Planting in Babylon Pt. 1

We like this or that propositions. Apparently, our brains prefer them. Decisions are simplified into either/or choices. Conflicts are reduced to good vs evil. Politics, at least here in the US, are framed by a two-party system. We like these binaries. Right or left? In or out? For or against? These thinking habits help us with simple decisions, but this kind of thinking is ill-used when applied to complex problems. A friend recently told me that in his counseling practice, every person he’s worked with thus far has developed a bad binary. They oversimplify their problem into two alternatives that do not account for the nuance in their stories, and this hurts them. This tendency toward binary thinking is seen in the way many local churches treat culture, and we need to move away from it to something new if we are going to live out our calling as God’s people.

Paradise Lost or Future Heaven[1]

In the consulting we do at World Outspoken, we generally encounter two postures toward culture. Some leaders approach cultural engagement with a deep sense of loss. They think back to a golden age, either in their country or in their local congregation, where things were better or right. These leaders express a desire to return their organizations to a past version. Their memories of the “good ol’ days” are romanticized, and the people of that age become heroes/legends. “For the person whose focus is mostly on the past, the present is a cemetery filled with monuments to the glory days that will never come again or with a painful record of the injuries and slights we have suffered.”[2] These leaders need the words of the teacher: “Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.”[3]

A second, equally common posture toward the present culture is to look beyond it to the future. Leaders with this mentality misapply the teacher’s words: “better is the end of a thing than its beginning.”[4] This group risks minimizing current events and borders on escapism when they focus too much on the truth that the Lord will one day make all things new and right. “To someone whose interest is chiefly on the future, the present is only a way station. Its primary function is to serve as a staging ground for what comes next.”[5] This group risks disengaging in significant ways from work that reflects the future they imagine. Rather than work toward that future, they wait passively for it. As my friend, Dr. Koessler writes, “The future and the past can both be an unhealthy refuge for those who are disappointed with their present.”[6] What we need, then, is another type of “imaginative response …  focusing neither on a past golden age nor an anticipated utopia.”[7]

The Exiled Imagination

This article is the first of a three-part series that develops an alternative response to present culture. We focus on themes drawn from Scripture’s exilic writers. Exile “is the experience of pain and suffering that results from knowledge that there is a home where one belongs, yet for the present one is unable to return there.”[8] The most iconic experience of exile in the Bible is the capture of Israel by the Assyrians (722 B.C.) and the fall of the southern kingdom of Judah to the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (586 B.C.). It was during the exile of the southern kingdom that Jeremiah penned his popular letter (i.e. Jer. 29). In this letter, we discover the first image necessary for a healthy imaginative response to culture; we discover an image of ourselves. While developing this image, my goal is to move beyond simple binaries to a robust imaginative posture that accounts for who we are and where we are today.

The first few verses of the 29th chapter of Jeremiah’s anthology sets the stage for this letter. It was written to Israelites who were taken as prisoners of war from the city of Jerusalem to Babylon. The letter begins with a simple but hard declaration from God. The Lord takes credit for their exile, for sending Israelites as POWs to a perilous city. We forget that these Israelites were not sent to Babylon as missionaries. They were not pure, innocent, and godly people who were given a special call to this dangerous and unjust place. They didn’t choose to move there. The truth, in fact, is that the Israelites were Babylonian before they ever lived in Babylon. Jeremiah makes this point repeatedly throughout his anthology.

Beginning in chapter two, we are told that the priests, the shepherds, and the prophets disobeyed God’s instructions. The entire nation’s crimes are summarized in two statements: 1) They disowned their God, and 2) replaced him with other gods (2:13). The leaders were corrupt, and the people were wayward, leading to rampant injustice (6:10; 7:5-20, 30-31). Jerusalem was the capital city, the city of God and His chosen king. It was the Lord’s special dwelling place, meant to reflect his peace, justice, and prosperity (Ps. 72), but the first 24 chapters of Jeremiah’s writings reveal a different reality. Israel never built the Jerusalem, the city which was a blueprint of Heaven on earth. Instead, they built a mirror-image of Babylon, following the plans for a city built on libido dominandi (the lust for mastery). What was ruling Babylon was in them too. God’s people were more Babylonian than they were citizens of Jerusalem, and after many warnings, they were cast out from the city of God to live in the real Babylon they lusted after.

A History of Non-innocence

The Lord sent Israelites into Babylon not as good people to a bad city, but as chastised people to a depraved city. A healthy imaginative response to our Babylonian world depends on a healthy view of ourselves. In a previous article, we discussed the Latino understanding of history. The Hispanic identity is shaped by the conviction that our heritage carries a deep sense of inherited guilt. The bible gives shape to a similar identity for God’s people (Rom. 5:12). Today, we are not beyond the guilt and crookedness of this sick world. Paul tells us as much. After listing a group of sinners that would make a kind of “top 10” list of criminals and deviants, Paul writes, “and such were some of you.”[9] The identity of God’s people is always simul justus et peccator (simultaneously righteous and sinner). Our sin tendency tethers us to Babylon. It forces us to acknowledge our complicity in Babylonizing the world. But we are also righteous.  We are washed clean only to be planted back in the world as God’s ambassadors (1 Cor. 5:20). It is with this dual identity that we are to read the instructions of Jeremiah’s letter.

The Bible gives us two examples of what it means to live well in Babylon: Daniel and Nehemiah. Both men worked in the royal court, directly engaging the political systems of the city. Both men have long prayers that are recorded for us to read, and both men confess their inherited guilt. Daniel chapter 9 records Daniel confessing the sin of all the people, declaring the shame inherited because of the corruption of all Israel. The 9th chapter of Nehemiah is very similar. In his prayer, Nehemiah recounts the history of Israel, highlighting the consistent mercy of God and the consistent failure of the people. In these men, we have examples of culture-makers who don’t pretend to be innocent when reflecting God in their present cultural home. They go before God on behalf of their collective guilt, then engage their city.

Planting in Babylon

When God chooses people to be his ambassadors on earth, He instructs them to reflect Him in what they make. Jeremiah, speaking on behalf of God, encourages the people to go back to basic culture-making. He tells them to plant gardens, build houses, and have families in Babylon. They are not supposed to spend their days dreaming of their past in Jerusalem, nor are they are to passively wait for a future rescue, refusing to enter and engage their new home. They are not going back anytime soon, and the rescue is still far out in front of them (vv. 8-9). In the present, God calls them to make culture, to create communities that live out His story in this city. They are tied to Babylon and instructed to give shape to it.

The Lord says, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” The italicized word here is a translation of the word shalom. “In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, … Shalom, in other words, is the way the world should be.”[10] This command breaks our binary patterns of thinking. The good of God’s people is interconnected to the good of a corrupt city. This should scare us. We know, because Israel gave us an example in Jerusalem, that we can never produce shalom in the cities we make.

It is in view of this, that the Lord’s promise in the middle of this letter is so comforting. The Lord tells a non-innocent, chastised people to live in Babylon as active seekers of shalom, as those who pray for shalom and make small pockets of its beauty in their cultural works. While they work, they are told to hope and wait because their exile is not permanent. After a set time, the Lord promises to visit Babylon and bring the exiles home, back to the city where God and humanity dwell together in peace. Thankfully, He has visited. He can be found by those who seek Him, and He is gathering people from all the nations and places of exile (v. 14). This last hope – the hope that God brings people from every nation and place to His city – is the remarkable truth that we will explore in the second part of Planting in Babylon. Until then, may we be sober-minded makers who remember our sin-tendency and live in God’s grace for the shalom of Babylon.

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Footnotes

[1] Credit to my friend and colleague, Dr. Baurain for these title phrases. Bradley Baurain, “By the Rivers of Babylon We Weep: The Exiled Imagination,” Christianity & the Arts, accessed July 23, 2019, link.

[2] John Koessler, “Practicing the Present,” April 22, 2019, Link.

[3] Ecclesiastes 7:10

[4] Ecclesiastes 7:8

[5] Koessler, “Practicing the Present.”

[6] Koessler.

[7] Baurain, “By the Rivers of Babylon We Weep.”

