I listened to Mark Driscoll preach this week, and I was edified. I was edified before he even got spiritual. He was just being sarcastic and talking about culture. It was encouraging to me that he is such a good exegete of culture. He holds the Bible in his right hand and in his left hand, the newspaper, movies, comedians... He's as good if not better at exegeting the culture as he is exegeting the text. So my question is this: as restorationist, we hold the Bible high, but are we holding the newspaper high enough?
Monday, November 12, 2007
Do we hold the newspaper high enough?
Damien got a couple very good questions from a student this week, and we thought we'd post them on the blog to get some conversation started. Here's one of the two from Chad:
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I understand the question to mean, “How much ought Restorationist preachers analyze modern culture in their sermons.” Although I have no idea how to answer such a question I would like to suggest two clarifications. First, I am hopeful that the hearers of any given sermon don’t all belong to a single culture (or worse yet sub-culture). So perhaps we ought to ask the question in regards to the analysis of modern cultures. Second, I think it is useful to distinguish between culture and pop culture. That is to say there is something different between analyzing the culture of Chicanos who live on the borders of Texas and Mexico and analyzing the motherhood of Brittany Spears. So perhaps there ought to be two distinct questions here:
“How much ought Restorationist preachers analyze modern cultures in their sermons.”
And
“How much ought Restorationist preachers analyze pop culture in their sermons.”
Excellent comments, Brian. The issue you are presenting seems to be that of contextualization... being able to take a Biblical text, derive the Spirit-intended purpose behind the text, and then be able to apply it to whatever culture/audience to whom we are preaching.
I also think Bryan Chapell has something important to teach us. In his book, Christ-Centered Preaching, he identifies that within every Biblical text there is a "fallen condition" that is shared by all of humanity. This condition will manifest itself differently from culture to culture and audience to audience. It is the preacher's task to be able to identify this fallen condition and then clearly present how the gospel (i.e. the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ) transforms the condition. Therefore it is of value for the preacher to be able to see how the fallenness of his audience is experienced by watching the evening news, reading the newspaper, skimming People magazine, listening in the coffee shop, etc...
I would bet real money that Chapell is a Calvinist. The whole idea that EVERY text involves human fallenness sounds like a corollary of Total Depravity. That seems like it would lead to a really negative view of modern cultures--since you are always looking for the taint of sin. It seems like we could draw on beautiful features of cultures as well--for example, the communalism of Indian culture might be used to illustrate the early church of Acts 4 (perhaps over and against American individualism).
On a side note, I'm still skeptical about the value of pop culture in the pulpit.
Doug & Damien, I would hope that every preacher/communicator of the word of God would be up to date with the world around us. Paul in Acts 17, at Athens, he spent time going around the city and looking to see, hear and feel the lives and beliefs of the Athenians. From his wanderings around the city he became distressed, but he learned and later as he shared with the leading false-religious leaders of the city he was able to preach and teach about Jesus. If he hadn't of known of the beliefs and life of the Athenian people he would of never be able to communicate the great plan of God.
Welcome to THE Robin Sigars! It is quite an honor having such a fine contributor at the table. I think Robin raises an excellent point in observing how we see NT preachers practicing a level of audience analysis... maintaining the heart of the message, but finding creative ways to present it depending on who is listening.
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