CHRIST AND CULTURE

‘IN HIM ALL THINGS HOLD TOGETHER’

CHRIST IS LORD OF CULTURE

BUT CULTURE CONCEALS CHRIST

Preventing its people from seeing Jesus in widescreen.

CULTURE CONCEALS CHRIST

‘He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him.’ (John. 1:10)

‘The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.’(2 Corinthians 4:4)

SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS

‘Culture is what we make of creation.’ William Dyrness

But when we see ourselves as gods who create their own worlds, then the true creator and sustainer is hidden from our eyes.

THE TRUMAN SHOW

‘We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.

It's as simple as that!’Christoff

WELCOME TO THE WEB

‘The old world, a world of infinite vastness and illimitable resources and future was being confronted by something else - a web of energy, of opinions, of gulfs.’ Neil Gaiman

Science + Technology

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‘Time and space, the very matrix of human social life, are undergoing radical social restructuring.’

NO OVER-ALL DIRECTION

THE NETWORK SOCIETY

‘The more connections we make, the more possibilities we have.’ BT

MULTI CHOICE

CONSUMERISM

The religion of the twenty-first century?

CONSUMERISM

‘CHOICE’ THE CORE VALUEADDICTIVE - Desire an end in itself.‘OFF THE PEG’ TO ‘TAILOR MADE’‘THE CHIEF RIVAL TO GOD IN OUR

CULTURE’ Alan Storkey

SHOPPING AS A PICTURE OF LIFE

FOR IDENTITY ‘LIFESTYLE CHOICE’ FOR TRUTH - ‘BUY INTO’ A

BELIEF‘PICK AND MIX’ A WORLDVIEW‘BOTH AND’ VALUES, REPLACE

‘EITHER OR’ VALUES

BOTH CONNECTED AND FRAGMENTED

THE NETWORK SOCIETY

FLOWS OF INFORMATION, IMAGES AND CAPITAL

THE POWER OF ADVERTISING‘YOU ARE A TARGET MARKET’‘BRANDS ARE THE NEW

TRADITIONS’ RELATIVISM SEEMS ‘OBVIOUS’

THE NETWORK SOCIETY

EVERYTHING CONNECTEDEVERYTHING (INTERPRETED) VIA

THE MEDIAEVERYTHING PRE-PACKAGEDEVERYTHING INSTANT‘Transience has replaced durability.’

THE CHANGING FACE OF COMMUNITY

LOSS OF LOCAL + NATIONAL POWER COMMUNITY SPLIT FROM LOCALITY 'To live in one place no longer means to live

together, and living together no longer means living in the same place.' Ulrich Beck

NOMADS + TEMPORARY TRIBES ‘LOCALITY AS DESTINY’

FAST AND FLUID

THROWAWAY SOCIETY

'A throwaway society meant more than just throwing away produced goods, but also being able to throw away values, lifestyles, stable relationships ... and received ways of doing and being.'

David Harvey

AN UNCERTAIN WORLD

‘No one knows what its supposed to be for!’ Clifford Longley

‘Uncertainty is not something we repair but something we create.’ Zygmunt Bauman

VULNERABLE

POWERFUL BUT VULNERABLE

FOOT AND MOUTHHIV / AIDSTHE MOOD OF THE MARKET

‘A global casino?’ASSAULT ON THE TWIN TOWERS

VULNERABLE

‘Everything we once thought dead and buried, left behind forever by the march of universal progress, is not dead at all, but likely to return with a vehemence and a virulence and reach to the heart of our ultra-sophisticated but ultra vulnerable systems.’ Jean Baudrillard

THE PASTORAL COST OF A WEB WORLD

THE PRESSURE OF CHOICE'Depression, eating disorders, suicide

and attempted suicide have all become more common.’

‘Constaantly having to live in a temporary world.’ Richard Scace

A CHANGE OF STORY

CHANGING STORIES

WE USED TO HAVE A STORY ABOUT MAKING THE WORLD BETTER.

NOW WE HAVE A STORY ABOUT MAKING OURSELVES UP!

DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO AND BE WHATEVER

YOU WANT TO BE

‘JUST DO IT’‘EVERYTHING IS PRESENTED AS A

POSSIBILITY’‘REINVENT YOURSELF TODAY,

TOMORROW MAY BE TOO LATE’

THE CHAMELEON SELF

AN EXPERIENCE OF THE SELF WHICH IS LITTLE MORE THAN ROLE PLAY.

I CAN BE ONE PERSON WHERE I WORK, ANOTHER WHERE I PLAY, ANOTHER WHERE I SHOP, ANOTHER WHERE I LIVE (OR SLEEP)

AND, IF I GO TO CHURCH, ANOTHER PERSON THERE.

SELF CONSTRUCTION

'Identities are constructed through consuming.

We shape our malleable image by what we buy - our clothing, our kitchens, and our cars tell the story of who we are (becoming).’ David Lyon

FREEDOM?

‘The opportunity to “shop around”, to pick and shed one’s “true self”, to be “on the move”, has come to signify freedom.’ Zygmunt Bauman

DON’T GET TIED DOWN

’The hub of postmodern life strategy is not identity building but avoidance of fixation.’ ‘Keep the options open.’

’An ever growing number of postmodern men and women .. find the open-endedness of their situation attractive enough to outweigh the anguish of uncertainty.'

Zygmunt Bauman

THE SELF IS CENTRAL

IF IDENTITY IS MADE UP - WHO IS THE YOU WHO CHOOSES WHO YOU WANT TO BE?’

‘The self is both central and fragmented' David

Lyon

THE PARADOX OF PROSPERITY

‘For these young people everything is theoretically ‘up for grabs’, but they find in reality that there is little for them to grasp hold of where there are no longer any absolutes in life, in terms of identity, lifestyle and morality.’

‘The Burden of Youth’

A LIVING CONTRADICTION

THE IMAGE OF GOD ‘Because I’m worth it!.’A GROANING CREATION‘In labour pains until now’CHRIST IS HIDDEN BUT CHRIST

REIGNS!

CREATION AND CULTURE DISPLAY GOD’S GLORY

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.The whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3)

Where can I flee from your presence?

(Psalm 139:7)

BLINDNESS IN THE CHURCH

‘Too many Christians believe that Jesus is Saviour but not that God is God’ Michael Baughen

THE WORLD HAS NO FUTURE APART FROM THE CHURCH

THE CHURCH HAS NO FUTURE APART FROM A REDEEMED WORLD

THE HOPE OF CREATIONIncluding Culture

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:19-21)

THE FUTURE OF CULTURE

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it. The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. (Revelation 21:23-27)

CHRIST HOLD THE UNIVERSE

‘The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.’(Hebrews 1:3)

'The God Christians confess as the Creator is not the divine clockmaker who takes early retirement once his work is completed.... Without God granting it being at every moment it would vanish into nothingness.' Christoph Schwöbel

CHRIST, CREATION AND CULTURE

'In Christ God becomes a part of creation, God is embodied.'

'We share a world where Christ continues to rule through the Holy Spirit so that culture as well as creation is upheld by his presence.'

William Dyrness

HOW DO WE LIVE?

'If the incarnation shows us anything, it is that God comes to us and is known by us in and through the created order. This makes our embodied obedience - our face to face encounters with others, the practice of our work, and our stewardship of the goods of creation - either vehicles of praise or expressions of our indifference to God.'

William Dyrness

LIVE IN THIS WORLD

IN THE LIGHT OF WHAT IT WILL BE

'The gospel is not a statement about some remote future, it is the dawn of that future in the world.' Jurgen Moltmann

IN THE LIGHT OF WHO CHRIST IS NOW

CHRIST REIGNS

In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour. (Hebrews 2:8+9)

WITH YOU ALWAYS

‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ Mt. 28:18-20

ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN CREATED THROUGH HIM AND CREATED THROUGH HIM AND FOR HIM.. IN HIM ALL THINGS FOR HIM.. IN HIM ALL THINGS HOLD TOGETHERHOLD TOGETHER

THROUGH HIM GOD WAS THROUGH HIM GOD WAS PLEASED TO RECONCILE TO PLEASED TO RECONCILE TO

HIMSELF ALL THINGS - BY HIMSELF ALL THINGS - BY MAKING PEACE THROUGH THE MAKING PEACE THROUGH THE

BLOOD OF HIS CROSSBLOOD OF HIS CROSS