livro sobre a cultura crista

1. Christianity & Culture
Part 3: Christ Against Culture

2. Introduction
In our first two lectures, we considered the question What is Culture?
and examined the biblical teaching on The Cultural Mandate. We noted
the importance of being like The Men of Issachar who understood the
times (I Chron. 12:32) and cautioned that while culture may express
unbelief and rebellion against Yahweh, God’s common grace ensures
that we will also find much good in culture.
The concept of culture is so complex that it is important that we review
various expressions of its meaning so we are more certain of what it
actually is before we begin to examine what the Bible says about how
we are to live in it. Let’s revisit John Frame’s definition.

3. John Frame on Culture
“So culture is not only what we grow (cultivate, agriculture), but also
what we make, both with our hands and with our minds. It includes our
houses, our barns, our tools, our cities and towns, our arts and crafts. It
also includes the systems of ideas that we build up: science,
philosophy, economics, politics, theology, history, and the means of
teaching them, education: schools, universities, seminaries. Indeed, it
includes all our corporate bodies and institutions: families, churches,
governments, business enterprises. And culture also includes our
customs, games, sports, entertainment, music, literature, and cuisine.”

4. Christ and Culture
In 1951, H. Richard Niebuhr published the most famous and influential
book in the twentieth-century on the subject of Christ and Culture
(Harpers & Brothers Publishers, New York). The New York Times Book
Review wrote:
A superb piece of analytical writing in tackling what is just about the
toughest problem faced by Christians. The problem: In what way, or
degree, is Christ relevant to the situation in which the Christian must
live….Mr. Niebuhr distinguishes five typical answers to the Christian’s
problem of setting the relation between the Christ he calls Lord and
the culture which holds him as the sea holds its fish.

5. Richard Niebuhr and John Frame
Theologian John Frame agrees with Niebuhr’s “five ways in which
Christians have understood the relationship of Christ to culture.” In
fact, Frame contends that “these are not my models. Everybody who
discusses Christianity and culture discusses these.”
1. Christ Against Culture
2. The Christ of Culture
3. Christ Above Culture
4. Christ and Culture in Paradox
5. Christ the Transformer of Culture

6. Christ Against Culture

7. Our Starting Point: The Cosmos
• The word in the New Testament which we translate “world” is
cosmos.
• It is used 186 times in the New Testament.
• The Apostle John employed the word 79 times in his Gospel, 23 times
in I John, once in II John, and 3 times in Revelation, a total of 106
occurrences. Paul used it in his letters 47 times.
• “Sometimes the world is simply the whole creation of God, the
inhabited earth, without reference to sin or salvation.” Often,
however, Scripture “uses the term world…to designate everything
opposed to God” (Frame).

8. Cosmos: The Whole Creation of God
• “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the
foundation of the world” (Mt. 13:35).
• “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred
since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall” (Mt.
24:21).
• “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come you who are
blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world’” (Mt. 25:34).
• “…wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, that also
which this woman has done shall be spoken of in memory of her”
(Mk. 14:9).

9. Cosmos: The Whole Creation of God
• “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of
heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands” (Acts
17:24).
• “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am
foremost of all” (I Tim. 1:15).
• “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4).
• “For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has
appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are
believers in God…” (I Pt. 1:20-21).

10. Cosmos: Everything Opposed to God
• A person can “gain the whole world”, and forfeit his soul (Mt. 16:26).
• John the Baptist said of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world!” (Jn. 1:29).
• “The world cannot hate you; but it hates Me, because I testify of it,
that its deeds are evil” (Jn. 7:7).
• “The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does
not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides
with you, and will be in you” (Jn. 14:17).
• “The world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world” (Jn. 17:14).

11. Cosmos: Everything Opposed to God
• “And He was saying to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above;
you are of this world; I am not of this world’” (Jn. 8:23).
• “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall
be cast out” (Jn. 12:31).
• “I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is
coming, and he has nothing in Me” (Jn. 14:30).
• “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it
hated you” (Jn. 15:18).
• “I have given them Thy word; and the world has hated them, because
they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (Jn. 17:14).