[8] I. M. Duguid, “Exile,” NDBT, 475. The author of this quote adds an * symbol to suffering that has been removed from the quote here. The symbol signals the reader to read a particular nuance he has added in a previous paragraph. By suffering, the author is referring to guilt or remorse stemming from the knowledge that the cause of exile is sin.

[9] 1 Cor. 6:10

[10] Cornelius Plantinga Jr, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids, Mich. u.a.: Eerdmans, 1996), 10.

Life In the Fastlane: With Ten Items or Less

Shopping can really work up an appetite. Thankfully, Costco has a food court, and on this day of grocery shopping, my husband and I had our hearts set on a Costco chicken bake. There are two wonderful things about the Costco food court. One, the food is ridiculously cheap. Two, they are ridiculously fast at taking your order and getting you your food before you can even blink. On this particular day in the world of Costco, I observed a new addition sitting conspicuously in the center of the food court. At the same time, I also observed a heightened level of chaos within the kitchen that lay beyond the order/pick up counter. Workers were waving order tickets with furrowed brows, rearranging orders on the counter, and consulting one another with frustration written on each face. The culprit of this chaos seemed to be the little addition located in the center of the floor, the self-service checkout kiosk. This kiosk enabled customers to electronically submit their order. My husband and I wondered to ourselves why Costco would go through the trouble of trying to improve a system that was already efficient. Did this technology actually improve the system or did it simply wreak havoc?

The trend of self-service technology is expanding its reach not only into the world of grocery stores and Costco food courts, but even into movie rentals, airports, and beyond. This self-service culture has a lot to tell us about the quickening pace of our society and the high value we place on time and efficiency. An exploration of this trend will bring us to grips with the reality of our own finiteness and God’s expressed desire for how we use our time. 

The World Behind the Kiosk

The very first self-service grocery scanner to make its appearance in the patent world was invented by David R. Humble in 1984 (Justia). The idea supposedly came to him as he was waiting in line at the grocery store observing an interaction between the customer in front of him and the cashier. The man supposedly grew so frustrated at the clerk for taking too long that he reached over the counter and began scanning his own items. This caused Humble to wonder why people could not scan their own groceries (Dilanardo). From the very outset, the concept of self-service technology was brought into existence as a response to the culture’s high value of time efficiency and perceived time deficit.

Like the man in the grocery store, we often find ourselves feeling time pressure, as if there is not enough time in the day to do everything we would like to do, which causes the feeling of being rushed or hurried constantly (Waicman, 62). The cause of this busyness mentality is attributed to an accumulation of factors which include “overchoice,” the blurring of work/home boundaries, and the physiological perception of time caused by work schedules (Anderson, 157). Our culture is flooded with an abundance of choices for how one spends their time, all while still only having the same twenty-four hours we have always had to experience these different choices.

In our current society, we also lack the distinct boundaries of work and home, as one sphere bleeds into the next. This is a tension that my husband experiences daily, since his job provides him the option of working remotely. Because he can work from home by means of a laptop, there is no distinction between work and home life. Though it is often a blessing to work from home, this ability also enables him to carry work stress into all spheres of life without respite. The rhythms of our lives are now no longer defined by the natural rhythms of the day (e.g., the rising and setting of the sun) that drive agrarian societies, but rather we are driven by technology and post-industrial revolution work schedules (Anderson, 158). Our sense of time is dictated by how much we accomplish, and we feel that there is always more that could be accomplished. This perpetuates the feeling of constant busyness. It contributes to the quickened pace of our lives; we are driven by a heightened level of activity and speed (Anderson, 159). The man at the grocery store so valued his time that the lack of control over the effectiveness of how his time was being spent drove him straight to frustration. Thus, the concept of a self-service checkout was invented.

The World of The Kiosk

The world of self-services is one that operates under the assumption that time and efficiency are king. Because we live in a fast-paced society that strives to do everything quickly and efficiently, the self-service mentality seems to accommodate this need for speed. The underlying belief is “I myself need to possess control over my time because I am too busy to wait on someone else.” Self-service technology intends to give you the power to bypass lines and thus, shave off moments of standstill time. At the airport you are now able to check yourself into your own flight, print your own boarding pass, and head off to security without the hassle of waiting in line for an attendant to do it for you. The stress of missing your flight on account of standing in a line is altogether done away with (until you find yourself stuck waiting in line at security, that is. Then the stress magically reappears). The allusion of control and efficiency is the heart of self-service technology. According to Mortimer and Dootson, “Shoppers also gain value from taking control of the transaction – being able to ring up their own goods and pack them the way they want. A sense of control over their own shopping can lead to greater customer satisfaction and intent to use and re-use self-serve technology” (Mortimer and Dootson).

While self-service technology works off the premise that it will be faster and more efficient, what is there to be said concerning instances such as the one my husband and I observed at Costco? Because physiological time in our culture has quickened to a rapid pace, the perceived element of controlling what one waits on is highly valued. Those at Costco who normally would have to wait in line to place an order were now able to walk up to a kiosk without waiting to place their own order. The sad reality of the Costco situation was that the disruption of the system actually caused the same amount of waiting as orders were being jumbled and chaos in the kitchen slowed down the other end of the process. While the hope offered by self-service technology is promising, we need to assess which aspects of daily life are improved by technology and which areas need human skill.

This leads to another aspect of the ideal world of self-service technology. By quickening the pace of our lives, we are limiting our interactions with other human beings. The self-service world is a world where waiting on others is unnecessary. For example, a self-service kiosk is used so that the variable of waiting on another human being to do a task (to place an order or scan grocery items) is removed. The speed at which we are going does not need to be halted by another. The world of self-service is one that no longer requires that we wait on another to complete tasks for us. It cuts out societal interaction, allowing for someone to go to the grocery store, bank, or movie rental box, without interacting with a human being at all if they do not so desire. Technology promises much, especially in the world of self-service, but we must wonder what it will cost.

The World in Front of the Kiosk

The rapid pace of our culture is only perpetuated by self-service technology. There is a whole new self-service trend that is permeating all aspects of our culture. What was invented for a quick trip to the grocery store has now spread to restaurants, airports, libraries, banks and movie rentals to help bypass waiting time. This only perpetuates the frenzied pace of life. Concerning grocery stores alone, it is estimated that self-checkout terminals will increase to 325,000 by 2019, worldwide (Mortimer). Studies show that 65% of Americans believe that within the next 20 years most retail interactions will be fully automated and involve little or no human interaction between customers and employees (Pew).

This is not an outrageous statement considering Amazon’s new way of doing retail. Since the beginning of this year, Amazon has opened four Amazon Go locations where customers are able to walk into the store and purchase groceries, snacks, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and walk out without ever having to stand in line or checkout (Amazon). Customers simply download the Amazon Go app, grab whatever products they wish to buy, and simply walk out, while Amazon’s “Simply Walk Out” technology keeps track of items and builds a virtual cart. Amazon is taking self-service technology and creating an entirely new retail experience, “so you never have to wait in line” (Amazon).

This trend is expanding in areas that “can afford to be transactional rather than relational” (Gavett), namely the world of retail. There are some areas where technology cannot replace humanity entirely. Sherri Turckle has much to say concerning the way our culture is replacing humanity with technology and the ways it is changing us. She notes that we desire to “insert robots into every narrative of human frailty,” a comment that resonates with the story of self-service technology which promises that you, plus technology, prove to be faster and more efficient than relying on another human being (Turckle, 10). Turckle urges that for all technology offers, it cannot replace the raw authenticity that humanity provides.

Theological Evaluation

What are we as Christians supposed to make of the self-service trend that perpetuates this hurried pace at which we live our lives? We all find ourselves caught up in busyness culture, always striving to do more in a day than is humanly possible, while feeling that we are not doing enough with the hours we do have in a day. Let us look at this trend from a theological standpoint, teasing out what Scripture reveals about the underlying issues of busyness culture.

