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Christ and Culture
The relation between Jesus Christ and culture should be recognized as a topic of crucial importance in every historical context. It concerns the foundational questions of Christian thought and action. In this book Dr. Klaas Schilder deals with this challenging subject in a bold and incisive manner, thus making his readers aware of the all-embracing significance of Christ for cultural endeavors. The biblical position taken by the author leads him to explore its implications with remarkable clarity and directness. In this way he makes a valuable contribution to the development of a Christian view of culture.
89 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1932
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August 10, 2017
October 8, 2017
by Klaas Schilder, 1890-1952.
Translation of Christus en Cultuur
ISBN 0-88756-008-3
(2) The Christian must engage culture because we are prophet, priest, king. It is our task.
(3a) Part of our difficulty is that we deal in abstractions when we speak of “church and culture.” The cultural ideal cannot be a master key that opens any door we want.
(3c) Whenever we come up with programs like “Christ and x” or “Christ and y,” we almost always devalue both.
(3e) What is culture? Must we go to the world’s culture-philosophers for a definition?
(4) Schilder indirectly critiques Kuyper here. He notes those who want to promote Christ in “all areas of life.” He argues that it is a big leap from “law of nature” (the direction of a certain sphere) to the specific sovereign in that sphere.
(6a) Part of the difficulty in “Christianity and culture” is that “Christianity” is an abstraction.
(7) Schilder’s reading of Revelation posits a struggle between the Seed of the Woman and the seed of the serpent.
(8) Jesus is not a “concept” for culture. He cannot be abstracted from his work and atonement. We cannot isolate “Jesus” from “Christ.”
(9) The church has often abstracted the four gospels from the larger narrative.
(10) Jesus didn’t give us anything about a theory of the arts.
(11) We gain knowledge of our cultural task from the office of Christ.
(12) Not everything Christ does is meant to be imitated. His office is his office alone. We must first see the justice flowing from Christ’s office before we see it imitated in the marketplace.
(13) A Two Adam Christology can help us here. The first Adam’s task involved the creative unity of cultural work. Christ, as Second Adam, takes up the first Adam’s office.
(14) thousand years: the dominion of peace in which Christ equips his office-bearers.
Schilder: As the Logos-Mediator-Surety He is the hypostasis, the solid foundation, the original ground, the fulfiller, redeemer, and renewer of culture—a cultural sign which shall therefore be spoken against.
Translation: the debate between Christ and Culture can only happen on Christ’s terms.
(15b) Covenant: God’s speaking to Adam was of mutual relation of promise and demand. The Second Adam recapitulates the dominion order of the First Adam.
(16) Covenant and Culture: man’s covenantal role is to cultivate the earth. The world God made must unfold.
(18) Common grace: it is true that sin is being restrained. But by similar logic the fullness of Christ’s eschaton is not fully experienced. Apparently, it is restrained. If the first restraining is “grace,” then we must--if one is consistent--call the restraining of the blessing “judgment.”
Schilder then advances the argument that “development” and “corruption” belong to nature, not grace. They are temporal. And if it is nature, it can’t be grace. Hence, it can’t be “common grace.”
NB: Schilder comes very close to a nature-grace dialectic.
Key argument: There is indeed “common” grace in culture (grace for more than one person). But there is no universal (or general) grace for all men. Therefore Abraham Kuyper’s construction was wrong. There is indeed also a “common” curse in cultural life (a curse shared by more than one person). But there is no universal (or general) curse. “Common” can sometimes be the same as universal, but it is not necessarily always so. Something can be common to all people, but it can also be common to more than one person, not to all. In the present scheme “common” is intended to mean: shared by many, not by all people. There is a common (not: universal) grace in culture, as far as the redeeming work of Christ is shared by all those who are His—which grace has an effect upon their cultural achievements.
Bottom line: common grace is common to the elect, not to all. They share the common grace in culture.
(19) Yet Christ’s person, in taking upon humanity, is connected with culture. There is grace, but it is not a lowest-common denominator common grace. These gifts are eschatologically tied to Christ’s purpose.
(20) God is holding back both the full manifestation of Satan and the full manifestation of a godly culture.
(21) On Antichrist: real, future figure.
(24) Conclusion: To establish koinonia in the sunousia, as members of the mystical union of Jesus Christ, that is Christian culture.
(25) “First of all, we must emphasize that, since there is a cultural mandate that existed even prior to sin, abstention from cultural labour is always sin.”
(26) Common grace revisited: our cultural mandate is common command, common calling, not common grace.
(27) Nature, too, has a history. Christ is guiding that history. By implication, he is King of the World.
(28) Some conclusions: One’s awareness of his office will always urge him to turn to the revelation of God’s Word, in order to learn again what the norms are.
Translation of Christus en Cultuur
ISBN 0-88756-008-3
(2) The Christian must engage culture because we are prophet, priest, king. It is our task.
(3a) Part of our difficulty is that we deal in abstractions when we speak of “church and culture.” The cultural ideal cannot be a master key that opens any door we want.
(3c) Whenever we come up with programs like “Christ and x” or “Christ and y,” we almost always devalue both.
(3e) What is culture? Must we go to the world’s culture-philosophers for a definition?
(4) Schilder indirectly critiques Kuyper here. He notes those who want to promote Christ in “all areas of life.” He argues that it is a big leap from “law of nature” (the direction of a certain sphere) to the specific sovereign in that sphere.
(6a) Part of the difficulty in “Christianity and culture” is that “Christianity” is an abstraction.
(7) Schilder’s reading of Revelation posits a struggle between the Seed of the Woman and the seed of the serpent.
