Cities of Cultural Development
The ideas of diminished Fundamentalism may say otherwise but God is not against culture. Nor are “culture” and “worldliness” the same thing. Let’s start by defining our terms correctly. What is culture? Culture may properly be understood as a way of living developed by a group. I get this definition from missionary Lesslie Newbigin who writes:
By the word culture we have to understand the sum total ways of living developed by a group of human beings and handed on from generation to generation. Central to culture is language. The language of a people provides the means by which they express their ways of perceiving thing and of coping with them. Around that center one would have to group their visual and musical arts, their technologies, their law, and their social and political organization. And one must also include in culture, and as fundamental to any culture, a set of beliefs, experiences, and practices that seek to grasp and express the ultimate nature of things, that which gives shape and meaning to life, that which claims final loyalty. I am speaking, obviously, about religion.[1] Religion- including the Christian religion- is thus part of culture.[2]
When we speak of culture we have in mind a way of life for a specific group of people, which explains, of course, why there are so many different cultures (because there are so many different peoples). The city is and was meant to be a place for developing culture, and drawing out all the resources needed to create that culture. The city is, frankly put, a place of initiating culture.
The Bible represents this idea, that the city is a developer of culture, mostly through stories concerning cities. As the authors of the various books of the Bible describe cities, and describe the peoples of those cities they inform us about their various cultures. Keller points out that even wicked cities are described as having culture. So the wicked city of Revelation 18 is said to be a place of “music and the arts (v. 22a), crafts and works of all arts and manufacturing (v. 22b), trade and retailing (v. 23c), technological advance (v. 23a), family building (v. 23b).”[3] And the Bible shows us that what was true of these wicked cities was also true of God’s city too.
Jerusalem was rich with culture. They had the Temple which was built by various laborers and decorated by skilled artists. They had musicians and priests, they had nobles and slaves, they had farmers and kings. There were popular songs of the day (1 Sam. 18:7), heroes (like Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and David), and there was worship. This culture does not reside only in the earthly Jerusalem, but we find it in the New Heavens and the New Earth.
The New Jerusalem contains a feast and a wedding (Matt 22; 25), there is singing there as the redeemed join the angels in worshiping around God’s throne (Rev. 14:3), and there are various cultural expressions (Dan. 7:27). There will be culture in heaven, a culture that both incorporates the existing cultures of our current world (though cleansed from all their sin) and which unifies them into a new and heavenly culture.
Heaven[4] has one language, indicated by the numerous statements regarding the one “voice” which the people speak to God in. Heaven will also bring together people from every tribe, and tongue, and nation on earth, and with them their various cultural expressions. So Dr. Randy Alcorn wisely writes:
The elders sing to the Lamb: You are worthy…Your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become God’s Kingdom and His priests. And they will reign on the earth (Rev. 5:9-10, NLT). Who will serve as the New Earth’s kings and priests? Not people who were formerly of every tribe, language, people, and nation. Their distinctions aren’t obliterated but continue into the intermediate Heaven and then into the eternal Heaven.[5]
Heaven is a place where these people from different cultures can come together and bring with them their various cultural expressions to glorify God together. God loves diversity and even in the New Jerusalem He does not destroy or diminish it. Theologian Anthony Hoekema comments, “In the life to come various types of people will retain their unique gifts. These gifts will develop and mature in a sinless way, and will be used to produce new cultural products to the everlasting glory of God’s name.”[6] The Bible supports Hoekema’s view by speaking of music and musical instruments (including, though probably not limited to, harps, trumpets, and cymbals) (Rev. 8:7-13;15:2). The Bible also speaks of dancing, of planting vineyards, and of general merriment (Jer. 31). There is laughing, singing, dancing, playing, eating, resting, telling stories, and worshiping in the New City. If this is not culture then nothing is, and it is all found in the Kingdom of God and includes various expressions of it from various peoples.
The city has long been a place of cultural development and it continues to be such a place today. Though much of the cultural expression developed by the city today reflect the Fall more than redemption in Christ, there are exceptions and there can be more. Solomon speaks of the common grace of God as allowing non-Christians to develop culture that Christians can gather together to both benefit from and to glorify God through. Solomon said: For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God (Eccl. 2:26a). So there is much that can be redeemed from the culture, even culture created by unregenerate men.
I can quickly think of great movies which open up theological discussions and great thoughts about God, man, sin, redemption, etc. Movies like Amadeus, The Shawshank Redemption, Spiderman 3, Superman, Gladiator, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Stranger Than Fiction, Chariots of Fire, The Truman Show, and Signs are just a few of the movies that point viewers in some fashion Godward.[7] Music, painting, sculpture, literature, and other arts too can have profoundly spiritual effects.[8] There are, of course, the other obvious ways that we benefit from culture, such as government, housing, transportation, protection, etc. All this comes from the city, where the resources of men and women, created in the image of God, gather together to develop a way of living known as a culture. Timothy Keller brings this thought to a conclusion with this practical note:
The city, then, has a powerful magnifying glass effect. Since God invented it as a ‘cultural mine,’ it brings out whatever is in the human heart. Why? The density and therefore diversity of the city brings out the best (and worst) in the human heart. How does it do so? The divinely-given ability of the city to do ‘culture-making’ can be discerned at the most practical level by the urban resident.[9]
[1] For more on the relationship between religion and culture see Part III
[2] Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. 3.
[3] Keller.
[4] By the word “Heaven” I do not mean the intermediate state, which most people default to when they think of heaven. Rather I am speaking of the eternal Kingdom of God set up on earth as part of the New Heaven and New Earth.
[5] Randy Alcorn, Heaven. Wheaton: Tyndale, 2004. 362.
[6] Anthony Hoekema, “Heaven Is Not Just An Eternal Day Off,” Christianity Today (June 6, 2003), http://www.chrsitianitytoday.com/ct/2003/122/54.0.html.
[7] For more on this see David R. Dunham, “Theology at the Movies.” Louisville: Sovereign God, 2006; and Rich Clark, “In Praise of Film.” www.christandpopculture.com . See also Robert K. Johnston, Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue.. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006.
[8] See Leland Ryken, The Liberated Imagination. Colorado Springs: Shaw, 1989.
[9] Keller.
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