In this second post in the series on the Bible and culture I continue to prepare the ground for a series of reflections about bringing Bible and culture[1] into conversation. Having sketched out the importance of eschatological realism, I now want to explore how the depiction of the new heavens and new earth in the book of Revelation can inform a distinctively biblical understanding of culture.
This is a high-stakes issue with far-reaching implications for questions such as:
- Do we always read the Bible in a way that is hidebound within our own culture?
- Does the Bible itself have a culture, or cultures, to which Christians should conform?
- Does, and should, the Bible transform the cultures with which it comes into contact?
In response to these questions I want to set out two principles that will serve us well as we seek to establish a robust but sensitive dialogue between the Bible and contemporary cultures.
I take as my starting point for these reflections the eschatological vision of Revelation 7, which offers us not only as a vision of the future but as a norm towards which the kingdom of God in the present tends, in accordance with the principle of Stanley Grenz and John R. Franke’s “eschatological realism” discussed in a previous post. The verses upon which I wish to reflect here burst forth with praise for the God who reigns on the throne of heaven:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)
What we notice in this passage is
- people from “every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” have not lost their differences in the new creation: they are still described in terms of their various cultural provenances, but
- all are united in their cry “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
In these two short verses lies coiled up a whole theology of culture. I shall try briefly to tease out some of its main implications in this and in future posts, but first we need to be clear, among the many different definitions of “culture” in circulation, what we take the term to mean in this context. I take my definition from Christian missionary and theologian Lesslie Newbigin:
By the word culture we have to understand the sum total of ways of living developed by a group of human beings and handed on from generation to generation. Central to culture is language. The language of the people provides the means by which they express their way of perceiving things and of coping with them. Around the centre one would have to group their visual and musical arts, their technologies, their law, and their social and political organisation. And one must also include in culture, and is fundamental to any culture, a set of beliefs, experiences, and practices that seek to grasp and express the ultimate nature of things, that which gives shape and meaning to life, that which claims final loyalty. I am speaking, obviously, about religion. Religion – including Christian religion – is this part of culture.[2]
This definition brings some clarification, but it also raises some questions. On the side of clarification, with this definition in mind we are now in a position, in future posts, to see how these verses open the door to a distinctively biblical way of understanding the relationship between the Bible and culture and, eventually, to see how we can both rigorously and sensitively bring the Bible into dialogue with contemporary cultures. On the side of raising further questions, at least two key points for further inquiry are left hanging in Revelation 7:
- How can the diversity of cultures and the unity of praise marry together so seamlessly? What is it about the gospel and the God this multitude is praising that makes this possible?
- If all earthly cultures are imperfect and fallen–as surely they are–then how are we to understand the identification of tribes, tongues and nations on the new earth? Will the French, for example, be recognisably French, and what about those aspects of all cultures that are sinful? Can we simply take those aspects out? What about those cultures profoundly shaped by other religions?
These questions and more will be explored in future posts in this series.
[1] This is not the place to bicker over the definition or appropriateness of the term “culture”, or its appearance here in the singular. I am using the term in a generic, general sense, and will follow Lesslie Newbigin’s serviceable definition quoted below.
[2] Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986) 4.
