in the introduction tied use the words a modern 60 if you would kindly send those
to my family back home that would be very helpful I'd like for them to
understand really my place in the world I'm not sure they're quite get it
sometimes a number of years ago I started to feel dissatisfied with what
felt like a dysfunctional relationship between my fellow Christians and my
culture american culture and one ways you know you're in a dysfunctional
relationship this might be helpful for a few minutes and advice relationship
advice tools as well as you start realizing both parties are seeing each
other at their worst when the ways you know something has gone wrong is just
went constantly I'm seeing this other person at their worst and they're seeing
me at my worst and I start to feel like that was what was happening with the
Christian community that I loved him as part of the culture that I loved and was
part of the culture often with seeing Christians at our worst that are most
vindictive and are most fearful are most judgmental and that when I was in
Christian settings often when people talked about the culture that we lived
in that we all shared that what I heard was the culture at its worst culture at
its most worldly its most damaging and dangerous and it felt like neither side
was seeing one another at their best and I started asking why in the world is
this happened why is this you know like a kid who just grows up in a
dysfunctional family and you don't know where all that came from a right things
are the way they are but you're in it you belong to it and that's how I felt I
felt like I without wanting to was part of the story where something had gone
wrong
and so I started trying to understand the last and particularly the last
hundred years of how much lower Christians had related to the culture
around us and i cant believe that we embraced a series of postures in the
last hundred years that really did not help us very much one of the things that
we became known for was condemning culture protests judgments complaint
criticism and sometimes christians became known especially during a
residence arafat mostly by what we were against and they're all movements that
define themselves by the things they didn't do if you didn't do this long
list of things that maybe you were sufficiently holy and and you know
sufficiently detached from the world you could call these folks fundamentalist I
don't think it's only fair the fundamentalists but some of the
Fundamentalist were kinda known by what they didn't do and their children found
this very constricting the fundamentals would say don't go to the movies they're
showing that while there are no good movies and for some of their children
said no we need to go to the movies and what we need to do is not so much
condemn culture is analyzed it we need to become students of culture and
examine the world view of the culture around us and whole shelves of books
have been written analyzing and engaging culture some of the great book something
very insightful but I start to feel dissatisfied with this posture to I feel
like well is all we're gonna do all day all of our lives just analyze what's
going on that's sort of like education sometimes feels like it's just lots of
analysis and sometimes I think the academic fallacies once you've analyzed
something you've changed it actually that's just the first step in any kind
of constructive engagement and what if we just got stuck in a kind of Christian
library where all we did was talk about world view but we never added a thing or
contributed anything
and then I noticed the summer fellow Christians were really good at imitating
culture or copying culture and we even got pretty good with photoshop so you
know we take something interesting happening in the culture around us
you know the staples easy button which for those who are not familiar with it
is a red plastic but that does absolutely nothing but you can push it
when your mad and initially it was just an advertising campaign but people
started calling staples and saying I need one of those easy but and so they
eventually gave in and they start manufacturing them to you now can buy an
easy button and when you think about it red plastic but that sits on your desk
and does nothing but you push it when your mad that is so much like Jesus
that's actually there is the gospel is nothing like this Jesus is nothing like
a red plastic but not solve your problems like these problems one
solution is just that easy Jesus that's not the gospel and I thought like in our
rush to imitate or copy culture even with good intentions we ended up
borrowing all the wrong assumptions of culture that life should be easy there
should be a button on it God answered my but when I thought the gospels are much
deeper more difficult and beautiful thing than anybody and then I realized
okay so we've got people condemning culture we've got people critiquing it
we've got people copying and then we have a lot of people who just simply
consumers we just gotta lay back and lie on the counter alarm remote controller
like I wonder what's on and whatever you know the fundamentalist said don't go to
movies and their children even Joel the new evangelical said oh go to the movies
and investigate their world view and the grandchildren of anomalous just go to
the movies like we don't ask any big questions you know Harold and Kumar do
tell us whatever great that's what's on
we don't think about it we don't interact with it we just let it wash
over us and shape and what struck me about all of these postures was not just
that they all began with C condemning critiquing copying consuming which
actually they didn't initially when I just think about this but in a southern
this friend of mine got a hold of this material insert teaching at his church
and when I got his notes back everything began with the same letter and I was
like this is also dislike the southern route to spiritual gift of alliteration
is it was great gift to the body of Christ acts or so I use it I could
remember those points you might remember them it all starts on scene it isn't all
beginning with CD the promise all of these were reactive they all were
reacting to culture they were waiting for the culture out there to do
something and then respond with his criticism with analysis with imitation
with consumption but none of them were about adding something and I wish this
were just 20th century history but last year in a number of magazines this ad
ran for a book by a well-known pastor who I respect and appreciate it and I
have nothing bad to say about the book but the ad is amazing
these hands are folded in prayer but their their sheets in heavy duty rubber
gloves and the prayer is deliver us from culture and there's a lot to say about