The world of self-service promotes the belief that we are in control of our time, when truly God is the author and keeper of time. When we are consumed with controlling time we are functionally saying that we are God over time, growing frustrated when our time is not spent to our preference, like standing in line at the grocery store. God commands in the ten commandments that His people cease from their work for a day in order to rest (Exodus 20:8-11). They do this to follow the example set by God when he rested after creating the world. In the book, The Rest of God (which ironically has been sitting unread on my shelf for over a year now, as I keep telling myself I will read it “when I have time”) Mark Buchanan states that a good definition of sabbath is “imitating God so that we stop trying to be God. We mirror divine behavior only to freshly discover our human limitations” (87). Buchanan also draws out the differences between those who hold tightly to time and those who hold it loosely saying, “those who sanctify time and who give time away – who treat time as a gift and not a possession – have time in abundance. Contrariwise, those who guard every minute, resent every interruption, ration every moment, never have enough” (Buchanan, 83). This introduces us to a positive evaluation of time.

How do we treat time as a gift, using it wisely yet not demanding control over it? One way this may be done is to follow the example that God has modeled and rest. We must recognize that God is Lord over time and the world will not fall apart if we take time to rest. Another important heart posture that we are called to take on is being “eternally minded,” as Paul speaks of in Colossians 3 when he reminds us that every moment is an opportunity to “walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time” (Col. 4:5).  Suddenly the prospective of potentially spending an extra ten minutes in line at the grocery store is exciting as we seek to redeem the time by engaging the clerk at the register.

About Bridget K.

Bridget is currently a student at Moody Bible Institute—Distance Learning. She is in her Junior year studying Theology and Cultural Engagement. Bridget and her husband, Matte, serve in their local church in the college ministry, where they host a Bible study and help disciple college students. Bridget and Matte have a vision for global ministry. Specifically, they hope to encourage local churches, equip future generations for ministry, and reach communities with the good news of Christ. Bridget enjoys reading, doing anything outside, and coffee, so the Pacific Northwest makes a fitting home while she finishes her degree.

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Works Cited

Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16008589011.

Anderson, Charles A. The Business of Busyness. Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends. Baker Academic, 2007.

Buchanan, Mark Aldham. The Rest of God Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath. W Pub. Group, 2006.

Dilonardo, Robert. Self-Checkout Reaches Critical Mass, Loss Prevention Magazine January 1, 2006. https://losspreventionmedia.com/insider/retail-industry/self-checkout-reaches-critical-mass/.

Gavett, Gretchen. “How Self-Service Kiosks Are Changing Customer Behavior.” Harvard Business Review, 11 Mar. 2016, hbr.org/2015/03/how-self-service-kiosks-are-changing-customer-behavior.

Justia, David R. Humble Patents, Justia.com https://patents.justia.com/inventor/david-r-humble

Mortimer, Gary, and Paula Dootson. “The Economics of Self-Service Checkouts.” The Conversation, The Conversation, 11 June 2017, theconversation.com/the-economics-of-self-service-checkouts-78593.

Smith, Aaron and Monica Anderson Automation in Everyday Life http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/10/04/automation-in-everyday-life/.

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: why we expect more from technology. Basic Books, 2011.

Wajcman, Judy. “Life in the fast lane? Towards a sociology of technology and time”, The British Journal of Sociology, 2008. Volume 59 Issue 1.

Babylon By Choice

In 1965, four years before Neil Armstrong took a low-gravity step on lunar soil, my friend Dr. Martin Marty published Babylon By Choice. It’s a booklet about the mission of the Church, and in it, Marty makes two claims: 1) the new environment for Christian mission is urban, and 2) the basic reality of urban life is its secularity. Fifty years later, Marty’s voice reverberates all-round the Christian community. Popular evangelical pastor, Tim Keller, insists the “very models for ministry must become increasingly urban.”[1] Redeemer City to City, a ministry he co-founded, recently had an inaugural North American conference where they hoped to “accelerate and support gospel movements in North American cities.” Sean Benesh, former Developer of Urban Strategy and Training for TEAM, coined the word metrospiritual to capture the “urban-centric approach to faith and Scripture.”[2] Prominent evangelical universities are providing degrees, creating centers, and implementing new models of education that focus on the city. These all form the chorus that echoes Marty’s words; the city is the mission field of the Church.

Marty’s second claim is equally prescient and relevant to contemporary discussions among Christians. Erwin Lutzer’s recent book, The Church in Babylon, is one of many books preparing believers to engage a world that no longer supports decades of comfortable Christendom. These recent publications resemble the voices of Marty’s day, bringing forward the same posture that led churches to suburbanize and flee the city.[3] As Marty reports, the urbanizing world of the late 60s and early 70s saw a society where the influence of the Christian faith was rapidly diminishing, and churches were slow to adjust. Keller writes this about Western churches in the 70s:

“While many Christian leaders were bemoaning the cultural changes, Western churches continued to minister as before – creating an environment in which only traditional and conservative people would feel comfortable … All they preached and practiced assumed they were still in the Christian West, but the Christian West was vanishing.” [4]

Both the focus on the city and the fear of its influence reveal that Marty properly esteemed the significance and power of “Babylon,” an ancient city that now symbolizes all cities and their corruption. In his booklet, Marty challenges his readers to choose Babylon, to commit to a sort of “lovers quarrel” with it, to make it the Church’s home. The World Outspoken tagline, “The City We Make,” is yet another echo of Marty’s voice. Our project reflects a commitment to Babylon, a love for it. It also reflects a commitment to a future city, one “with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10).

My goal in this article is to explain our mission to make the city, tell a different story, and contribute to the culture-making. Our urban-centric focus has generally caused one of three reactions. Some immediately feel our work does not include them because they do not live in a city or live in an urban community that doesn’t compare in size to cities like Chicago. Others are suspicious of our ideology, and they divide into two possible groups. They either suspect we are optimists promoting the creation of a utopia, or they suspect we are aligning ourselves with specific political and theological agendas contrary to the gospel. To these three communities, I’d like to provide a response by considering three question: 1) What is the City, 2) How does it work, and 3) Why should we choose it?

What is The City?

By asking this question first, I am not trying to be overly philosophical. The reason this question is even being asked is because of the resistance to the city and its ways. Most evangelicals (particularly white-evangelicals in the US) are still wary of urban places. Many Christians still tie the gospel to a rural mythology. They believe the myth that “only people in contact with the soil can have real spirituality.”[5] They think “the Christian message’s interest in developing real and authentic persons makes sense only in traditional societies and not in the modern city.”[6] We see this in the way they talk about spirituality. For these faith-people, God is a horticulturalist who made and cares for the natural world, and the city is a wicked construction of corrupted humans.

In Theology as Big as the City, Ray Bakke remembers an article entitled, “Why Evangelicals Can’t Survive in the City” (pb. 1966; one year after Marty’s booklet). The author of the article suggests the Bible is fundamentally a rural book that shows shepherds and farmers as God’s favorite people. According to the author, David was God’s chosen one while he remained a shepherd, but his life as king in the city corrupted him. The lesson presented in the article was simple: Christians should stay away from the city.[7] In a more recent example, Jen Pollock Michel writes this referring to the sin of man in building the Tower of Babel: “They reject the good gift of land and choose as a substitute the domestication of a city.”[8] Her comments suggest that building a city at all was a sin rather than connecting sin, the rejection of God and corruption of man, to the telos (i.e. purpose) of the city that was built. The problem with this mythology is that it misreads the book of Genesis, and ultimately the full arch of the Bible story.

We need a more complete image of the city. We see in these examples that many still see the city as the place of vice, violence, and evil. To this group, the city is only ever Babylon, the place of the Tower of Babel. Today there are others, however, who envision the city as Utopia, the place of power, recognition, and freedom. The first group seeks escape from the city, and the latter flocks to it. Neither vision captures fully what a city is, yet together they reveal the partial beauty and brokenness of it. To help us see an image that captures the city’s very real propensity to violence and its equally real power for fostering human flourishing, we must first recall the backgrounds for the words “urban” and “city.”[9]

Urban life recalls the Latin background of our language in the term urbs. To most thinkers this word represents “the world man builds for himself.” It is the largely physical side of man’s own creation. “Urban” refers to the form or structure of life. It is, so to speak, the apartment that man has to furnish.

