Perhaps we should blame it on the Jordan Peterson phenomenon. Or maybe it’s a symptom of the increasingly tribalized culture wars echoing noisily through the Twittersphere. However we got here, we have to admit that “critical theory” and “cultural Marxism” have become a thing for Christians today.
What is at stake for Christians in grappling with these issues is not simply a choice between ignoring the true insights of critical theory and unthinkingly embracing its ideas. Nor should Christians simply concede one or two isolated claims of critical theory and then otherwise dismiss it entirely, thinking that our work is done. If all we do is react to the trends of secular cultural theory there is a bigger opportunity that we risk passing by, the opportunity of seizing the moment to forge ahead with a biblical cultural theory that can out-narrate its secular imitators. In other words, when it comes to cultural theory Christians ought to be on the front foot, not on the defensive. Here are five reasons why we need a biblical cultural theory today.
1. Because it resists the emerging “society vs Christianity” narrative.
First of all, let’s be clear: I am not denying the antithesis between Christianity and critical theory. It is necessary to refuse any crude attempt at syncretism between Jesus and Marx; Christianity and critical theory have irreconcilable views of society’s greatest problem, and of that problem’s remedy. Like putting on trousers or a skirt in the morning before leaving the house, stressing the antithesis is a very good thing to do. But if a skirt or trousers is all we wear as we saunter down the street, or if stressing the antithesis is the entirety of our cultural engagement, then we will soon find our sartorial or cultural strategy to be insufficient, for two reasons. The smaller and more pragmatic reason is that a dominant emphasis on antithesis plays into the hands of an emerging cultural narrative of “society vs Christianity”. We are jadedly familiar with the threadbare “science vs Christianity” story, expertly debunked by Alvin Plantinga and Peter Harrison among others, which peddles the false idea that Christianity is and always has been the enemy of scientific progress. But we are now increasingly witnessing a similar—and similarly misconceived—“society vs Christianity” narrative which seeks to isolate Christianity from mainstream values such as justice, freedom, fairness and equality, ignoring or suppressing the formative contributions that Christianity and Christians have made and continue to make to contemporary societies and their values. This strategic airbrushing of history must be resisted.
2. Because it seeks to do justice to the complexity of the biblical witness.
The second reason why maintaining an antithesis between Christianity and critical theory is insufficient is that it sells short the complex ways in which the truth of Christ relates to all cultural phenomena. As one example, consider how Paul engages with Greek and Jewish cultural values in 1 Corinthians 1:22-25:
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
The Apostle here acknowledges a stark antithesis between Greek wisdom and God’s wisdom, between the Jewish search for power and God’s power, but he also affirms that there is a true wisdom and a true power which fulfil the Greek and Jewish longings. In other words, he wants the Greeks and Jews to find the full reality of the wisdom and power they demand, to come to the foot of the foolish and offensive cross where they can find true wisdom and power, as I explore more fully elsewhere.
So what of critical theory? What might Paul write in the letter of 1 Cantabridgians, 1 Parisians, 1 Melburnians or 1 New Yorkers today? Perhaps that “critical theorists desire liberation from oppression, but we preach Christ crucified, an oppressive opiate for critical theorists, but to those whom God has called Christ the freedom of God. For slavery to God is more liberating than human freedom.” There is antithesis in this message, to be sure, but there is more than antithesis.
3. Because cultural and critical theories owe a debt to Christianity.
It is instructive to reflect on the fact that critical and cultural theories have arisen and flourished in nations with a deep Christian heritage. Marxism for example, from which many currents of critical and cultural theory flow, relies heavily on nineteenth century German thinker G W F Hegel’s philosophy of history, which in turn develops ideas of time, providence, freedom and justice that are distortions of biblical ideas. Critical theory is in part a heresy of Christianity, not of Buddhism or of Hinduism.
Some of its more prominent forms abstract one theme from the storyline of the Bible: the theme of rescue and salvation that we see most vividly in the exodus and in the cross and resurrection of Christ. Neglecting the rest of the biblical narrative, these theories view society predominantly through the single lens of oppression and liberation. They then inscribe the basic shape of that theme (freedom for the oppressed) within a framework in which the most fundamental reality of undergirding social relations is brute coercive power, as opposed to the Bible’s witness that the original and most fundamental reality is an intra-trinitarian loving-power. Finally, it makes sin and righteousness a function of belonging either to majority or minority social groups. In all this it borrows from biblical ideas, offering Christians much cultural “Egyptian gold” to reclaim.
4. Because Christians must not only explain the Bible to the culture, but also explain the culture through the Bible.
A cultural theory is a way of understanding, explaining, critiquing and constructively transforming a particular cultural moment with a particular set of sensitivities, values, concepts and structures. Cultural theories take the great sprawling complexity of culture and put some of its aspects squarely in the foreground, making them visible by giving them particular names and ethical weight, and letting other aspects retreat into the background. This is the case for psychoanalytical theory, feminist theory, queer theory, ecotheory, Marxist theory etc.
The Bible has its own sensitivities, concepts and structures, lending itself to an explanatory, critical and transformative engagement with society. So what would a biblical cultural theory look like? It begins with the conviction that Christians must not only explain the Bible to the culture, but we must also explain the culture through the Bible. The biblical texts themselves repeatedly engage in this sort of explanation: think for example of the way in which Genesis 1 and 2 subvert other ancient creation myths, or of Isaiah’s impish critique of idols, or of the characterisation of Babylon in the book of Revelation.
The history of Christian thought is also blessed with some shining examples of this sort of engagement: Augustine’s City of God and Calvin’s Institutes prominent among them. So we already have our biblical cultural theory, right?
Wrong. Augustine, Calvin and others are of course read today with great profit. But we do not share Augustine’s cultural moment, nor is Calvin’s world our world. Our need is not only to read these classics today but to find ways of engaging with the concerns and theories of our cultures as trenchantly as they did with theirs. These touchstone texts must mark the beginning of our journey, not its terminus. The challenges and opportunities of identity and diversity, community and individuality, freedom and order peculiar to our cultural moment need to be explored and explained through a biblical lens.
5. Because there is so much work still to be done.
So, to quote VLadimir Lenin, what is to be done? Where are we in relation to the task of elaborating a biblical theory for our day? Writers like John Milbank and David Bentley Hart, Paul Ricœur, Jacques Ellul, Jürgen Moltmann, Oliver O’Donovan, Cornelius van Til and Miroslav Volf, Brian Ingraffia, Merold Westphal, James K A Smith and others are seeking to engage modern and contemporary cultural and critical theory from a range of confessional perspectives, and with emphases ranging between antithesis and making common cause.
And yet, for all the fruit that these writers and others have expertly picked, the harvest remains chiefly in the field. We are yet to see a robust biblical cultural theory, one with a vision capacious enough to take in the grand biblical theological sweep of Scripture and bring it into robust conversation with the values and issues of contemporary critical thought. The prospect, though, is a mouth-watering one: may the Lord continue to send out workers into this harvest field!
Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash
Thanks for this very stimulating post.
Penultimate sentence…. surely, Chris, you need to rise to the challenge!
I’m trying to David, partly through this website! The harvest field is much bigger than the little square inch that I can cultivate though.