this ad you could probably do a whole class on analyzing the messages in this
very powerful memorable ad but two things struck me about it one was we've
taken to Lawrence prayer in this little advertising slogan and taking the phrase
deliver us from evil and just replaced it as if you could just you know one of
the other culture evil evil culture just get us out of here Jesus as its culture
and evil are the same thing and then I had another thought which is okay
suppose god answer this prayer said I have heard you a rubber glove protected
one with God deliver us to where would we be if God answered this prayer cuz
culture is not just the bad stuff its buildings its lights it's clothing
your clothes that you wear culture if you've ever been to a nude beach I spent
a summer in Greece and got to spend some time on you because I discovered what a
great gift clothing is to 98% of the Americas I mean it is just it is a
beautiful thing that we had ourselves this way and it is a terrifying thing
when it's all British tourists slowly turning into lobsters in the altogether
on a Greek bTW just less safe please for the love of God in prison culture it got
delivered us from cultured human beings don't flourish without culture we're
nothing without all these things that give us structure and meaning and
possibility and an ability to act in the world so how could not answer this
prayer and I wondered why is our picture this protection image when it's not
something more like this kid has just been having so much fun digging in the
world
yes the world as dirt and yes there's probably bacteria on his hands right now
but he can washers and she can come into work and be cleansed renewed and
reoriented here's an immune system that protects him from the world the worst
that the world could do to him and he can go out and dig in the dirt and play
in the world and make something when he's a kid he just makes mud pies and
sand castles but when he grows up he could actually make something in the
world and why would that that joyful eight-year-old want to turn into a
self-protective fearful forty eight-year-old bring to take me out now
get me out of here rather than what can I do I start to believe that somehow we
had been missing some chapters in our Bible not literally these chapters are
in every bound bible but you know everybody has sort of a Bible they
really know and then parts of the Bible than ever read and I start to feel like
we're missing for especially important chapters the first two and the last saw
the first two chapters Genesis one into the story of the good beginning of the
world and the last revelation 21 and 22 this story
the remaking of the world kadri giving the world its regimes people and if your
bible does not appear functional Bible the Bible you actually left shape your
imagination doesn't include those book and chapters in the Bible the first to
the last year what are you left with a bottle it starts in just three and ends
in revelation twenty now sir what's justice three this is your biospherians
what's in just three befall the word fall isn't in there but that's what we
call it I like to call it the Declaration of Independence
humanity declared their independence from God they do fall from their
original dignified statuses image barriers and become embroiled in census
in the arrivals in the world
revelation 20 I don't know if you know this one but if you go to certain kinds
of charges might have heard it what's the last thing we see in revelation
twenty the lake of fire
I wanna see that you're fast forward through the movie skip all the dialogue
and all the dramatic person just watch the judgment secrets right we're
thinking that always works are swept into the lake of fire
what happens if you buy list starts with sin and ends with judge
well it's a bad news too bad news but it's the Bible that begins with that is
an answer that is which of course leaves the question well what is the good I
thought about good news what's the good news here and the way the story
sometimes is told from people who have this Genesis 32 revelation 20 Bible is
well the good news is that's not your story you're going to be lifted out of
that story entirely and you'll watch the world go to hell and you'll cheer from a
heavenly sort of you know bench seats and you'll watch as that story comes to
its conclusion but you will be taken out of it while others are left behind
let the reader understand to suffer the fate of the world the judgment of the
world so the good news is it's not your story
but what if there's a better story in the Bible that starts with a could just
this one just has to and ends with AK horas remade world revelation 21 and 22
how would that change the way we see culture now so this is going to be very
obvious to you because you have read these chapters but let's just recall
what they say what they the orientation they give us to the real story of the
world not a bad news to bed his story but a good news too good news story so
justice wanted to just a couple themes of course these are very familiar but so
good just to marinate in the that six times in Genesis one as God is making
the World God saw that it was good good good good
the world that culture happens in the world that we human beings find
ourselves in is not world fundamentally characterized by conflict and violence
as real as those things are but his but deeper down and further back is a world
that conflict and said that's made by a very good God into this world God
introduces these particular creatures made in His image unlike all the other
creatures and that's what we're surrounded by in a room like this right
now we're surrounded by image barriers male and female he created them in the
image of God He created and he says it and now I want you to be fruitful and
multiply the earth and subdue it go out into this could wild world and start
culturing and do it everywhere before I don't want just a few of you I want
teaming image bury all over the world which means by the way I want cultural
diversity because there's these image-makers multiply and spread out
through the incredibly diverse natural world they would naturally develop all
kinds of different cultures that made different things in the world in
different climates in different geographies and different latitudes and
so the cultural diversity that we get little glimpses of in rooms like this is
actually part of God's original good intentions for the world
and it and one of them to do till it and keep it that world is good take care of
it
cultivated and then once the image birds are in the World God says now it's not
just good it's very good so the story of genesis is from good to very good a good
natural world but once cultures in the world it's very good couple of Surgeons
