Article review: cultural exegesis

Vanhoozer, Kevin J, Anderson, Charles A, Sleasman, Michael J, (eds), Everyday Theology.

                Grand Rapids MI: Baker Academic, 2007

 

 

            The publisher’s comment on this book offers “Anyone interested in the intersection of Christianity and culture needs to be able to do "everyday theology," that is, to think theologically about our cultural environment and pass it through the grid of Scripture, in order to respond faithfully as Christian disciples.” The book offers in fact good grounds and tools to work on cultural exegesis, especially by offering a working definition of culture” “A world and a work in the making”.

            My focus on this review is on the opening essay which brings definition do culture for the purposes of the book. Also, it brings reasons why Christians should engage with culture as they seek to bring the Gospel of Hope to the times in which they live.

            The text defines Culture as made up of works and worlds of meaning. It seeks to bring the intersection between how a given culture is produced (e.g, books and written works) and how a given culture happens in daily life, that is, it provides lenses through which people read their daily life. This definition works well to provide a framework to look at such complex and polysemantic theme. Vanhoozer encompasses both life as it is lived (World) and the abstraction of it (Texts) who try to mirror and or define its time.

            Vanhoozer does a good jo also responding two important questions, “why and how Christians should read culture. To the first question, the answer is because culture shapes visions, meanings, and ways of life of people around us, those very people with whom we want to share a message that will impact and possibly redefine their world view. And to the second question, points out that Christians need to avoid a simplistic take on culture, but engage in it “where it is” and “As it is” and offered a theologically “thick” description of it. The deeper the theologian goes to understand and to reflect the culture of his own time, the bigger the chances are that he will be able to address it properly and become cultural agents. By acting as cultural agents he understands that “it involves interpreting culture in the light of a biblical-theological framework and, second, interpreting Scripture by embodying gospel values and trusts ton concrete cultural forms.” (Page 55). The Church participates in God’s left-hand realm (as Lutherans would say) to impact it with God’s right-hand kingdom of power, mercy and love.

            The reading of Vanhoozer’s essay prompted me to reflect on a few things. One of them is that, from my perspective, it is impossible for the Church to avoid cultural exegesis, theologically thick assessments and engaging culture to challenge and change it. The choice that the Church needs to make is if she will do it in a lax way or in a proper way.

            With that being said, it is clear that the purpose of exegesis here is distinct from the biblical exegesis. The latter seeks to interprets and understand the Biblical text and applies it to daily life. The former interprets daily life (the texts and the contexts) to apply the Biblical text to them. The theological framework is above the cultural framework and needs to address it to transform it with the Gospel of Hope.

            Lastly, the making of Theology is a good topic to understand the relationship between Church and Culture along the centuries. A distinction that may be helpful in this context is one between making theology and teaching doctrine, even though in many stances they are synonyms. For the purpose of this review, doctrine is what never changes. It cannot be adapted to places, cultures, and circumstances. Jesus will always be God and Man, no matter what culture says. Holy Supper will always bear real presence in bread and wine, it doesn’t matter if culture thinks that coffee and cookies would do better for a local culture. And so on. Theology on its turn, is always a work in the making. It derives from the Bible and from the doctrines of the Church, but since the times of the apostles, theological making had been worked in many ways. One example of that is the fact we refer to certain teachings and doctrines from Scripture with words, expressions and formulations that would be completely unknown to the Early Church. Even though in many cases they are different ways of expressing the one and correct doctrine, in other cases when theology addresses daily life and cultural topics, opinions, conclusions and applications may vary. Some examples from History include Liturgy, Forms of worship, dress code, slavery, women’s suffrage, civil rights, suicide, divorce, end of life themes, bioethics, politics, and many others.

            This all attests to the multifaceted, multidimensional aspect of culture as pointed by the author, and that invites us into first, being clear and precise about what we believe it’s the unchanging content of what we teach, and second, to share this unchanging content in way that both acknowledge and work with cultural perspectives in which we are inserted. As Ortega Y Gasset puts it “I am myself and my circumstances”; I am distinct from what is around me, but inseparable from it.  This helps us as Christians and Lutherans to read other people’s times under the light of the blessings and challenges they had to face. Also, it helps us read our own times properly, acknowledging the limitations imposed to that reading, and taking advantage of the blessings and opportunities that are unique to our generation.