On Navigating through Culture

Kevin Vanhoozer offers some navigational advice on steering the ship of the church between the Scylla of cultural withdrawal and the Charybdis of cultural accommodation:

The most important thing is to be aware that culture is always, already there—something in which we live and move and have our historical being—and that it is always actively cultivating, always forming habits of the heart and habits of perception.

Of course, it also helps when the first mate-one's pastor theologian-is a competent seahand. "Competence" here means knowing both one's ship (the church) and the sea (the world). The image of the church as maritime vessel is a good one. Throughout Scriptures, water is often a symbol for powers that can engulf us. But the church should not be wholly anti-world either, for the sea, as part of the created order, is in another sense what sustains us.

Ultimately it is the wind—the breath of the word-ministering Spirit—that allows the church to be counter-cultural and to set her course against the prevailing intellectual currents.

But I must leave off with that as I fear some readers may become seasick. . . .