The word “city,” on the other hand, carries the memory of the Latin civitas, a word that immediately throws the idea of civilization into our minds. Civitas refers to the psychic or mental and spiritual side of man’s world. It implies not the form of the city but the activity in the city. It does not represent the furnished apartment but the working and thinking of the people who live in the apartment.

Our image of the city needs to account for its two dimensions. The city is both the world we choose to build for ourselves and the spirit with which we relate to it, each other, and those transcendent realities we call goodness, truth, and beauty. The urban, meaning the conglomeration of buildings, streets, parks and plazas – the furnishings in the human apartment – is an agent in service to the city; it supports the city in forming the minds and spirits of its people. This reveals the first of two images I think account for the city’s complex dimensions. The city is an incubator for culture-making.

The City as Incubator

In his day, Marty observed the power of media and entertainment in promoting a very urban image of life. He writes, “Truly, because of the power of mass media of communication [sic], the whole world is becoming a city.”[10] Keller, again a contemporary echo of Marty’s voice, similarly argues that globalization and the internet have strengthened and expanded the reach of urban culture, making it more difficult for rural areas to continue unaffected by the urban world. In 2010, Edwin Heathcote noted that cities like Laos were growing and absorbing smaller cities and suburbs in their growth. He observes that these bigger, “metacities” needed greater connectivity, and he writes, “digital networking has not, as was forecast, led to a decline in the city. Rather, it has led to an urbanisation [sic] of the rest of the planet.”[11]

My point is that it is no longer possible to ignore or distance ourselves from the influence of the urban world. The apartment is nearly fully furnished, and the only questions now are: what kind of world did we make and what does it do? “If the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself …”[12] We have to contend with the urban world as a real force capable of engaging all of us. Lewis Mumford, attempting the remarkable task of writing a history of “the city,” concludes this:

“From its origin onward, indeed, the city may be described as a structure specially equipped to store and transmit the goods of civilization, sufficiently condensed to afford the maximum amount of facilities in minimum space, but also capable of structural enlargement to enable it to find a place for the changing needs and the more complex forms of a growing society and its cumulative social heritage.” [13]”

— Lewis Mumford, The City in History

As I already stated, the urban world, increasingly large as it is, is an agent, a servant to its other dimension: the city. The structure is uniquely made to hold and promote the goods of civilization. Therefore, thinking of the urban as an incubator is helpful. The urban world is a node of cultural power. It captures and sustains the spirit of its citizens. It can do so for good or for the detriment of humanity. The urban world is as good as it is built to be, and that reveals its inherent flaw. It will only ever reverberate the character of its maker. In my studies of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago, I discovered the research of Kristin Schaffer. She argues that Burnham believed the urban world is:

An iconographic reservoir that is capable of inspiring belief in the larger social body and in one’s duty to it. Thus, the city is a physical as well as representational realm that organizes the life of its citizens and promotes them to social affinity and proper behavior in public spaces. The citizen would be instructed to be sure, in the schools, the day-care centers, the orphanages, and the adult citizenship classes given at the neighborhood park field houses, but the citizen would also be taught symbolically through architecture. [14]

With the incubator image still in mind, we should consider the second image for the city.

The City as Fire

The ancient Greek philosopher, Lycurgus, claimed the city was the only unit of government capable of establishing a relationship with the individual strong enough to make it (the city) a formative agent.[15] In other words, the city is of greater influence on the character of its people than the state or nation. This explains why people in cities like New York, Tokyo, Seoul, and London are likely to have more in common with each other than with the non-urban citizens in their own countries.[16] Remember, these global cities are connected to one another and are promoting (i.e. incubating) a similar form of life.

In a previous article, I argued that culture is what we make of the earth. It is what we make in two senses: 1) it is the stuff we produce from the natural resources around us (i.e. the urban apartment and all its furnishings), and 2) culture is the meaning, the sense, we make of the worlds that we create. This is where the name, World Outspoken, originates. Culture is the world we make and live in together. We already saw that this world is urban in design, and its built to foster human culture-making. Now, I want to turn our attention to the meaning, the sense we make of this urban world order.

The cultural world can be broken down into four spheres: story, space, community, and time; the most important of these being the story. Stories are foundational to human life. We cannot make sense of our actions without the stories that guide them. These stories, however, are not enacted in a vacuum with no regard to space and time. The city, then, is not merely a dense collection of buildings made of brick, glass, and steel. It is the setting, or space (second sphere), where a community of persons (third sphere) live out a story (first sphere) according to a specific rhythm of life (i.e. time, the fourth sphere).[17] Urban environments help us act out our stories.[18] They also serve as instructors for new community members, helping them understand the values implicit in the community narrative. The objectification of virtues – the work of making ideas and values concrete in objects – is part of the city’s program for the formation of its people. Values are embedded in narratives and narratives take form in places. The human spirit is externalized in stories that give shape to life and setting alike. To return to the original metaphor, the urban incubator is powered by the fire of the human spirit. The city dimension, then, is this fire.

In her classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs uses this metaphor to explain what a city is. For Jacobs, a city is a large field in darkness being illuminated by scattered fires of varying sizes, each representing intense, diverse, and complex human community. As the community works for mutual support and benefit, they give shape to the “field” around them; their life together brilliantly reveals the necessary form for the space they coinhabit. As the community teems with flourishing people, a city is born. It is important to acknowledge that this fire is intended to benefit the citizen. It’s meant to illuminate a good way of living. As Aristotle once wrote, “Men come together in the city to live; they remain there in order to live the good life.”[19] The pursuit of this good life is the end of the city, the revelation of this fire. This image reveals three basic functions for the city that we can now explore in our next question.

How does The City work?

I will only briefly detail the functions of the city since many of them have already been described in the answer to the initial question. First, cities are places of human advancement. Human advancement is a phrase meant to capture the reality that cities are not full of poor people because they “make poor people, but because cities attract poor people with the prospect of improving their lot in life.”[20] Secondly, cities are places for technological advancement. Finally, cities are places that enable human cooperation.[21] Of course, these functions can and generally do become corrupted. The city can enable systems for human oppression, the development of technologies that result in human harm, and the cooperation of a society that sustains a city resembling Babylon. Park’s ominous warning is worth remembering: if the city is the home we build, it is the world we are condemned to live in together.

As the incubator and burning focal point for cultural power, the city maintains the basic functions of society. Political legislation is written in the city. Cultural trends begin in the city. Economic enterprise is run from the city; even the farmers travel into the city for their market. Its influence is felt emanating through the suburbs and out into the rural communities of the surrounding region. So, the culture we make in the cities of the world has the potential to shape whole regions for good (or evil). Therefore, we must choose the city. We choose to intentionally make the city according to a better, truer, more beautiful story than those that created Babylon.

Before moving to the final question, I want to address the secularity of the city. The truth is that the city runs on the interface of several stories. Immigrants move to the city with narratives from their home culture. The rich and the poor each present their own vision for life in the city. Religious groups proclaim their meta-stories, and the social elite and media outlets (journalists, entertainers, artists, etc.) channel stories directly into the family’s living room. For these narratives to coexist the city maintains a a variation of a secular, or non-religious, dominant story. The modern city is pluralistic. Secularity, as Marty notes, is the basic reality of urban life. This presents challenges to the Christian mission. However, there is no reason for Christians to fear this reality. Instead, we must adapt to and embrace the new context for Christian mission.

Why should we choose The City?

In the Bible, there are two important images for the city. I’ve introduced the first image already: Babylon. This ancient city was a display of power for its kings, who often boasted great conquests and war victories.[22] It was the symbol of their ability. It was an expression of boast. In City of God, Augustine presents the City of Man – an image synonymous with Babylon – as governed by libido dominandi (the lust for mastery). This lust to dominate others is a perversion of power. Indeed, Mumford notes that many of the cities of the ancient world grew into their full form on the parasitism of surrounding areas and the use of slaves. He argues that capital cities like Babylon expanded by imposing required tributes and “by bringing about a negative symbiosis based on [the] terrified expectation of destruction and extermination.”[23] Babylon, and all the cities after it, harbors this base abuse of power. Cities can and are the places of great injustice, severe violence, and deep-seated inequality.

