Prompt 3: March 1, 2021
[Imagine with me for a moment.]
World War Three is over. It doesn’t matter the final tally of casualties; it’s all gone. The creators of the great bombs were right; we had no right to wield such power, but we didn’t listen. The West in her well-intentioned hypocrisy was at brutal odds with the expansion of the communist doctrine. Now both are dead and there isn’t enough manpower left to clean up the carnage. Luckily, nature takes pleasure in doing that for us. So we do what we can. We rebuild.
[End Scene]
Ideas have a tendency of possessing us. It is very clear that we don’t control them. I think that is the significance of the Holy Spirit. We are physically compelled to convictiction by the law of Christ. It seems to be the angst of our age; people find themselves trapped by ideas they don’t even believe. That is why good conversation and contemplation are so freeing. They establish an articulated thought pattern that can actually be contended with rather than remaining implicitly dissonant.
Culture is the anarchic culmination of the best ideas within a population. Scalability of the idea is only a matter of supremacy of it in the broader market. Culture is created simply because people are creative. People want the best tasting recipes, so chefs experiment and combinations stick and a dish becomes popular. People want to feel good, so the music that does that best is selected for the setlist. Good art (yes, I have the audacity to suggest some artistic expressions are bad) tells the story of a culture– however small that group of people is. Culture can be fostered in numbers great or small, and there is plenty to be said of it and its role in identity, but I want to leave it at this:
“The gospel is both at home and at odds with every culture.” -John Piper
We, in this age of world communication, are exposed to so many ideas, the localized nature of a culture is at stake. After this war, that localized tradition will be most important for survival and psychological readjustment.
What can we affirm of our current local culture to replicate in this new one? What social constructs are so important that we must preserve them? What ideas do we want to pass down to our posterity? Another way to think of the prompt is; What can we anticipate of the cultural mandate in the New Heavens and New Earth?
The thread is open. Create boldly, and may the Spirit guide us all.
Advisors’ Comments
Patrick Deneen continues to shape my thinking on all things concerning our thoughts about culture. I have included two essays below and I would encourage anyone and everyone to order and read his book Why Liberalism Failed.
I look forward to reading the responses to this month’s prompt.
Kevin Lee