12. Cosmos: Everything Opposed to God
• “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world,
then My servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up
to the Jews; but as it is My kingdom is not of this realm” (Jn. 18:36).
• “For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did
not come to know God…” (I Cor. 1:21).
• “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If any one loves
the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the
world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful
pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (I Jn. 2:15-
16).

13. Rebellion Against God
• “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the
world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were
His own did not receive Him” (Jn. 1:10-11).
• “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken:
‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled
against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib,
but Israel does not know, my people do not understand’” (Is. 1:2-3).
• “The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel
together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us
burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us’” (Psalm
2:2-3).

14. Culture and the World
• The question we must ask is, “Are they the same thing?”
• They are not synonymous.
• “Culture is a mixture of good and bad. It includes the effects of sin as
well as the effects of God’s grace. But world, used in that negative
ethical sense, is entirely bad. The world is the kingdom of the Evil
One, and Christians should not be conformed to it even a little bit. We
should not have any love for it….The world is a great snare and
delusion” (Frame).
• Culture is a broader term than world. World is the bad part of culture”
(Frame).

15. Cultural vs. Worldly
“The Greek language is a product
of Greek culture….The Greek
language is cultural, but it is not
worldly” (Frame).

16. H. Richard Niebuhr
“The first answer to the question of
Christ and culture we shall consider is
the one that uncompromisingly affirms
the sole authority of Christ over the
Christian and resolutely rejects culture’s
claims to loyalty.”
1894-1962

17. The Authority of Christ
• “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has
been given to Me in heaven and on earth’” (Mt. 28:18).
• “Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify
Thee, even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all
whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life” (Jn. 17:1-2).
• “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For
there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are
established by God” (Rom. 13:1).
• “In Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all
rule and authority” (Col. 2:10).

18. The Only Sovereign
• “The Old Testament depicts Yahweh as the only King, the absolute
sovereign” (Carl F.H. Henry).
• “The Lord will reign forever and ever” (Ex. 15:18).
• “For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the
earth” (Ps. 47:2; cf. vs. 7).
• “Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For this is your due;
for among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms
there is none like you” (Jer. 10:7).
• “For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom
endures from generation to generation” (Dan. 4:34).

19. Whose Kingdom?
“The kingdom is God’s and his
alone; only he has the sovereignty,
authority, wisdom and freedom to
rule as absolute Creator of all.
Where God is present in person and
in power, in righteousness and truth
and love, there is the kingdom: it is
wherever God holds sway.”
Carl F.H. Henry
1913-2003

20. Since there is an antithesis between Christ and
the world, there is also an antithesis between
the believer and the world.

21. Christ Against Culture: Modern Battlefields
• Marriage and family
• Human sexuality
• Abortion
• Feminism
• Pacifism
• Economics
• Utopianism
• Scripture
• Academic Institutions
• Science
• Humanities
• Psychology
• History
• The Arts
• Politics
• Postmodernism

22. Responses to the World’s Spirit
• Accommodation: v., “to adapt oneself to another thing or person”
(OED). “It is comfortable to accommodate to that which is in vogue
about us, to the forms of the world spirit in our age” (Francis
Schaeffer).
• “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present
your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is
your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you
may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable
and perfect” (Rom. 12:1-2).