However, the Bible has a second image for the city, an alternative that drives Christian mission. This city is called Zion. Just as Babylon is an image that captures a certain behavior, so too Zion is an image that drives a Christian ethic. This is vital to the Christian mission in the city, but we must be careful not to present our message as nothing more than a Utopian future. To present Zion as simply a hope for a future heaven will not suffice in the context of the secular modern city. Instead, Zion introduces a dual identity for the Christian in the here and now. In fact, I argue that Zion is the urban future for a present city that is inherent to the Church’s very character. Allow me to explain.

City on a Hill

Jane Jacobs’ image of the city as an illuminating fire resonates in one sense with the city-image in the Biblical story. Jesus connects the nature of the Church with the nature of the city by envisioning the Church as “light of the world … city set on a hill” (Matt. 5:14). The Church is the radiant-city. It stands in a fire that burns but does not consume, illuminates but does not destroy. In the darkness of the field, the Church is built as part of a city all-together good, beautiful, and truly conducive to human flourishing. In their life together as resident aliens and travelers, immigrants, the Church is given space and instruction to make their current place resemble a future urban place, one built by God (Heb. 13:14). The Church is God’s alternative to man’s failed attempts at building an urban world and the modern city’s plague of loneliness, rootlessness, alienation, and injustice.

In one provocative piece of writing, famed missiologist Leslie Newbigin argued for the possibility of a Christian government. “He contends that the logic of the cross should lead such a government to be non-coercive toward minorities, committed to the common good of all, and therefore could still allow a pluralistic society to flourish.”[24] I am by no means advocating for a Christian government or the literal construction of a Christian city, but Newbigin’s “logic of the cross” presents the way for Christian mission in the modern city. We should choose Babylon that we might reveal to Babylonians a way of life that fits their aspirations. For instance, people all over the world desire justice and societies of equality, but the cities they make are built on stories and uses of power that cannot engender commonwealth. This is essentially Augustine’s critique of Rome. In City of God, Augustine critiques another writer named Cicero for suggesting that Rome is, in fact, a commonwealth. He does this on the basis that justice is part of the very essence of a commonwealth. Augustine suggested, however, that Rome only created a semblance of justice. It is his contention that Rome, like all other earthly cities, is still inherently charged with humanity’s self-love and the libido dominandi.[25]

Conclusion

In 1965, before the world exploded into urban life, Marty concluded his booklet with a simple charge to the Church. He observed in his own day that the modern city “cut off” the Church from “the kinds of decisions in which basic life … is affected and formed.”[26]  Christian leaders and pastors are relegated to specialized roles in modern cities and kept from engaging more and more in the public elements of life. Marty notes that many conservative Christians have accepted this new place in the city, saying “that the only responsibility of the Christians toward the environment is to rescue and snatch people out of it.”[27] These same sincere Christians, observes Marty, “then turn around to criticize most vocally the secularizing of life to which they abandoned society and its people.”[28] Instead, Marty proposes a different way of engaging Babylon with the Christian message.

Because the pastors of the world are marginalized from many of the public and powerful functions of the city, Marty suggests the Christian lay person - the scientists, teachers, historians, artists, marketers, chefs, and bankers – are the necessary workers for Zion. They must carry on the Christian Mission and lead the exodus from Babylon to Zion. “They will be effective from the human way of speaking to the degree that they penetrate the varieties and definitions of urban life.”[29] Secondly, Marty challenges the Church to deep unity in a city of frayed relationships. “While “we” work in division, the city “closes itself off” without us.”[30]

World Outspoken is an echo of both moves in Marty’s charge. Our mission is “to inspire, train, and equip culture-makers speaking good news into the cities they make.” We focus on culture-makers because they are the leaders in Christian mission. We also work with Christians and non-Christians alike because we are committed to the common good of the cities of the world. Finally, our desire is that the city we make resemble the unity born from the death and resurrection of King Jesus. World Outspoken is the city we make.

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Footnotes

[1] Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, 8.9.2012 edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012).

[2] “Books | Sean Benesh,” accessed September 27, 2018, http://seanbenesh.gutensite.net/Books.

[3] For more on this phenomenon, see Eric O. Jacobsen, William Dyrness, and Robert Johnson, The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012).

[4] Keller, Center Church, 253.

[5] Martin E. Marty, Babylon by Choice: New Environment for Mission, 4th Printing edition (Friendship Press, 1965), 18.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Raymond J. Bakke, A Theology as Big as the City (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 1997).

[8] Jen Pollock Michel and Katelyn Beaty, Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition and the Life of Faith (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2014), 83.

[9] What follows is an excerpt of Babylon by Choice (pg. 10).

[10] Ibid., 16.

[11] “From Megacity to Metacity,” Financial Times, April 6, 2010, https://www.ft.com/content/e388a076-38d6-11df-9998-00144feabdc0.

[12] Ralph H. Turner, ed., Robert E. Park on Social Control and Collective Behavior: Selected Papers, 2nd Print edition (Phoenix Books, 1969).

[13] Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (San Diego New York London: Mariner Books, 1968), 30.

[14] Kristin Schaffer, Introduction to Plan of Chicago, by Burnham and Bennett, First Edition (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993), xiii.

[15] Burnham and Bennett., xii.

[16] Keller, Center Church, 155.

[17] Time can be understood as the plotline, or rhythm of life, for the story. Jacobsen suggests one could ask, in light of human life understood as the actions of people in a drama, “When are you” with regard to their position in the story (i.e. opening scene, climax, resolution). Each story lives according to a different rhythm.

[18] Note: Because cities are the physical settings for cultural narratives, they can be created with unique forms. In other words, cities have peculiarities and nuances just as people have peculiarities that distinguish their unique personalities.

[19] As quoted by Mumford, The City in History, 85.

[20] Sean Benesh, Blueprints for a Just City: The Role of the Church in Urban Planning and Shaping the City’s Built Environment (Urban Loft Publishers, 2015).

[21] Benesh.

[22] Genesis 10:8-10 identify Nimrod, a mighty man and hunter, as the founder of Babylon.

[23] Mumford, The City in History, 160.

[24] As noted by Keller, Center Church, 223.

[25] Augustine, Augustine: The City of God against the Pagans, ed. R. W. Dyson, y First edition edition (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), xviii.

[26] Marty, Babylon by Choice; 61

[27] Ibid., 62.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid., 63.

[30] Ibid. Marty is quoting Roger Schutz here.

Why We Make Culture

We don’t understand culture-making because we don’t really make culture. We make artifacts. Single artifacts like the refrigerator and systems like education (see previous article) are the products of human skill,1 and they are imbued with meaning and significance. They share in the storytelling of their makers; they become part of the dialog of the world, communicating and helping humanity re-imagine life on earth. Artifacts are the building blocks of culture. By making artifacts, humans make sense of the world we inhabit. We create a cultural world, a World Outspoken. Too often, however, we make with little to no reflection on the kind of world that would be truly good and beautiful. Even worst, we don’t consider the stories at the core of our making, and we dutifully live into stories that are destructive. Culture-making is an active use of power, and we fail to use our power well.

The Church has a tenuous relationship with both culture-making and power. There’s an elevated discomfort and awkwardness whenever Christian’s attempt to discuss either subject. My students are a good microcosm of this reality. Most of my students are studying cultural engagement, the response to and interaction with existing cultural products and systems. For those unfamiliar with these kinds of programs, forgive my technical explanation, but it will help later when we explore reasons for culture-making. Students in a cultural engagement program will take at least one course titled something like “Theology and Culture,” “Cultural Hermeneutics,” and “Christianity and Culture.” In such courses, H. Richard Niebuhr’s seminal book, Christ and Culture, frames the conversation. His work presents five “types” of Christian responses to culture. My students don’t fit perfectly into Niebuhr’s types, but we’ll begin by summarizing the “types” in my classroom to better understand the importance of culture-making and how it differs from traditional models of cultural engagement.

