Christianity and Culture

We will be reading and discussing Pastor Steve's recent article in Critique (a publication of Ransom Fellowship, which we recommend highly) entitled "Why Bother with Culture?"

Here are some questions that we'll be considering during the discussion:

• How do we respond to culture as Christians?
• How do we act as creators of culture?
• How do we deal with the clumsiness that goes along with being in the world, but not of it? (By clumsiness is meant the lack of clarity in the degree to which we as Christians should immerse ourselves in culture and allow it to shape us.)
• How can we be freed from apprehension about our actions having the potential to discredit the Gospel in the minds of others? (One student has drawn a parallel between the Christian experience in culture and documentation that adolescent girls experience a "loss of voice" when they realize that full expression of their thoughts may cause them to lose relationships, so they become less vocal and hide aspects of their self.) How can we deal with the analogous experience many of us Christians have?
• How can we set the groundwork for engaging "men and women as they are in the world" that our voice is prophetic and essential to life in this culture?