Reforming All Things
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 10:08AM Tim Challies reviewed Tullian Tchividjian's new book Unfashionable yesterday. Tim expressed some concerns about transformationalism, "the view that God seeks to redeem and renew not just people but nations and cultures." You see this expressed when Tullian writes passages like this:
God promises nothing short of total cosmic renewal. Our confident anticipation of that renewal -- our living hope of it -- triggers and sustains our excitement and motivation for making a difference by living unfashionable lives. It links us with something so grand and glorious that it easily exposes the flimsy lie behind mere fashionability.
Again: "Churches are designed by God to be instruments of renewal in the world, renewing not only individual lives but also cultural forms and structures, helping to make straight all that is crooked in our world." Tim counters: "I do not see Paul's concern with culture except as a means to reach souls...I will simply say that I do not see that the Bible teaches such an emphasis."
Tim's disagreement led to some good discussion in the comments.
Tim is right on a couple of issues. First, there is a genuine discontinuity between this age and the next. We should not expect cosmic renewal quite yet. Second, Paul does not spend much time telling us to transform culture.
BUT there is more to be said. There is both continuity and discontinuity between this world and the next; Tim acknowledges this. The trick is to hold these in tension. Jesus' resurrection took place in this age and in this world; and the kingdom is already present here and now, but not in its fullness.
Doesn't 2 Peter 3:10 say this world going to be destroyed? Doug Moo (PDF) argues that Scripture teaches the world's transformation, not replacement. Moo strikes the right balance in what he concludes this about the environment, with some application to the larger issue of cultural renewal: "While rarely rising to the level of an explicit emphasis, and never the chief concern in and of itself, the world of nature is an integral component of God's new creation work."
Tim Keller writes that this is an often neglected part of our teaching:
I must admit that so many of us who revel in the classic gospel of "grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone" largely ignore the eschatological implications of the gospel...
If this final renewal of the material world was part of Paul's good news, we should not be surprised to see that Jesus healed and fed while preaching the gospel as signs and foretastes of this coming kingdom (Mt. 9:35).
When we realize that Jesus is going to someday destroy hunger, disease, poverty, injustice, and death itself, it makes Christianity what C. S. Lewis called a "fighting religion" when we are confronted with a city slum or a cancer ward. This full version of the gospel reminds us that God created both the material and the spiritual, and is going to redeem both the material and the spiritual.
There are many more themes one could develop here: the creation mandate; Scriptural teaching on culture; the implications of Jesus teaching us to pray "your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"; the culture-transforming implications of New Testament commands; the implications of the present reign of Christ in the world; explicit commands to care for non-spiritual needs; a Christian view of vocation and government; Pauline teaching on taking every thought captive, God reconciling all things in Christ, and so on.
We can overstate this case - but I'm afraid that we can also understate it as well. Transformationalism (or whatever you want to call it) is not non-biblical, as Challies suggests; it's deeply biblical, and we need to explore it and live its implications, neither understating or overstating its importance.
I love this quote from Neil Plantinga:
At their best, Reformed Christians take a very big view of redemption because they take a very big view of fallenness. If all has been created good and all has been corrupted, then all must be redeemed. God isn't content to save souls; God wants to save bodies too. God isn't content to save human beings in their individual activities; God wants to save social systems and economic structures too...
Everything corrupt needs to be redeemed, and that includes the whole natural world, which both sings and groans...The whole world belongs to God, the whole world has fallen, the whole world needs to be redeemed - every last person, place, organization, and program; all "rocks and trees and skies and seas"; in fact, "every square inch," as Abraham Kuyper said. The whole creation is "a theater for the mighty works of God," first in creation and then in re-creation.
Reader Comments (9)
Not sure how one can read Romans 8 as discussing anything short of cosmic renewal, but hey, just sayin'.
I think everyone in this discussion agrees on cosmic renewal in the future. They seem to disagree on what this means for how we live today though.