23. Francis A. Schaeffer
“To accommodate to the world spirit
about us in our age is the most gross
form of worldliness in the proper
definition of the word….Obedience
to God’s Word is the watershed. The
failure of the evangelical world to
take a clear and distinctively biblical
stand on the crucial issues of the day
can only be seen as a failure to live
under the full authority of God’s
Word in the full spectrum of life.”
1912-1984

24. William Hendriksen on Romans 12:1-2
“Constant yielding to the temptation of becoming fashioned after the
pattern of ‘this evil age’ (I Cor. 2:6; Gal. 1:4) ends in bitter
disappointment; for ‘The fashion of this world is passing away’ (I Cor.
7:31). The experience of those who permit their lives to be frittered
away in this manner resembles that of travelers in the desert. They are
completely exhausted. Their lips are parched with thirst. Suddenly they
see in the distance a sparkling spring surrounded by shady trees. With
hope revived they hasten to this place…only to discover that they had
been deceived by a mirage. ‘The world and its desires are passing away,
but the person who does the will of God lives forever’” (I John 2:17).

25. Responses to the World’s Spirit
• Accepting Pluralism: the belief that humans
may be saved through any number of different
religious traditions and saviors. “There is not
merely one way but a plurality of ways of
salvation or liberation…taking place in different
ways within the contexts of all the great
religious traditions” (John Hick).
• “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth,
and the life; no one comes to the Father, but
through Me’” (John 14:6).
John Hick
1922-2012

26. Is This Your Question?
• Is there salvation in other religions?
• Is there a second chance after death?
• What about those who have never heard?
• Is sincerity enough?
• Ronald H. Nash (1936-2006), PhD, Syracuse,
was professor of philosophy at Western
Kentucky University for 27 years, and
professor of philosophy at Reformed
Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He
authored more than 25 books.

27. Responses to the World’s Spirit
Accepting Secular Narratives Uncritically,
Ignoring:
• Christ’s impact on world history
• Christianity’s impact on the value of human life
• Christianity’s contribution to helping the poor
• Christianity’s contribution to education
• Christianity’s impact on the founding of America
• Christianity’s contribution to civil liberties
• Christianity’s impact on science
• Christianity’s impact on economics
• Christianity’s impact on sex and the family
• …and more.

28. Responses to the World’s Spirit
Confrontation: John Witherspoon (1723-
1794), President of Princeton University and
the only pastor to sign the Declaration of
Independence, “openly named and attacked
Thomas Paine, the ‘Enlightenment man.’” He
“directly challenged Paine’s Enlightenment
views concerning the perfectibility of man,
contrasting this with the biblical view of the
fall and the lostness of man and therefore the
lack of perfection in all realms of government”
(Schaeffer).
John Witherspoon Monument
Washington, D.C.

29. Responses to the World’s Spirit
• Envy: n., “the feeling of mortification and ill-will occasioned by the
contemplation of superior advantages possessed by another” (OED).
• “But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the
wicked. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and
sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like
the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers
them as a garment….All in vain have I kept my heart clean and
washed my hands in innocence” (Ps. 73:2-6,13).

30. The Christian’s Relation to the World
“The member of the Body of Christ has been
delivered from the world and called out of it. He
must give the world a visible proof of his calling,
not only by sharing in the Church’s worship and
discipline, but also through the new fellowship
of brotherly living. If the world despises one of
the brethren, the Christian will love and serve
him. If the world does him violence, the
Christian will succor and comfort him. If the
world dishonors and insults him, the Christian
will sacrifice his own honor to cover his
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1945

31. The Christian’s Relation to the World
brother’s shame. Where the world seeks gain, the Christian will
renounce it. Where the world exploits, he will dispossess himself, and
where the world oppresses, he will stoop down and raise up the
oppressed. If the world refuses justice, the Christian will pursue mercy,
and if the world takes refuge in lies, he will open his mouth for the
dumb, and bear testimony to the truth. For the sake of the brother, be
he Jew or Greek, bond or free, strong or weak, noble or base, he will
renounce all fellowship with the world. For the Christian serves the
fellowship of the Body of Christ, and he cannot hide it from the world.
He is called out of the world to follow Christ.”

32. In the World; Not of the World
“You are the light of the world. A city set on
a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a
lamp, and put it under the peck-measure,
but on the lampstand; and it gives light to
all who are in the house. Let your light shine
before men in such a way that they may see
your good works, and glorify your Father
who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:14-16).