Two Types of Students

Students in my courses divide into two types. The first wants to retaliate, to “go to war against the culture” for the sake of the gospel in public life. They want the city governed by “Christian principles,” and they have a hard time relating positively to any artifact of culture that isn’t created by Christians, particularly entertainment artifacts (movies, music, books, etc.). This type considers engaging culture mostly in political terms or retreating from culture in defensive compounds.

The second type is interested in operating in the cultural world alongside people pursuing justice and equality. In a way, this type is also “at war,” but the fight is rooted in different values; It’s a different fight. This type is listening with empathy to oppressed people and responding with action. They work alongside service groups, regardless of faith background, because they believe God is at work through their shared efforts with others. It is not that this group has forgotten or abandoned evangelism; it’s that this type of student sees a need for the Church to involve itself with the afflicted. If the first type sees cultural decay and retreats while pointing to the blots of mold in the culture, the second sees a different set of spots on everyone, Christians included, and extends a balm.2

Despite their differences, both types share the common assumption that right engagement with existing culture(s) is the only action available to Christians operating in the world. So, whenever I suggest that Christians empowered by the Holy Spirit should transform the earth and create new worlds rooted in the gospel, I inevitably have one or two students from either type who resist the idea. In response to my students and as a way of progressing the mission of World Outspoken, here are five reasons for culture-making. Again, before continuing, I recommend readers review what we mean by “culture” at WOS.

Five Reasons for Focusing on Culture-making

1) The Cultural Mandate

In The Social Construction of Reality, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman make the fascinating observation that all animals live in “closed worlds.” Humans, on the other hand, have “no species-specific environment.” Humanity’s “relationship to [their] environment is characterized by world-openness.”3 Mammals like Koalas and Pandas have limited habitats based on their biological makeup, but the entire earth is open to development as the human home. How is this relevant? It highlights the reality that humanity, from the beginning, had to cultivate, to create a world for their shared living. The earth is, in fact, open to humans in a way that it simply isn’t to any other creature. This, of course, forces questions on the human community. The mystery of this open world with all its possibilities compels us to ask: Where are we? Who are we? Why are we here? These questions direct us toward the existence of a transcendent, Divine being, and we begin to tell stories.

Christians believe the Bible makes this creative Being known in its first few pages. The Bible begins by telling us the story of God’s creative act. He made all that exists from nothing but His word. Then, at the climactic end of His work, He made man and woman “in His image,” so they may rule over all His creation (Gen. 1:26). He set the first couple in a garden and gave them the task of working (cultivating) and caring for the ground (Gen. 2:15). These three tasks: ruling, working, and keeping, are known as God’s cultural mandate for humanity, his appointed purpose for us. The story of the Bible invites us to see this world-openness as an invitation from God to share in making something more from the earth.

Cultures begin as stories. The astounding part of the Bible’s beginning is that God created, from His word alone, a good and beautiful world vested with potential and tasked us with developing it further. In other words, He commissioned us to make more culture. The key word here is "more." Remember, the first couple was set in a garden not an uncultivated, wild forest. God also used language, the connecting web of culture, to give them instruction, orienting them toward Him, the earth, and each other. Culture precedes the first couple. The first culture-maker is God. Made in God's image, we are tasked with continuing to share in His work by making in ways that reflect His character. Unfortunately, we don’t, but the mandate hasn’t been canceled. Culture-making is still the human purpose.

2) The Great Commission

The primary directive of all Christians is to preach the gospel, the true story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. This gospel reminds us that Jesus gathers to Himself a people that He then sends out to be witnesses, living testimonies of His power to transform what is broken and corrupted into something healed and new. Jesus introduces new cultural horizons to a corroded world. As in the beginning, the work of God precedes the work of His people. He sends His followers after him to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). To do this well, we must think holistically about what disciples are and what it means to “make disciples.”

Disciples are followers or students. They follow their teacher in all senses of the word. They follow by obeying his/her instruction, and they follow in that they imitate their teacher’s character. “Disciples best learn how to practice [beliefs] through paideia, an apprentice-based pedagogy that involves following the examples of (i.e. imitating) others who are further along.”4 This imitation-style of learning directly connects disciple-making with culture-making. People become disciples as cultural-memes get translated into their way of being.5 Disciple-making is more than “converting” people to Christ. Making disciples means “cultivating in [people] the mind of Christ, “teaching them to observe” the supreme authority of Christ in every situation (Matt. 28:20 KJV).”6 Remember, in the previous article, we noted that culture enables this cultivation.

Culture-making allows us to care for the corporate dimension of disciple-making. We cannot disciple each person we encounter, orienting them correctly toward the good, beautiful, and true world available to them in Christ. However, by making culture, we extend our ability to give shape to the lives of our community. This does not mean that culture can save people. Individuals still need to share the gospel, but culture can help all people see more clearly the world enlivened by the gospel.

The cultural mandate and the great commission go hand-in-hand. Enabled by Christ and the power of His Spirit, we are once again sent to make as representative images of God. Dr. Vanhoozer reminds us that “the Church is thus not only the “people of the book” but also “the (lived) interpretation of the book.”7

3) Our Implicit Theology8

Already, this is a much wider vision for relating to culture. We tell stories and make as members of a cultural world, sharing in or damaging the work of God. Every artifact we make is embedded with our assumptions about our place, ourselves, and how life should be lived. These artifacts then communicate these assumptions to us and our community. In this sense, it can be said that culture is theology made concrete. Studying culture reveals that theology is communicated in two ways: Explicit and Implicit theology.

Explicit Theology is all that we teach, preach, write in doctrinal statements, pass on in catechisms, and teach in Sunday school curriculums. Explicit theology is our stated theology. It’s the explicit stories about God and the world. Implicit theology, however, is the subtle ways our culture reveals our stories and orients us to them. For instance, the refrigerator subtly communicates the theological belief that “humanity has the power to overcome natural processes.” The fridge is an artifact that reveals our implicit theology, our embedded beliefs. Note that if explicit and implicit theology are ever at odds, people will operate according to implicit theologies. For instance, I explicitly believe (this statement is proof) that the rate of food production and consumption in America is unsustainable and destructive. However, I haven't joined a CSA or another alternative food system. I still rely on the refrigerated supermarket. For now, the habits of culture overpower the ideals I value. If I’m going to make a change, I must consider culture-making; I must consider changing the culture that communicates an implicit theology I want to resist. "How” we do this is explained in the final point below.

4) The Longevity of Our Work

Simply stated: Culture has a longer shelf life than any isolated sermon or speech about anything from religious belief to food consumption. Christians who both reflect the gospel through preaching and culture-making, extend their work to future generations. The pastors in my classroom often wonder if I am supplanting their role as preachers with their role as culture-makers. I am not. Instead, I am arguing that, as preachers, they are uniquely positioned as storytellers to shape the culture of their congregations long after their ministries come to an official end.

In his award-winning novel, The Storyteller, Mario Vargas Llosa tells the story of a scattered Peruvian-Amazonian tribe known as the Machiguengas. The tribe has one member that connects them all, the storyteller. The storyteller is of sacred, indeed religious importance. The storyteller's job is simple enough: to speak. Storytellers' "mouths were the connecting links of this society that the fight for survival had forced to split up and scatter … Thanks to the storytellers, fathers had news of their sons and brothers of their sisters … thanks to [storytellers] they were all kept informed of the deaths, births, and other happenings in the tribe.”9 The storyteller did not only bring current news, he spoke of the past. He is the memory of the community, fulfilling a function like that of the troubadours of the Middle Ages. The storyteller traveled great distances to remind each member of the tribe that despite their separation, they still formed one community, sharing a tradition, beliefs, ancestors, misfortunes, and joys. The storytellers, writes Vargas Llosa, were the lifeblood that circulated through Machiguenga society giving it one interconnected and interdependent life.

The Machiguenga storyteller is “tangible proof that storytelling can be something more than mere entertainment … something primordial, something that the very existence of a people may depend on.”10 Like the Machiguenga storyteller, the preacher who intentionally speaks to shape his cultural world extends the life of his local congregation.

