Friday, July 08, 2005
Culture
Mmmm... this is yummy:
Paul's use of rhetoric reminds us that he desired to be a part of a larger world than many of his Jewish Christian contemporaries who were dragged kicking and screaming into a cosmopolitan church. It reminds us that Paul valued a good deal of Greco-Roman culture.

Paul believed in sifting culture, not merely criticizing it. His faith was not world-negating but world-transforming. His model was not the Amish-style enclave but an aggressive approach aiming to take every thought captive for Christ. We would do well to ponder this approach in an age when anathemas rather than engagement, critique and persuasion seem to be the usual conservative Christian approach to the larger society (Witherington 127).

I can only imagine the torches and pitchforks that would come out if I were to climb into a pulpit Sunday morning and proclaim, "I value American culture."

posted by Peter at 1:20 AM
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