'Culture' and 'problems'

Introduction

A culture is the summed set of meanings, and the means by which they are communicated, within an identifiable people-group. In this brief essay, I want to explore what I intend by dealing with 'cultural problems'.

'Culture' and the story

I have deliberately given 'culture' a very broad definition. Virtually everything that occurs within a society, or at least all those things which are mediated through or interpreted by persons, must be available to analysis as a cultural event or artefact. My conviction that this is so rests upon a prior commitment to the story of creation: that YHWH made all things, made man in His image as His representative, and set him within the earth to care, nurture and rule it.

Man's vocation to represent God stamps a certain character upon his actions. He is constitutionally religious; he cannot help but represent God for good or ill in all that he does. The creation groans and rejoices, we are told, the one because it suffers under unjust rule; the other, because the sons of God - those who truly represent Him - are revealed.
In man's constitution he finds great and unparalleled nobility. But he also finds unrivaled responsibility, and a great jealousy in the One of whom he is the representative. Tragically, this jealousy has not always been left unprovoked. The treachery of man's first king and father, Adam, caused YHWH to expel the family of man from the land of God's dwelling. God's house was left desolate.

Yet even while His disowned children became wild and dissolute, God saw reason to be pleased with some. And since the time of the expulsion, God the Father has been pleased to initiate and accomplish the great task of setting a new king in Adam's place, of gaining for Himself a new and faithful son. Under that King as eldest brother, He has restored the rule of creation to new sons in His household. Now, from the reinhabited house of God, His sons go forth into the earth, nurturing, healing, and ruling.

Man's culture, then, is inescapably part of this great cosmic story. And if we who read this - as some few of the sons of God's household - are to play our part, then we need to understand the story and act within its terms.

Culture and the identification of 'problem'

The last 50 years of philosophical reflection has bequeathed on our times the insight that not everything means the same thing to everyone. This is an insight to trust, but not to take too far. It may be thought, for instance, that it is rather bold of me to presume to identify 'problems' in culture. Who has the problem, it may pointedly be asked?

My answer, again, is rooted in the narrative of the creator God, YHWH. I said above that culture involves all those things interpreted through or mediated by people; but now I ask you to reflect on the fact that God Himself is a person. Our personhood reflects His. We are in fact theomorphs: signs pointing back to God.¹

YHWH's personhood means that nothing at all can be excluded from the true realm of 'culture'. At every point there is a meaning assigned by God to everything. Yet there is not one contiguous realm between God and man, but two realms, one the orginal and the other the analogue. Man's culture is a microcosym within God's macrocosym, sustained and upheld by Him. And such is our creation imago dei that we are entitled to overlap, add, and re-interpret the meanings God has for things.

The crucial question for analysing our culture is to ask whether our meanings cohere or clash with God's. It is well if the two are coordinate (even if not identical), but they must not clash. Else we will lose, as Adam found in the Garden. The analysis we wish to perform asks where and how our culture clashes with God's, and what we might do to subvert, heal or restore it. Thus, for the one who finds the idea of 'problem' problematical, we will pass over the internal contradiction, and point instead to the overarching and loving rule of YHWH, creator and redeemer of creation.

Conclusion

Those of us who have found our identity within the story that opens "In the beginning, God..." have a sure anchor and a vast sense of place. We are compassed about with the history and meaning of God's love, and are oriented toward the reflection and representation of that love within the creation that God made good. Our sense of direction, vocation and hope far surpasses the empty, nihilistic uncertainty of those elements of man that are both self-destructive and yet self-aggrandising. Our own story and calling is certain, but we are actors by grace, by the great condescending love of God. Let us never, then, deal in pride or arrogance. Let us imitate our Lord and King, who while walking before his God on the way to claim the throne climbed upon the cross, allowed himself to be nailed upon it by exiled men, and there prayed "Suffer them Lord, for they know not what they do".

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1. I owe this way of putting it to Steve McNicholl.