Book Review: Christians in Culture: Cultivating a Christian Worldview for All of Life
In the interest of full disclosure, I was given a free copy of this book for the purpose of writing an unbiased review. Thank you, Chris!
Christians in Culture: Cultivating a Christian Worldview for All of Life is divided into 15 chapters with eight different authors. Each chapter highlights a different area of culture and provides a Christian reflection on it. Typically, I do not begin reviews by discussing the organization of the text in question but in this case the meaning of the text is consistent with its form. With several different authors contributing to a project that is supposed to remind us about how our Christianity ought to impact our entire lives, even the form of an edited volume testifies to that end. Each author provides a slightly different perspective, but they agree on the fundamentals of the faith and the requisite influence that Christianity ought to have on those who profess it.
The first portion of the book provides a general overview of the Christian worldview. It discusses how we ended up in the postmodern world we find ourselves in, the general arc of Christianity from creation to the fall, the ultimate redemption in Jesus Christ, and why we ought to conserve the good things in the spirit of Russell Kirk’s canons of conservatism. Following this baseline, the book moves into application, including some helpful background on even being a Christian cultural critic. It discusses a wide variety of topics from arts and entertainment to sports and recreation. There are chapters on technology, literature, labor, politics, economics, and science. Given that there are so many different authors, each chapter does have a slightly different tone and style. Again, this form reminds the reader that God is God over the entire world and over each of us, even with our own individual styles, preferences, and thoughts.
One particular strength of this book is that it continually refers back to its theological foundations. This is fundamentally a book about Christianity that causes readers to then think about culture from that starting point. As someone who has been active in the world of cultural apologetics, we are often writing for people who are not Christians. We are trying to draw them to understand that good, true, and beautiful through the cultural artifacts that they already enjoy, and we understand that they do not start from a place of Christianity. This book is just as important in the other direction, starting with Christians and reminding us who believe how we act to interact with the world around us. They do not suggest that we just run away from the world and avoid all culture. Instead, they remind us that we understand Who is good, true, and beautiful, and that ought to impact everything about how we create and consume. This book is a good reminder that cultural apologetics are not just for saving the lost, but they can also help those who are already believers strengthen their faith.
You will find many familiar names referenced multiple times throughout this book. Many chapters discuss the creation mandate in Genesis. Several of the chapters remind the reader of the words of Jeremiah and our need to work for the good of the city where we might be exiles. Several chapters point towards popular authors like Andy Crouch and Rod Dreher. If I had to make a slight criticism of the book, many authors touch on very similar themes and reestablish the same themes in the beginning of their respective chapters, so it sometimes feels a bit repetitive. This is likely a symptom of each author not wanting to make unsustained assumptions, which I can respect, even if a previous chapter would have confirmed their assumptions. However, I mention this because it is also an area of strength. No reader would be able to escape this book and think that God doesn’t call us to engage in culture somehow. No one could continue thinking we should just sit in our houses and do nothing because the world might pollute us. We have to engage with the world and get out there. The repeated points are important, and if we don’t understand issues like the creation mandate, worldview thinking will be lost on us.
Overall, this is a very strong volume. If you have never thought about how Christianity is a worldview that should influence your behavior in every area of your life, this would be a great place to start. If you are familiar with this way of thinking, it is a rich enough volume to draw out some insights you hadn’t thought about before. I would certainly recommend picking up a copy of this book for yourself.