Approaching the Complex, Cultural Other: Towards a Renewal of Christian Cultural Engagement in the Reformed Tradition

Abstract

In the Reformed evangelical tradition, there are ongoing discussions concerning approaches to Christian cultural engagement. Broadly speaking, the tradition lacks an approach for an engagement that upholds the integrity of the tradition at the same time as taking cultural complexity seriously. In this thesis I suggest that a renewal of Christian cultural engagement is possible through an approach that brings together the Reformed theological movement known as neo-Calvinism and the field of cultural anthropology in dialogue. This approach will be formed through both an analysis of the cultural theology of Abraham Kuyper and its subsequent developments, and a survey of pertinent issues concerning the idea of “culture” and “the other” in cultural anthropology. From this dialogue, I identify three dynamic ideas for a renewed approach to Christian theological cultural engagement. First, because of cultural complexity, all cultural worlds are to be approached as simultaneously meaningful and indefinable. Second, because of this tension between meaningfulness and indefinability, theological cultural engagement requires the holding of multiple perspectives as it seeks both to contextualise and remain theologically faithful. Third, a culturally contextual and theologically faithful approach to cultural works yields a positive view of creation and a hope of cultural harvest that gives cultural activity meaning and purpose. This approach to Christian cultural engagement is both faithful to and a development of Kuyperian thought. It is distinct from other approaches in the Reformed tradition because it draws on influences from cultural anthropology. This thesis will demonstrate how such an approach to Christian cultural engagement is able to give meaning to the development of cultural worlds without stultifying them, how it is able to support the multiplex nature of human diversity while upholding human commonness, and how it is able to give hope, meaning, and equality to the works of diverse cultural communities.