5) New Culture as Cultural Engagement

If forced to pick a “type” to identify with, I suspect most of my students would chose the “Christ transforming Culture” type from Niebuhr’s typology. I share my students’ disposition. The question for those interested in transforming culture is this: “Can the Church’s demonstration of the gospel change the world? If so, does this have more to do with changing human hearts or social structures, ideas, or institutions?”11

As a careful reader, Andy Crouch emphasizes the language in Niebuhr’s type: Christ transforming Culture. The transformation work is done by Christ, not the church.12 This sets us free from pressure and should inspire our boldest creativity. Our vocation is simply to be witnesses “and to be the embodiment of the coming Kingdom of God.”13 To bear witness and embody the Kingdom is to make new cultural worlds. The only way to transform the culture, to change our implicit theology, is by making more culture, displacing existing forms of culture.14 By making more culture, Christians create opportunities to invite people into a new world with new possibilities unseen in other cultural worlds.

Conclusion

World Outspoken exists to support Christian culture-makers seeking God's city. I’ve argued for the importance of culture-making as a way of continuing cultivation of earth, obeying the great commission, intentionally shaping implicit theology, extending the life of our work, and engaging existing cultures. Christians today will almost never make culture without incorporating elements of existing cultures. Indeed, this is the “already not yet” tension described by theologians. We are already in the new world, the Kingdom of Christ, but we are still residents of the old cultural worlds we inhabit. The local church makes as citizens of the world to come and as images of Christ in their resident world. My hope is that the Church would make with boldness and vigor.

Culture-making “power is “the capacity to define what is real.” The Church does this by enacting God’s word in particular times and places, for it is God’s word that defines what is ultimately real.”15

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Footnotes

1. “Artifact” is a unique word built from the Latin words for human skill (arte) and objects or goods (factum). “Definition of ARTIFACT,” accessed July 12, 2018, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/artifact.

2. It should be noted that these types, like most if not all other types, are generalizations. Of course, there are exceptions to these rules, but these represent the overall themes present in my class discussions.

3. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Anchor, 1967), 47.

4. Vanhoozer, 7.

5. Again, see our article, “What is Culture,” for more information on memes.

6. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding. Italics are my own.

7. Vanhoozer, 2.

8. The following section is developed based on ideas found in the following work: Nancy Ammerman et al., eds., Studying Congregations: A New Handbook (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998).

9. Mario Vargas Llosa, The Storyteller: A Novel, trans. Helen Lane, First edition (New York: Picador, 2001).

10. Llosa.

11. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding.

12. Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, Edition Unstated edition (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2008), 182. 

13. James Davison Huner as quoted by Vanhoozer.

14. I’m indebted to Andy Crouch for the ideas in this article. His book gave shape to my thinking here. Crouch, Culture Making.

15. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding, 8.

16. Cover Photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash

What is Culture?

An Introduction to the Subject

At the beginning of each new semester, I ask students to define the word culture. Collectively, they produce a definition that covers the ideas they’ve heard from anthropologists and other intercultural thinkers. Some refer to culture as a system of beliefs, values, and ways of thinking that govern a group of people. Others suggest that culture is the customs, habits, and rituals practiced by varying communities. Still others will comment on the foods, clothing, music, and other products created by ethnic groups. In sum, all these things are captured in the word. Culture is a complex whole that includes and governs all of what students share in that initial discussion. The simplest way to summarize this matrix of objects and symbols is to say that culture is what we make of the earth.1

Culture is what we make of the earth in two respects. First, culture occurs when humans make a concrete change to the earth, producing objects (chairs, omelets, highways, symphonies, etc.) from the raw materials that exists therein. Second, culture is the sense we make of the earth; the system of symbols and meaningful signs that holds together and conveys our beliefs about who we are, where we are, and why we are here.2 In this second respect, culture is the world we make, the world in which we live. We embed in the products we create assumptions about our place, ourselves, and how life should be lived. These assumptions are passed down from generation to generation in the stories that undergird our cultural worlds. Culture, then, is a World Outspoken.

Besides defining culture by those objects, stories, rituals, and rhythms that make up its parts, some attention should be given to the history of the word itself. Culture was originally a “noun of process,” meaning it was a noun synonymous with cultivation.3 Culture referred to the process of working the ground to produce crops. Scientists still use the word this way in scientific labs when they refer to bacteria in a petri dish as a “culture.” Since the 18th century, however, the word is used metaphorically to refer to working, or cultivating, humans. Culture is now understood as the process of civilizing people.4

What does Culture do?

Some of the functions of culture are implicit in what I stated already, but it is helpful to review the details. Culture has four primary functions: Culture communicates, orients, reproduces, and cultivates.5 To demonstrate the functions described in this section, I am going to include two examples. First, I will use the refrigerator as an exemplary object, a single artifact of human culture-making, that does each of the four functions. Second, to help demonstrate the way culture produces objects and systems, I’m going to explore the way education as an institution also does each function of culture. These two examples should provide enough grounding to help make sense of each function.

Culture Communicates

Every product of our culture-making communicates our assumptions regarding the meaning of life. Through these products, human communities make sense of the world and tell the story of a life well lived. However, culture doesn’t communicate explicitly but through subtle moves and suggestive images. Culture communicates metaphorically. According to one study, most people think eidetically, or in vivid pictures,6 and culture communicates directly to our imaginations by providing images that can guide our way of being.

How the Refrigerator Communicates

A refrigerator is “an appliance or compartment which is artificially kept cool and used to store food and drink.”7 It makes it possible for people to purchase and stock foods in bulk. It also preserves food beyond its harvesting season. For instance, strawberries are now accessible year-round rather than from April through June thanks, in part, to refrigeration. The fridge, as it is commonly called, “speaks” through its ability to circumvent the natural process of spoilage. In other words, the refrigerator proclaims that spoilage is no longer an insurmountable issue. People can have the foods they want when they want them. Of course, things still go bad in the fridge, but the subtle message remains: Humanity has the power to overcome natural processes.

All objects communicate, and the refrigerator is no exception.

How Education Communicates

In their seminal book, The Social Construction of Reality, Berger and Luckman argue that people develop their humanity in relationship with their natural and cultural environment.8 We are who we are, in large part, because of where we are from. Educational institutions play a major role in communicating an image of life well lived to children and youth. Through the lives of teachers, extracurricular programming, and even the aesthetic of places of learning, schools promote a view of future success. My Block, My Hood, My City (MBMHMC) serves as an excellent, real-world example of this point.

MBMHMC is a non-profit in Chicago providing youth from under-resourced neighborhoods with “an awareness of the world and opportunities beyond their neighborhood.” Partnering with local schools, MBMHMC takes students on educational explorations (i.e. tours) “focused on STEM, Arts & Culture, Citizenry & Volunteerism, Health, Community Development, Culinary Arts, and Entrepreneurism.”9 Their goal is to “boost educational attainment in spite of the poverty and social isolation” faced by these students.10 The results are remarkable. According to their website, students who take educational trips between the ages of 12-18 are 57% more likely to earn a college degree or do postgraduate work.

In a multitude of ways, education done well communicates that success is part of the future of every young learner.

Culture Orients

Culture embodies our hopes and concerns, so it reinforces certain moods and postures toward the world. These moods and postures are only part of the way in which culture shapes individual identities, providing scripts and roles that people live into. It also answers life’s central questions, namely, who are we, where are we, and why are we here. With images and stories communicating directly to our imagination, culture orients our emotional response to the world around us. It profoundly affects our view of beauty, it provides a logic for discerning truth, and teaches certain tastes for what is good. Culture is a teacher. Culture shapes character.

How the Refrigerator Orients

I’ve already mentioned the way in which the refrigerator changes our view of produce and spoilage. It fosters a different orientation to the seasons, making many people completely unaware of the farmers work and harvest schedule. The fridge shapes our perception of food production, increasing the distance between production and consumer. It is also capable of distorting our understanding of sustainable quantities. An empty fridge communicates a compelling message about wealth and security. For this reason, grocers keep their fridges stocked with gallons of milk and eggs. Though not alone in orienting humanities consumption habits, the fridge plays a role in orienting the consumer identity.