(8) Jesus is not a “concept” for culture. He cannot be abstracted from his work and atonement. We cannot isolate “Jesus” from “Christ.”
(9) The church has often abstracted the four gospels from the larger narrative.
(10) Jesus didn’t give us anything about a theory of the arts.
(11) We gain knowledge of our cultural task from the office of Christ.
(12) Not everything Christ does is meant to be imitated. His office is his office alone. We must first see the justice flowing from Christ’s office before we see it imitated in the marketplace.
(13) A Two Adam Christology can help us here. The first Adam’s task involved the creative unity of cultural work. Christ, as Second Adam, takes up the first Adam’s office.
(14) thousand years: the dominion of peace in which Christ equips his office-bearers.
Schilder: As the Logos-Mediator-Surety He is the hypostasis, the solid foundation, the original ground, the fulfiller, redeemer, and renewer of culture—a cultural sign which shall therefore be spoken against.
Translation: the debate between Christ and Culture can only happen on Christ’s terms.
(15b) Covenant: God’s speaking to Adam was of mutual relation of promise and demand. The Second Adam recapitulates the dominion order of the First Adam.
(16) Covenant and Culture: man’s covenantal role is to cultivate the earth. The world God made must unfold.
(18) Common grace: it is true that sin is being restrained. But by similar logic the fullness of Christ’s eschaton is not fully experienced. Apparently, it is restrained. If the first restraining is “grace,” then we must--if one is consistent--call the restraining of the blessing “judgment.”
Schilder then advances the argument that “development” and “corruption” belong to nature, not grace. They are temporal. And if it is nature, it can’t be grace. Hence, it can’t be “common grace.”
NB: Schilder comes very close to a nature-grace dialectic.
Key argument: There is indeed “common” grace in culture (grace for more than one person). But there is no universal (or general) grace for all men. Therefore Abraham Kuyper’s construction was wrong. There is indeed also a “common” curse in cultural life (a curse shared by more than one person). But there is no universal (or general) curse. “Common” can sometimes be the same as universal, but it is not necessarily always so. Something can be common to all people, but it can also be common to more than one person, not to all. In the present scheme “common” is intended to mean: shared by many, not by all people. There is a common (not: universal) grace in culture, as far as the redeeming work of Christ is shared by all those who are His—which grace has an effect upon their cultural achievements.
Bottom line: common grace is common to the elect, not to all. They share the common grace in culture.
(19) Yet Christ’s person, in taking upon humanity, is connected with culture. There is grace, but it is not a lowest-common denominator common grace. These gifts are eschatologically tied to Christ’s purpose.
(20) God is holding back both the full manifestation of Satan and the full manifestation of a godly culture.
(21) On Antichrist: real, future figure.
(24) Conclusion: To establish koinonia in the sunousia, as members of the mystical union of Jesus Christ, that is Christian culture.
(25) “First of all, we must emphasize that, since there is a cultural mandate that existed even prior to sin, abstention from cultural labour is always sin.”
(26) Common grace revisited: our cultural mandate is common command, common calling, not common grace.
(27) Nature, too, has a history. Christ is guiding that history. By implication, he is King of the World.
(28) Some conclusions: One’s awareness of his office will always urge him to turn to the revelation of God’s Word, in order to learn again what the norms are.
December 21, 2020
Very good defense of why those who follow Christ must be about making a Christian culture.
August 2, 2021
A somewhat difficult read, but offers a different take on the Christians work of culture building than that of Abraham Kuyper. The Christians cultural duty lies in the call to cultivate rather than “common grace” is what Schilder proposes.
Quite amazing the influence we have on other people and how we are able to continually let our light shine even if it seems mundane because of the supernatural call we have been given and are continually given by God. This adds tremendous meaning, power and motivation.
Quite amazing the influence we have on other people and how we are able to continually let our light shine even if it seems mundane because of the supernatural call we have been given and are continually given by God. This adds tremendous meaning, power and motivation.
July 9, 2023
I’m not sure if the book was super dense or it’s just that I am. I stopped rereading paragraphs halfway through the book because I realized that no matter how many I read it I just wouldn’t completely understand.
I was hoping for more of a concrete definition of culture and vision for a Christian formula of engaging with it. From what I gathered culture is: discovering and developing the potentialities that God has hidden in the world when he made everything - and this is to be done according to God’s word for God’s glory. He makes a case that no Christian is able to abstain from cultural endeavors and labors and to do so is sinful (seemingly taking aim at the monastic lifestyle).
I’m interested particularly in how he differs with Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty and common grace (even Kuyper’s assertion that Calvinism didn’t and shouldn’t have created its own art style), but again I can’t quite articulate Schilder’s main arguments in these areas. To that point, I’m hopeful that I’ll come back to this book in a few years and discover all the potentialities of wisdom that I’ve missed on the first reading.
I was hoping for more of a concrete definition of culture and vision for a Christian formula of engaging with it. From what I gathered culture is: discovering and developing the potentialities that God has hidden in the world when he made everything - and this is to be done according to God’s word for God’s glory. He makes a case that no Christian is able to abstain from cultural endeavors and labors and to do so is sinful (seemingly taking aim at the monastic lifestyle).
I’m interested particularly in how he differs with Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty and common grace (even Kuyper’s assertion that Calvinism didn’t and shouldn’t have created its own art style), but again I can’t quite articulate Schilder’s main arguments in these areas. To that point, I’m hopeful that I’ll come back to this book in a few years and discover all the potentialities of wisdom that I’ve missed on the first reading.
July 5, 2015
Some reactions at http://scottmoonen.com/2013/05/27/chr...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews