Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Developing a Christian Mind: Day One

This week I am taking a one-week intensive course at Tozer Seminary in Redding CA.  The course is titled "Developing a Christian Mind" and the prof is Dr. George Haraksin.

Initially I was curious about the title of the course and how this would play into my role in seminary and leadership in the local church.  The books that we read prior to the week long intensive were extremely good at helping me understand what we were going to be diving into this week.

Once I got into class I was stoked to see that a handful of my friends were in the class and as we got into the subject matter I began to see how much I was going to be thinking in this course and how much it would challenge my thinking.

Here are things from day one that really stuck out to me and have me thinking

As we think about thinking like a Christian the problem becomes how do Christians interact with the culture at hand.  Here are three ways we looked at to encounter the culture from a guy named Machen who lived about a hundred years ago;

Option #1- Culture is Captain; Christianity becomes subordinate to culture
If you allow this to happen you begin to think that religion and Christianity are just a product that help us live life while culture drives everything else.

Option #2- Throw Culture Overboard; Christianity seeks to destroy culture.
You can’t get rid of culture because everything we do defines culture.

Option #3- Consecrate the Ship; Christianity seeks to consecrate culture.
If Christianity is going to find success in consecrating culture then we must make sure that the soil is prepared to accept that. 

I'll leave you with that to think about.  Think about some obstacles that could arise from these points or what would happen if the reverse happened?  Hopefully this makes some sense because I am still learning.

2 comments:


said...

I'd like to see our Christ centered world view set culture. (Christianity sets culture rather than follows it)

If we chase culture we are reacting to it, rather than leading it.

Neal Benson said...

I totally agree with you! How cool would it be to have the church define culture because we care so much about the world and those around us!