of this so the world has green and green is good
grant is part of just the natural order of plants but human beings take the
Grand that harvested they crush it they millet they combine it with a little bit
of Houston salt and water and a little bit of time and they put in and out
comes bread and so you could say grain is good but bread is very good
the world has grapes and image various come along they harvest the grapes they
may be trampled underfoot or crushed them in some land put them in a vat give
it some time and an amazing thing happens if you're baptists it turns into
groups use its extraordinary actually how that works but I'm episcopalian and
for us it turns into wine actually I just got a lot of trouble are a little
trouble and I would lead the group is good but why is very good work riches is
also very good and the difference is image barriers you don't ever get bread
without image peers you dredges there are no bread trees and it's only through
cultivation that happens at that very good disappears one appears in the world
it's only through human beings taking the very good breaks and acting on them
culturing them that you get the very good wine another example make use of
this so instructor just a major court to see major chord
and you know the world is full of sound from the moment that God creates but
it's not real human beings come along when human beings go along somebody gets
the idea you know if you stretch out a string of a certain kind of got your
medal until it's tight and tense and then you pluck it or you strike it as a
piano what do you get a sound a note and that's not just sound that's music
that's a musical harmonious no one single note are all these overtime
that's physics have time to go into it but trust me in that single resonating
string is not just this one of a kind of here but also the fifth about that and
eventually another note up there which we call the third above the 50 and all
these all these frequencies are in a single struck or plucked string and they
make up what we call a major court
and then you can take a slightly more complicated 24
any kind of lead you back back back to the spot
or cords 14
you can now it's the relative minor it's minor under 14 516 minor you are done
you're like set
often as you want
this most basic secrets and he's just done 14
in the sport
so you start to explore all these other possibilities with this one
visit here for a moment
what's coming up
we all those harmonies and overtones are funding
you cannot just
and now it's been the scene
is very good and that's just the simplest little piece and whenever you
see image barriers doing what they're made to do this is what they're doing
taking the raw materials the good raw materials of the road gonna they're
saying how can I cultivate this how can I create with this what possibilities
are lying in there waiting to be explored we mentioned my family at home
so here's a picture of my wife my wife is a musician but she's also a physicist
my wife teaches cause students physics and she works in a lab with all this
complicated equipment behind her I have no idea what she does or what equipment
does please don't ask she also does math right so I have no idea what these
equations are I'm told they're important and that like they make the world work
and so forth and that's what my wife does and in her own way she's doing what
doc was doing and what artists do and what engineers do and what doctor says
she's taking a part of the world and digging deeply into it until she finds
what's good in it and then using her image bearing capacity she's adding to
the very goodness of the world that's the story of genesis good to very good
natural world to cultured world now very quickly what happens when you go over
the revelation 21 I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first seven in the
first year that passed away in the sea was no more and I saw the holy garden
the restored Garden of Eden coming down out of heaven from God with none of that
icky human culture to be found in it anywhere
this is actually really from second opinions 315 which is the most cited
book in the Bible god helps those who help themselves
second opinions 15 know there's not what travelers and 21 says the whole thing it
does not fair I saw in your garden it says I saw a new heaven on earth yes the
first in the first are the passwords yes there seems no marks but I saw the holy
city New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God not a guard at a city
and what is a city it's a place where the diversity and depth of culture has
reached critical mass where everywhere you look you see culture in all of its
possibility of its variety and in this work in the city
foundations the wall the city are adorned with every Jul John list them so
that I'd never heard of it doesn't say every mineral doesn't say you know there
is a mineral minerals are nature nature natural our culture says the kings of
the earth will bring their glory and people will bring into that city the
glory and the honor of the nation's the work of culture making will not be lost
will not simply be swept into the lake of fire
anything that was the fulfillment of God's intention for his creation brings
glory to God will be in that city
this was on my Starbucks cup couple years ago when they were putting quotes
on the sides of the cups from joel stein is a columnist for the LA times here's
what he said how dan is totally overrated it seems boring clouds
listening to people play the harp it should be someone you can't wait to go
like a luxury hotel blue skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line
in the 17th century kevin has to step it up
they're basically getting my because they only have to be better I reverse I
had three thoughts one was not what we do not live up to some otherworldly
cloud hartsfield place nothing against harps but you know there are other
instruments saxophones
milan's you know electric guitars we believe heaven is coming to Earth we
believe that the best meal you've ever had the funniest joke ever told the best
story you've ever read or just piece of the kind of abundance of the world is
waiting for my second thought was who in the world told Joel Stein this is what
we Christians and then I heard this third awful we told him he thinks this
is no
go out into this world to take the good World God is made that others have
already cultivated made very good and you do your part to shape it to tell it
to keep it to cultivate to create something that might be called the
quarry and the honor of the nation's that will give God glory and his image
that's what we go out to do they have a wonderful day you're dismissed Biola
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