How Education Orients

The film adaptation of Wonder depicts the orienting power of education beautifully.11 Wonder is a story about Auggie, a boy born with facial differences, and his family struggling with the transition to a mainstream school. Mr. Brown, Auggie’s teacher, begins his first day of class by teaching the students the meaning of the word precepts. Precepts “guide us when we have to make decisions about really important things,” he tells the class. The monthly precept is meant to help students answer questions like, “Who is it that I aspire to be?” For the remainder of the film, the precepts guide the students as they navigate their identities, bullying, what it means to be a good friend, and what it means to have courage. By the end, the community is changed and Auggie has friends he never dreamed of having. Mr. Brown’s precepts framed the transformation of the students and the characters they became.

Culture Reproduces

In On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry claims that one of the objective qualities of beauty is that it begets more beauty.12 Beautiful objects inspire the production of other beautiful objects. Such is the way of culture. Culture constantly extends from person to person, generation to generation, through contact with “memes.” A meme is “an element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, esp. imitation.”13 Today, most people think a “meme” is strictly a piece of media shared from person to person through digital communications like social media, but a meme can be a piece of clothing, song, book, etc. Any imitation, or replication, of a cultural product is a meme. Like genes (the biological counterpart of a meme), memes are heritable. Culture begets culture.14

How the Fridge Reproduces

The refrigerator’s “accessible food whenever” story now extends to accessible food wherever. Today, people can purchase refrigerators for their vehicles, making it possible to travel with perishable foods. Mini-fridges are common in college dorms and office workspaces. The fridge is now a staple of the Western cultural world, and all these variations of the fridge are memes of early refrigeration machines. These memes extend the story communicated by this object.

How Education Reproduces

A recent article on the Los Angeles Lakers illuminates the benefits of what the organization refers to as “The Los Angeles Lakers’ Genius Series.” Like the educational explorations of MBMHMC, this series consists of in-house presentations and field trips to meet with influential people in other fields of work. The objective of this series is to inspire and challenge the young Lakers team to pursue success in new and creative ways. In other words, the organization hopes players would take an interest in becoming like (i.e. imitating) the speakers they meet. Through these meetings, the Lakers organization is hoping to replicate the likes of The Rock, Elon Musk, and others.

The “Genius Series” supports the argument of Professor Emeritus Frank Heppner of the University of Rhode Island. In a blog expressing his concern with education technology and the shift to online modes of instruction, Professor Heppner asks, “how are we going to INSPIRE students, especially the non-traditional ones?”15 Heppner is of the mind that education is really two simultaneous processes: 1) the process of teaching/learning and 2) the process of inspiring/being inspired. The latter process is the primary avenue for cultural replication. Even Heppner himself confesses, “From [my professor] Stebbins, I learned what it was like to really love the thing you study--and I eventually followed his example.”16

Many people can point to a teacher/professor who profoundly inspired the person they became. People try to replicate the beauty, magic, and wisdom of their instructors, and in this way, people become memes of the educations they received.

Culture Cultivates

The ultimate outcome of culture’s work is the corporate cultivation of the human spirit. In other words, culture is capable of giving form to the spirit of whole communities. For this reason, some scholars have referred to culture as theology incarnate. Through its conversation with the human imagination, through orientation toward the good, true, and beautiful, and through its replication in persons, culture has the potential to shape communities beyond the present. Culture can till the human heart and mind for the good or ill of generations.

How the Refrigerator Cultivates

It is important to state upfront that not all objects cultivate in equal measure. Cultivation is the process by which whole societies are shaped, and some objects do this to greater degree than others. The car or smartphone, for instance, have immense cultivating power, and they move to the center of cultural worlds that are created around them. We make roads for the car and garages to store them. We have shows to highlight them. Entire cultural systems are created to sustain our use of the automobile. Likewise, we make room in our lives to accommodate the demands of the smartphone.17 While the refrigerator does not have the same potency to cultivate, it still influences society. As part of the cultural world created by the refrigerator, the modern supermarket increasingly includes items from previously inaccessible regions of the earth. This use of the refrigerator cultivates society’s desire for foods beyond their geographical reach. Put differently, because the refrigerator can keep foods as they travel long distances, society cultivates a varied and diversified appetite.

How Education Cultivates

Education, if it continues to be a required part of society, shapes generation after generation with the promotion of its vision of success. Like the refrigerator, however, there are degrees to which education cultivates. MBMHMC seeks to fill a gap in the cultivation of young people in impoverished communities of Chicago. Communities with struggling educational systems simply cannot provide the same expansive vision of the future that stronger systems offer. For this reason, education is typically a hotly debated subject of political interest. It is both an engine that cultivates the future and the picture of disparity between communities.

Conclusion

When my students begin their study of culture, their definition is generally either vague or narrowly focused on ethnic distinctions. My goal is always to ground culture in objects and symbols they can identify and engage. More than that, however, I want them to learn what culture is, so they can be expert culture-makers who bear witness to the Kingdom of God. Indeed, that is the goal of World Outspoken: to teach people to make culture as a way of seeking the city of their hopes. Culture communicates essential messages about place, people, and life. It orients communities toward moods and postures, and it replicates itself from generation to generation, cultivating whole societies. I’ve provided two examples of culture to illustrate these functions: the refrigerator and education as an institution. Through these examples, the Outspoken Community learns to “read” culture. Now, with a bearing on culture, we can make with confidence.

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Footnotes

1. While Andy Crouch deserves credit for the basic structure of this definition, I’ve replaced the word “world” from his original sentence with the word “earth.” I am using earth to refer to all that naturally exists on our planet without the influence of humanity. World, however, refers to earth and all that humanity creates to promote, sustain, and make sense of their lives together in community. Because of the last clause in this definition, it is worth noting that earth has many worlds an individual can inhabit. Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, Edition Unstated edition (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2008).

2. “What Is Culture? | Mars Hill Audio,” May 14, 2018, Link.

3. D. Stephen Long, Theology and Culture: A Guide to the Discussion (Wipf & Stock Pub, 2008).

4. Through history, “civilization” can refer to wicked practices by colonial conquerors. I’m not, here, ignoring this heavy history but rather attempting to use the word for its original meaning. There are many ways in which “civilizing” has been carried out horrifically, and I even explore the subject in greater detail in Seeking Zion. Acknowledging the baggage of the word, I’d ask readers to consider that cultures can civilize (develop people) in very evil and/or good ways (often doing a mixture of both).

5. Each of the following sub-sections is my understanding of Dr. Vanhoozer’s thoughts on the functions of culture. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Charles A. Anderson, and Michael J. Sleasman, eds., Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends, Annotated edition edition (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2007).

6. Nancy Ammerman et al., eds., Studying Congregations: A New Handbook (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998).

7. “Refrigerator | Definition of Refrigerator in English by Oxford Dictionaries,” Oxford Dictionaries | English, accessed June 27, 2018, Link.

8. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Anchor, 1967).

9. “How MBMHMC Works,” My BLOCK MY HOOD MY CITY, accessed June 28, 2018, https://www.formyblock.org/how-it-works-1/.

10. “MBMHMC For Educators,” My BLOCK MY HOOD MY CITY, accessed June 28, 2018, Link.

11. For those interested in the book, I’ve cited it here: R. J. Palacio, Wonder, 1 edition (New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2012).

12. Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just, Reprint edition (Princeton, N.J. Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001).

13. Vanhoozer, Anderson, and Sleasman, Everyday Theology.

14. Note: Not every aspect of culture is beautiful, but even distorted (or "ugly") culture reproduces. For this reason, it is important to strive for beautiful rather than distorted culture.

15. “When I Grow Up, I Want to Be Just Like My iPad | Tomorrow’s Professor Postings,” accessed December 13, 2017, Link.

16. “When I Grow Up, I Want to Be Just Like My iPad | Tomorrow’s Professor Postings.”

17. For the curious reader interested in knowing more about the power of the smart phone and other technologies, I’d recommend the following book: Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, Expanded, Revised edition (Basic Books, 2017).