I wasn't seeing that. Perhaps it's just Tom Wright's hand up my back, making me spit back Surprised by Hope, but I find it odd and perhaps more than a bit narcissistic to think that the whole purpose of all this is nothing more than the saving of individual souls and to hell with everything else. I can't see that within an authentically Reformed perspective.What am I not hearing?
I may be simply being overly simplistic again, but I must ask the question: If one is truly a "born-again" believer, honestly striving to do God's Will in their life, reaching out in Love to those around them, and seeking the furtherance of God's Kingdom, how can one NOT impact the culture of the nations?Under the influence of the Apostles, (and The Holy Spirit of course,) the Early Church "grew daily." We know from history the impact that was made on the known world then.When I read about the ministries of people like Wesley, Smith-Wigglesworth, Moody and others, when they preached so many were "saved," the bars in the cities would close down, crime rates would fall through the floor, and whole nations would be impacted for the better.This World, the orb upon which we live, will be destroyed, yes, - whether by transformation or replacement, I am not quite sure. But there WILL be a new earth. "This full version of the gospel reminds us that God created both the material and the spiritual, and is going to redeem both the material and the spiritual."I think I agree with Neil Plantinga: "God wants to save social systems and economic structures too…Everything corrupt needs to be redeemed, and that includes the whole natural world, which both sings and groans…The whole world belongs to God, the whole world has fallen, the whole world needs to be redeemed - every last person, place, organization, and program; all “rocks and trees and skies and seas”; in fact, “every square inch,” as Abraham Kuyper said. The whole creation is “a theater for the mighty works of God,” first in creation and then in re-creation."
I guess my struggle is this: are we explicitly called to transform culture or is it a necessary by-product of following God's commands in the world? There are express commands to live obediently, to mortify sin, to evangelise the lost. But is there a command to transform culture? Or does the transformation of culture necessarily happen when we live like Christians in the world? It strikes me that the verses you referenced above are all implications, not express commands. I think that whichever position you take, the result will likely be the same. But the impetus will be different. However, if as the recent Christianity Today discussion at least implies, the latter view of being obedient without an express eye to transformationalism is taken, some of the worries of losing evangelism likely won't be lost. It keeps us stumbling down the road of the extremes of the now-dead emerging church.
This has relevance: http://oldlife.org/2009/05/07/rob-bell-on-you-know-the-healing-thing/
Ian:Great comments.I think there are two sides to this. On one hand, the gospel is the proclamation of what God has done in Christ. Our good works are implications of the gospel but they are not the gospel itself. But as Tim Keller points out in his article on the gospel in all its forms, part of the gospel is that Christ is seated as King and is currently reigning. So it's important to proclaim this and what it means for life today.But on the other hand are all the implications of this for our actions. I think you're right: it's hard to find many commands to change culture in the New Testament. What you have are a) commands toward faithful living b) a radical view of vocation - that our work, whatever it is, is for the Lord c) implications of themes of the cultural mandate, kingdom, and promised shalom and d) an eschatological hope.If we overemphasize changing culture, we do risk losing evangelism. But I also fear taking a dismissive view of culture and withdrawing altogether.I need to read Carson's book on Christ and Culture, by the way.Did you read this comment at Challies? Thought it was helpful: http://tinyurl.com/qxdgoh
Yeah, I thought they were good. I particularly appreciated what you had to say in them. You are a model of handling people who have a different view than your own. Now, after that flattery (!) - I'm all for appreciating the different cultures and sub-cultures that are out there in the world. And I'm all for Christians who act like Christians in whatever cutlural situation they find themselves in. But I wonder if we're to think that God has commanded us to view a culture, like say hockey, and transform it. Or, are Christians who play hockey to be just that: Christians who play hockey? If so, they will inevitably change their culture, but as a by-product of their being salt and light.
Ian:Thanks for the compliment!I can live with what you propose in the second paragraph, especially since God is a much better strategist than we are. He uses our faithfulness in ways that we can't even anticipate, and in ways we couldn't have planned. Very well said.