Where I (tenatively) land on engaging culture

So after five posts (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5) thinking out loud on questions of Christ and culture, I should probably share where I land. I cannot promise anything revolutionary or even especially insightful. And in all likelihood my thinking will shift and evolve with more time. But these six principles sum up what I think (or at least what I think I think) at this point.

1. The distinction between two biblical uses of "gospel" needs to be retained. In his three posts at the IX Marks blog, Greg Gilbert has convinced me of at least this much (#1, #2, #3). There is a sense in which "gospel" refers to what Christ has done and what a person must believe to be saved (which I will call G1 for short), and a sense in which "gospel" refers to the big picture of what God is doing to reconcile and renew the entire creation (which I will call G2). Both uses have biblical precedent, so neither should be rejected.
2. The relationship between the two usages of "gospel" needs to be developed. What I specifically have in mind here is that G1 is the doorway into G2. This is true in at least two senses. First, there is no participation in the kingdom of God or in "kingdom work" for human beings (which is G2) unless there is repentance of sins and faith in Jesus Christ (which is G1). In other words, our personal experience and participation in G2 is only consequent on our participation in G1. Second, what is true for the individual is true for the cosmos as well. There is no renewal of all things without the redemption of individual sinners. The created order needs renewal because of the fall of Adam -- God placed all things under a curse as a result of Adam's sin (Genesis 3:17-19, Romans 8:19-23). And the created order will only be renewed because of the redemption of those who are no longer in Adam but in Christ -- in Christ the curse is lifted. See this sermon on Genesis 3 for a more thorough exposition of both the curse and its reversal.
3. Making disciples, from conversion to maturity, must be the focus of the church. However attractive a Kuyperian vision of cultural engagement might be, I cannot get around passages such as Matthew 28:18-20 and Ephesians 4:7-16. The task of the church is to make disciples. So my short answer to the question of "should a church run a health clinic or affordable housing or a film festival" is not unequivocally no, but it is pretty close. The moment a church as a church begins to engage in work that shifts its focus from evangelism, preaching and teaching, and equipping believers for the work of ministry, that church finds itself in danger of losing sight of its biblical mandate. To put it a different way, if a church emphasizes G2 work at the expense of G1 work, there will soon be no one to experience either the personal salvation of G1 or the corporate salvation of G2. Though some might say that it is not an either-or, the reality is that churches have only so much time and so many resources. Disciple-making must be king.
4. Responsible contextualization is a necessary part of disciple-making. The reality is that "Christ" and "culture" are never separate. Every attempt to explain the gospel takes place in a particular setting, with a particular language, in the midst of particular cultural assumptions, against the backdrop of a particular people's biblical literacy. That reality is why I favor the Two Ways to Live gospel presentation over most other gospel presentations: for where and when I live, it seems to me to do the best job of explaining the gospel while taking into account a general interest in "spirituality" and a general biblical illiteracy both within and without the church. But responsible contextualization runs deeper. It does not so modify the gospel message for the sake of being relevant that the gospel is lost. Rather it seeks to answer questions such as these: What kinds of sin are woven into the life of this community? What are the symbols of status or the expectations of what it means to be religious? Why do people live here, where do they work, how do they get there, and what do the answers tell the church about how we need to preach, where we go and how we form relationships with non-Christians, and what blind spots to sin the church may have?
   
5. Discipleship includes viewing work redemptively. In my mind, this is where the relationship between G1 work and G2 work gets lived out. In this editorial in the Gospel Coalition's journal Themelios, the helpful distinction is made between what the church does as the church and what Christians do as individuals. As the church, the focus must be on disciple-making. But being a disciple means obeying everything Jesus commanded, living all of life under the authority of Jesus and His Word, and learning to see the world through a God-centered worldview. Surely "all of life" includes our work. Most of us spend more time at work than anywhere else. We were made to work. We will continue to work for all eternity. So part of discipleship must mean seeing your work as a vocation from God. A job is not merely a platform for telling others about the gospel. Work is itself intrinsic to what it means to be human and a Christian. Viewing work redemptively means understanding any work, whether in the sciences, manual labor, the liberal arts, government, the fine arts, etc., as flowing out of God's intention for human beings in Genesis 1:28, as affected by the curse, and as being renewed and given new meaning through the gospel. It means looking at the workplace or at the community, asking how things would look different if the gospel were present, and then acting in such a way to bring that vision to pass.
   
6. Christians must live in transformed community before we can talk about transforming the culture. The only way the Christian life is lived out is in relationships with one another. Community is a key means God uses to transform His people. I would offer personal transformation does not happen when Christians are not fulfilling the "one another" commands of Scripture and are not living life together in which the Word of Christ dwells richly, characterized by praying, singing, and bearing one another's burdens. If God's people are not transformed by the gospel, they can hardly transform the culture around them. If God's people are not living life together that is transformed by the gospel, they can hardly commend the gospel (whether G1 or G2), and they hardly have something to which they can invite unbelievers to join through faith in Christ.