| July 25 2005 A.D. | |||||
| SCHILDER ON CULTURE, 2
(This is the second in a series of posts on Klaas Schilder's Christ and Culture, available for download here.) 5. Rather than triangulating or otherwise reacting to the various "Christ and Culture" theorists mentioned in ยง4 above, Schilder proposes that we instead "put ourselves under the preaching of the Scriptures." The Scriptures are not about "Christianity and cultural life" -- not about an "ism" and its achievements. Nor are the Scriptures even about "Jesus and cultural life" unless Jesus is rightly known as God's anointed. So the Scriptures are, rather, about "Jesus Christ and cultural life." Schilder then proposes to examine what is wrong with talking about "Christianity and culture" and "Jesus and culture." 6. First, then, the question is not one of "Christianity and cultural life". And this, no matter what sense of "Christianity" we understand. For if we take "Christianity" as the "community" of Christians, we are begging the question of what 'community" means. Schilder distinguishes between two different sorts of communion, denominating them by Greek terms. Sunousia is, as its roots indicate, mere "being together." This is the sort of fellowship that holds even between believers and unbelievers: insofar as both are "in the world", cheek by jowl, they have sunousia. Lot and the men of Sodom had sunousia. So too do believers and hypocrites in the church. So the effects upon cultural life of Christian sunousia with the world could be discussed. Alternatively, we might ask about the effects of a different sort of communion, namely koinonia, which is not merely cheek-by-jowl coexistence, but is "unity in conformity with God's Word." And if so, who does the bringing together? If it is Man's autonomous task to bring about this fellowship, then we are dependent on Man's actions for the existence of Christianity-as-koinonia. If, on the other hand, it is God's doing, then he has already made koinonia both in principle and in fact. In principle: he has set forth the only lasting means of unity, to be fully realized at the consummation, but yet partially and progressively over time. In fact: the church is a present reality. Or perhaps by "Christianity" we mean the visible result of Christian communion. Again Schilder wonders how this is to be understood. By what standard are we to select the "communion" that we identify as Christian and inspect for results? Are we bound to history and tradition? Or are we at the mercy of the ever-changing present, so that there is a new "Christianity" with every era, and these various "Christianities" have nothing to do with each other because there is no connection with what went before? Schilder then gives reasons why it is impossible to take "Christianity" as the starting point in an investigation of cultural life: 6a. It is impossible first because "Christianity" -- considered either as the community of Christians, or its results -- is a mere factual datum, and not a standard. "Christianity" does not command or direct us in fashioning our cultural material. For such direction we need the speaking Christ known to us in Scripture. He interprets the Law for us, and explains God to us. He does so perfectly because he is sinless, and thus provides an unblemished standard for behavior and action. "Christianity" on the other hand, whether as a historical datum or a idea, without Christ, must result in sin and the violation of the Law, establishing a Tower of Babel. (This is, appropriately enough, Schilder's symbol for cultural endeavor that is against Christ, and therefore destined for futility and destruction.) The various philosophies that have dared to talk about Christianity and culture -- historical materialism, positivism, (Kantian) idealism, Barthianism -- have all made this same mistake of discussing Christianity without the Christ who commands and directs. Christianity is thus a mere fact, a datum, from which no doctrine follows. It is like a thunderstorm, a datum to be accounted for in theories. The worshippers of Wodan (Odin) and the meteorologist have utterly different theories, yet both account for the fact of thunder. So too has Christianity fared at the hands of the philosophical theorists. Far from serving as a normative and commanding foundation for cultural life, Christianity has been a mere datum to be accounted for. And besides being a mere datum, such Christianity always looks very different depending on its contemporary cultural processes. Schilder gives an example from the history of the Netherlands: during the Nazi domination, Christianity was a matter for the "Department of Culture", to which all artists had to report. This was a situation in which Christianity might have appeared to be narrowly concerned with Europe, and wholly subordinate to the larger concerns of National Socialism. Other scenarious and circumstances have of course been less offensive and more congenial, but in all of them Christianity is no less conditioned by "local, national, anthropological, and even climatological types." The result is that there is no possible definition of "Christianity." It is "a sphinx." 6b. And even to the extent that Christianity is not a "sphinx," but can be clearly and precisely identified, when we look to see how it has engaged in cultural life, we find that it has done so "in a high-handed and arbitrary way and with many shortcomings and sins." The papacy has at various times tried to become "a real and direct cultural force." Its sins and failings are evident. (I expect Schilder wants to remind us of the abuses especially of the Renaissance papacy, which had a very direct and aggressive cultural role, but a corrupt one.) On the other hand, there is pietistic Christianity with its cultural retreatism. Which sort, then, is to be the standard? It will not do to say, "The one which represents the majority!" For "justice, power, health, healing gifts" can all belong to a minority. So we get nowhere by trying to take "Christianity" as our starting point, because to do so is at best to consider a body without a head directing it. Or rather, it is to consider many different bodies and many different ideas of the body, none of which can lay any claim to exclusive consideration. In the next section, Schilder will show that the conception of Jesus apart from his title as Christ is likewise wholly inadequate to answer any questions about cultural life. () Posted by Matt at 8 : 06 am |
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