We often separate knowing from doing. These are not two separate entities, with labels like “good” and “bad,” sacred/secular, etc. Rather, “the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it” ( Ps.24:1). Culture.ish. longs to see life holistically, like the Biblical narrative teaches. This does not, however, mean that Culture.ish. is a priest that baptizes and makes holy everything that it reviews and talks about so that students will know that it is safe and pleasing to God. Culture.ish. is the beginning of a conversation about what it means to live in God's world, to see the world and hear the world the way God does.
It is deism to say that God doesn't listen to U2 and watch The Office, because the Christian God is a God who is involved in our redemption, on a very physical level... “lowering himself...”(Phil. 4). God redeems us by making us discerning participants of this world, to be culture critics, culture lovers, and culture makers and shapers. Culture.ish. places its hopes in God being able to transform Geneva students from a view of a legalism that damns them to a view of God's grace manifesting itself in all the places we sometimes fail to look. The Christian God is huge; we are merely the small and finite creatures. Hopefully Geneva College can be a place where people are known for having "eyes to see, and ears to hear," and hearts and minds to practice wisdom and resurrection. Culture.ish. is an attempt to step faithfully into God’s world.
Labels: gpv, number eighteen, respond, why culture ish
Nicely written. I am a student at Calvin College and I am active in "cultural discerning' as we call it here and I want to affrim that what Chris has written is an imperative conversation for the Christian community. Yes God watches T.V. :)
Thank you and continue to share the redemption story!
-Allison Walcher