In recent times, one topic that has been coming up with increasing frequency during conversations held in upstairs apartments is the contextualization of the gospel to modern (postmodern) culture. My first reaction to the idea, when first thinking about it several years ago, was this.
Being the fundamentalist evangelical snob one was (still am probably), it seemed merely a way for the emergent mega-churches to sell the gospel cheaply to folks who are too lazy to think about much.
Over time, having been progressively enconsed in the worldly working world, and painfully conscious that one would probably never pick up the courage to ask any colleagues (the hard-driving, diversity-proud followers of the Mammon religion) to an evangelical bible study or anything like that, the idea of contextualization started to look really attractive. After all, it's loads easier to ask someone to go watch, for example, "Bourne Ultimatum" (which supposedly was all about the gospel), than to the aforementioned bible study.
And it gets more interesting. For a long time now, I have wondered about how art and culture really could be integrated with faith. Even though the Church has always condoned the use of fine arts to promote Christianity through history, it is actually a much more difficult thing to work out in practice, especially in this age where anything overt and obstrusive would be outrightly rejected by a extreme relativist audience. So it has been terribly interesting to hear Christian think-tanks, including the important Reformists of the evangelical world, paying serious attention to these issues. Tim Keller has been preaching profusely on the needed impact of faith on postmodernist culture, and recognizes clearly the rise of the creative class as offering real-time challenge to gospel workers. There is a whole spectrum of other people who are deeply engaged with this issue, from the irrepressible Mark Driscoll to the weightier D.A. Carson. Like all worthy debates, it is passionate, controversial and sometimes quite discomfiting. But I guess like they say, if you are not confused, you really don't understand the situation.
And so it is rather. During the weekend, I was viewing a few videos produced by Ron Bell in the much talked about Nooma series that I picked up at SKS. Rob Bell is a Christian musician, writer and artist whose less-than-conventional ministry has reached even the New York Times. I was excited when I heard about the series from a friend last week as I thought perhaps this guy may be onto something here, one might pick up some ideas on how to reach out to non-Christian (somewhat thespian) friends? There is certainly good stuff to commend in the Nooma videos, but would I unhesitatingly give them as Christmas presents to seeker friends? Well, it could still be my reformed BP instincts at work, but I do wonder if the message has been so well hidden as to be lost in the beautifully cool modern art and music? For example, in one of the videos "Rhythm" - is saying that one ought to be "in tune" with God the same as saying that sin is completely discordant with life in Him? One might have a problem with the shyness to talk about sin, but the images and sounds of the concert hall are reallystrangely compelling. After all, even C.S. Lewis had used the extended metaphor of the "orchestra" of God, and one could do worse than Lewis in attracting a listening audience.
Looks like this is going to be another one those life-long, practical, and interesting questions to work out. But regardless of how this era of ours will look many years later, hopefully it will at least see the Church watching the "signs of the times" with care, which it is sometimes prone to forget to do.
