture. The answer is the transformed lives of individuals, which can also manifest in institutions, governments and cultures, as He takes away our heart of stone and replaces it with the heart of flesh.
I see salvation as happening in three stages: I am saved. I am being saved. I will be saved. Because Christ is the Transformer, as Christians we do not have to sin. I believe it is possible to go an entire day without sinning--but never without the possibility of sinning. I John 3:6 says, “Whoever abides in him does not sin…” and Romans 6:14 says that sin shall not have mastery over us because we are not under the law, but under grace. These verses lead me to see Christ as not just dwelling with people and culture, but more than capable of transforming it altogether! Hearts of stone becoming hearts of flesh.
“Christ is the transformer of culture…he redirects, reinvigorates, and regenerates that life of man, expressed in all human works, which in present actuality is the perverted and corrupted exercise of a fundamentally good nature; which, moreover, in its depravity lies under the curse of transiency and death, not because of external punishment has been visited upon it, but because it is intrinsically self-contradictory.”Augustine puts it this way:
Thou, O God, sawest everything that thou hadst made, and, behold, it was very good. Yea we also see the same, and behold all things are very good….Seven times have I counted it to be written, that thou sawest that that which thou madest was good: and this is the eighth, that thou sawest everything that thou hadst made and, behold, it was not only good, but also very good, as being now altogether. For severally, they were only good; but altogether both good and very good. All beautiful bodies express the same; by reason that body consisting of members all beautiful, is far more beautiful than the same members by themselves are, by whose well-ordered blending the whole is perfected….It is one thing then for a man to think that to be ill which is good…; another, that that which is good, a man should see that it is good….and another, that when a man sees a thing that it is good, God should in him see that it is good, so namely that he should be loved in that which he made, who cannot be loved but by the Holy Ghost which he hath given…, by whom we see that whatsoever in any degree is, is good. For from him it is who himself is not in degree, but what he is, is….Let they works praise thee that we may love thee, and let us love thee that they works may praise thee.Believing that Christ can transform culture allows us to participate in that transformation and the restoration of creation to that very good state. This can only be done in the power of the Holy Ghost. II Cor 3:8, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Poop-face
