Four Principles Guiding Think Christian

“Think Christian.” You could read the title of this ministry a number of ways: in the form of a question (think . . . Christian?); an exhortation (think, Christian); or even an exclamation (THINK CHRISTIAN!). Yet perhaps the most appropriate way to receive it is as an invitation. The articles, podcasts, and videos at Think Christian are each rooted in a posture of Christian hospitality towards the wider world of popular culture—movies, music, television, games, the digital world, and culture at large.

Think Christian’s tagline is “no such thing as secular.” What, exactly, does that mean? Building from theologian Kevin Vanhoozer’s book Everyday Theology, I want to suggest four Christian doctrines that inspired that tagline and can inform a theology of pop culture: general revelation, common grace, the imago dei, and the incarnation.

General Revelation

Protestant Christianity has typically divided the means of God revealing God’s self into two different forms: “general” and “special” revelation. General revelation has typically been understood as a basic knowledge of God that everyone, everywhere can know. Special revelation, on the other hand, refers to the ways God reveals God’s self by particular supernatural or “special” means—mainly the Bible and Christ (more on the incarnation in a moment). In Protestant traditions, the Bible is the main source of God’s “special revelation,” which is regarded as true, pure, and God-given, whereas “general revelation” is somehow considered to have less authority. Yet a better view of “general” revelation would recognize that God is revealed not only through Scripture and in the believing community, but also through creation and culture. In other words, God’s self-revealing is not limited to the words of Scripture (though this is certainly divine revelation). In addition, God often is encountered and known in the wider world that God has created out of God’s grace and goodness. If Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together, then we should expect to encounter God’s grace everywhere we look, including in pop culture. Which leads us to the second doctrine. . .

Common Grace

All truth is God’s truth. All goodness is God’s goodness. All beauty is God’s beauty. If we have encountered something true with a capital “T” in the wider world, then its source lies in the God who is the Truth. As Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper famously put it, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” Similarly, theologian Karl Barth once said, “We can and must be prepared to encounter ‘parables of the kingdom’ in the full biblical sense, not merely in the witness of the Bible and the various arrangements, works and words of the Christian Church, but also in the secular sphere, i.e., in the strange interruption of the secularism of life in the world.”

Theologically, Think Christian is rooted in the Reformed tradition, which recognizes that all of culture falls beneath God’s sovereignty and that by common grace both believers and unbelievers alike are capable of creating beautiful, true, and good things. This also means that we seek to wisely discern what is not true, beautiful, or good around us; since we live in a fallen world, then we should expect pop culture to reflect that fallenness. So, we do not attempt to excuse nor “baptize” pop culture, but rather recognize that we sometimes see glimpses of God’s truth in unlikely places.

The Imago Dei

Latin for the “image of God,” the doctrine of the imago dei stems primarily from Genesis 1, where “God created mankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” This doctrine purports that God has created human beings in a unique and special way and for a special purpose. How this uniqueness plays out has been interpreted in different ways throughout church history. I want to offer one interpretation from a Christian philosopher, Paul Ricoeur. In his article “The Image of God and the Epic of Man,” Ricoeur observes that the imago dei is often viewed as a mere imprint or a stamp, like an artist’s signature or trademark, which we then debate as to whether and how much sin has marred. But then he inverts the metaphor: what if “we should see the image of God not as an hereditary mark, but as the root of human creativity; if we should treat it not as a residual trace of craftsman who has abandoned his work to the ravages of time, but as a continuous act in the creative movement of history and duration?” In other words, this is a dynamic divine image within us. Whenever we are creating anything—including music, movies, TV shows, games, etc.—we are energized by this latent divine image.

What does this have to do with pop culture? Ricoeur says that our encounters with cultural works play a key role in recognizing the image of God within other human individuals and communities, as well as ourselves. So, when I write a story or sing a song or paint a picture or dance a routine, I am both tapping into my own imago dei—my ability to creatively make and choose just as God makes and chooses—and I am inviting other imagebearers to see and freely respond to this God-given creativity. We can make things not just to survive or be entertained, but in order to be understood and to understand others as divinely made persons, to love and be loved as we see the image of God at play. Making culture is a direct reflection of the image of God in us.

Incarnation

Jesus Christ is described as “the Word” in John 1, the logos. But in Colossians 1, Paul describes Jesus as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” The Greek word for “image” here is eikon, where we get our word “icon.” 1 John 1:1 seems to combine these metaphors, the Word and the Image: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” Notice the sensory and aesthetic language: the Word of life appeared and we have heard, seen, and touched it. The historical person of Jesus mysteriously reveals God’s nature in an imaginative and aesthetic way; theology becomes personal, concrete, something (or Someone) we can engage with our senses and experiences, as well as our minds and hearts. Good theology must thus be both universal and particular, both literal and metaphorical, both abstract and concrete. Often in Protestant logos-centric theology, the former is given priority; whereas in Orthodox and Catholic traditions, there is a stronger appreciation of the eikon. As theologian Trevor Hart puts it, the lesson here “is that the levels of image (eikon) and idea/concept (logos) must constantly be held closely together, generating meaning precisely and only as they are maintained in a dialectic where each is constantly qualified and rejuvenated by the other.” In other words, if Christ is both logos and eikon, both Word and Image, then our theology of culture should reflect this.

This doesn’t mean we should take either an iconoclastic approach (anti-images) nor an idolatrous approach (worshiping images). Rather, we simply need to recognize that God’s presence in Christ quite literally changes everything about what it means to encounter God. God has entered into our historical world in an embodied and particular way in Christ, and thus has imbued the material world—including works of pop culture—with divine energy and presence. As the apostle Paul puts it while quoting Athenian philosophers and poets (the pop culture of his era!), in Christ we live and move and have our being.

So, with these four theological doctrines in mind, we consider the following questions when receiving and reflecting upon any artifact of popular culture:

How does this piece of pop culture reveal God and the story of redemption?

The Bible’s grand story of redemption history is one of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration, with Christ as the author and hero of the story. If we believe that God is self-revealing and present, then we ought to attend to pop culture as being potentially both about God and encounters with God and God’s story. And if the piece of pop culture seems to distort or deny God and God’s story, then we ought to pay attention to that as well.

What is true, beautiful, or good about this movie, music, show, game, etc.?

Is there anything true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy about this piece of pop culture, to paraphrase Philippians 4:8? If so, we can celebrate the God-given gifts and virtues we’ve found! And if we see the opposite of these qualities (deception, viciousness, and evil), we can affirm that this piece of pop culture provides evidence of brokenness in our world and the ongoing need for healing, justice, and redemption. We can use God-given discernment to thoughtfully test everything, holding on to the good while rejecting every kind of evil.

Where do we see the image of God at play?

Christ is the ultimate Image of God, and human beings are God’s little imagebearers. We can thus observe the image of God in the work itself (the art), behind the work (the artist), and in front of the work (the audience). We seek to affirm the creativity and goodness of our fellow imagebearers, as well as attend to Christological echoes and resonances in cultural works. If, as poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it, “Christ plays in ten thousand places / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his,” then we can look for Christ’s presence anywhere and everywhere in our world. There really is no such thing as secular!

At Think Christian, we are inviting you into an ongoing relational conversation between God and human beings and between human beings about God, with popular culture as our starting point. We hope that you think—and see, and feel, and act—with a hopeful hospitality, recognizing that all things have been created through Christ and for Christ, as he is our source and final purpose.

_______

Image from Abbott Elementary, courtesy of ABC