WTS Gospel & Culture

[Note: The Gospel and Culture Project now has it's own website - http://www.gospelandculture.org]

Now this is extremely interesting - Mark Traphagen has posted a summary of the Gospel & Culture seminars, and I find it extremely interesting. Here's a snippet to whet your appetite...

The biblical message is that God has been with and for the creation since the beginning. To be human and made in the image of God is to be a human who eats, sleeps, creates, works, gardens, talks, etc. Christ did not come with a message limited to the saving of indivdual souls. His disciples are culture formers from the very start.

American Christians have tended toward two polar opposites: either God’s kingdom is an old Israel restored in the future, or God’s kingdom is a new Israel (i.e., the United States). In fact, it is neither. It is a global kingdom, encompassing the whole world, all of creation, and every culture.

Too often we are focused on the means to bring the Kingdom rather than on its King. We are to have Christ and his Kingdom first, then the means.
...
Recent Christian youth movements have issued a call to “redeem the culture.” As well-intentioned as this is, it is not really the call of Christ. It is not us redeeming culture and then offering it up to Christ as our gift to him, but rather our recognition that we are but servants of the Christ who judges and who himself redeems, not just our culture, but every culture of the world. We serve his kingdom, wherever we do so, as humble, repentant sinners, people who live out of deep gratitude. There is no shortcut to the redemption of all things. No political party, no economic plan, can bring it about. Neither is there a shortcut to global Christian unity. We must see ourselves neither as Americans first nor as anti-American, but rather first always as Christ’s disciples, ambassadors to all the world.

The inattention to culture is just as prevalent in the Reformed world as it is elsewhere in the Church.
...

You really ought to go read the whole thing. The second part on African American culture is just as good. Thanks for sharing this Mark!