Essay about Christianity and Popular Culture

This view sees the tension between Christians and culture like church above culture. It addresses the two kingdoms of the secular and spiritual world. Lutherans typically accept this view. It acknowledges that there are many paradoxes that we as Christians face while living in today’s society like law and gospel, saint and sinner, and evil in the world and God as the almighty good. Some challenges with this view are obeying earthly rulers and God, accepting good and not bad, and the difficultly of being in the culture but not of the culture. I also agree with the idea that the tension of church and culture is between me and culture not me and

“Christ and Culture in Paradox” is the second medial option between the extremes (i.e., it is the dualist version of “Christ above Culture”). It views human culture as a good creation that has been tainted by sin, acknowledging that there is sin is in all creation (including institutions based off a synthesis perspective). There is a persistent battle between God and humanity, representative of Christ and culture. As a result, there is tension in Christians’ connection to culture, having to both embrace and reject certain aspects of it due to their earthly and heavenly responsibilities. A person experiences Christ via interactions between both of these kingdoms, avoiding using the ideas and methods in one that are inappropriate to the other.

Many people believe that that the motivation of the Christian church is to radically “change the world”. However, through his book To Change The World, James Davison Hunter explains how this common believe is a misconception. Rather, he shows readers that, from a sociological perspective, while Christians thrive in many areas of life by reaching others individually, they fundamentally components of creating cultural change.

We will also look at a few of today’s top music leaders and how their songs give hints that there does not life than just things of this earth. We will go through the pro side of that where now that churches need to be able to connect with all walks of life because they appeal to more people than they used to. The other thing I will be talking about is how in recent years we have had a rise in popularity in Christin music. C.S. Lewis put it best when he said, “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will lead us to good because He loves us.” I will also go through my opinion on if I believe it is ok to have Christianity in pop culture. Studying this topic, the past few months I have learned so much in

Chapter 9 struct me deeply in the context of how Christena Cleveland talks about how cross cultural interactions are not for the “Faint of heart.” Talking about how the biases we hold against other cultures and groups have the ability to create an issue when trying to mix groups together. Chapter nine in Disunity in Christ is all about creating positive cross-cultural Interactions, but as Cleveland relates to, we should be careful not to offend and be careful when dealing with the subject of cultural interactions due to the different backgrounds of where people come from. Cross Cultural interactions are a great for uniting and should be demonstrated positively.

The gospel changes everything, it becomes the very lens through which we look at all of life and its challenges. The gospel transcends all cultures. The essential truths of the gospel can be expressed in any language or clothed in any culture. the truth of the gospel shapes my thinking and conduct in a way that produces a Christ-like love and holiness - putting his kingdom values into practice in the power of the Holy Spirit. Humility, boldness, dependency and the assurance of his presence replaces all my self-reliance, pride, selfishness. Putting my faith in God and his word has helped me become a firm believer that he is always there, always watching and protecting his follower. The passage “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper’’

Niebuhr’s book has been the most influential and a major impact on contemporary Christians’ discussions on culture regardless if they were from liberalism on the left or fundamentalism on the right (Bauder, 2011). According to an observation by Niebuhr, affluence and influenced tend to transform churches into denominations (Bauder, 2011). He believed the church represents the lower social class which is small, personal and inward looking while in contrast denomination represents the accepted social order and appeals to the intellectual and ruling classes (Bauder, 2011). Niebuhr suggests that the Church and denominations represent the relationship between Christianity

Contextualization means translating and adapting communication in ministry of the gospel to a particular culture without compromising the essence and particular and the gospel itself. According to Keller the great missionary task is to express the gospel message to a new culture in a way that avoids making the message unnecessarily alien to that culture yet removing obscuring the scandal and offense of biblical truth. A contextualize gospel is marked by clarity and attractiveness and yet it still challenges sinner self’s sufficiency and cause them to repentance. It adapts and connects to the culture yet at the same time challenge and confront it. He continue to say that when we contextualize faithfully and skillfully, we show people how the

The principles of Catholic social thought (CST) continue the idea of an interrelationship between the self and the group. Our relations with ourselves and with humanity are parts of the same relationship, and they expand at the same time. As we project to every part of the way of self-learning, finding our character, we similarly get to be aware of the supplementary noteworthy human nation. We come to understand that our association with culture is to accept the responsibility we basically have in light of the element that we take an interest in it.

Within Niebuhr's monumental novel ‘Christ and Culture’, Niebuhr provides multiple models of how Christians approach culture and it’s affect it yields on the individual and culture itself. But to the modern Christian, which out of Niebuhr's models is the most effective in striving towards a more virtuous, christian culture in a world that is seemingly post-christian? As culture continuously is in a state of deterioration, the approach that a modern Christian should take to respond to culture and its deterioration is an all too relevant issue.

(McKnight, 2011). The gospel culture brings people to the church by telling them how salvation can be offered through Jesus Christ. It declares the good news to everyone near and far and who are willing and open to hearing the gospel message. The gospel culture comes from the plan of how we get salvation. Whereas, the Salvation culture is a “culture that focuses on and measures people on the

Within Christian circles, there are many different expressions and phrases that have become commonplace. Among those heavily used sayings is the notion that Christians are to be “in the world but not of the world.”

There are certain values changing and remaining the same after a 1000 year. Values is a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life. One of the values would be Christianity, this value is the religion based on the person and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, or its beliefs and practices. Another value would be culture, which means the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.

On the surface, it may seem difficult to explain the gospel to someone from a particularistic culture, but it is not. Jesus expresses universalism in His love for us. It does not matter who we are, what our family background is, where we are from, what our occupation, or how much

All institutions within society facilitate communication, and in that way, they all contribute to the creation, spread, and evolution of culture (Crouch, 2008). When Christians speak of engaging with culture it usually means consuming culture with discernment. We teach one another how to analyze and evaluate culture in its myriad forms. The only way to change culture is to create more of it” (Crouch, 2008, p. 66) This is right and important. We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so we are not