Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World

Cultural Apologetics is a call to examine the nature of cultures, including (and especially) the culture of modern Christianity. Specifically, it is a call to a renewed hope in all things true, good, and beautiful at the heart of the Christian faith. Author Paul M. Gould touches on the innate longings of the human creature, how the gospel interfaces with those longings, and how specific cultural challenges may either assist in or hinder inroads made into various cultures by a distinctly Christian worldview. Among those hindrances, a worldly approach of disenchantment within Christian culture itself looms as a translucent barrier. Gould would have us remove that barrier and become reenchanted, leaving our modernist purgatory behind for happier, greener pastures.

The author relies heavily on sociological rationale, such as Peter Berger’s “plausibility structures” (19). Such structures are thought of as mostly unrecognized yet powerful guide rails inherent in the imagination and rationale of a culture. A failure to account for these structures amounts to a failure to be able to effectively communicate the gospel with that culture.

Biblical evidence is also presented, such as Paul’s engagement with the Lycaonians. “Paul began to proclaim the good news, inviting them to ‘turn from… vain things’ (i.e. idols) too ‘a living God who made the heaven and the earth…” (85). If Paul was trying to confront sin “head on” (per the purgatorial Christian ethos), then he failed. But he does not simply say: “Stop it” — and then proclaim his Christian duty complete. Instead, he draws the attention of the culture to the things they already recognize to be “good and delightful” (85). What a nut.

Anglican Theologian Hans Boersma echoes Eastern Orthodox priest Alexander Schmemman at the conclusion of the chapter “Reenchantment” when he says, “we must ‘relearn to see the world with sacramental eyes’” (92). Schmemman offers this:

“Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence…To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that ‘something more’ is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life” (Shmeman 2018, 22). In these examples we find an appeal to theological evidence.

C.S. Lewis introduces the philosophical difference between the function of truth and meaning in Chapter 4: Imagination: “…while reason is ‘the natural organ of truth,’ it is the imagination that is ‘the organ of meaning” (107). The idea of a higher meaning behind a truth (potentially a fact) would seem to be consistent with Platonic idealism, a concept Glenn S. Sunshine explores in his work” (Sunshine 2009, 25). If imagination is undervalued (or even demonized) within a Christian subculture, the effect may be to exchange the meaning of truth for a truncated religion of “pure” morality, cut off from the living Person of Christ.

To accept the imagination as a function of meeting the divinely-placed needs in humanity is to reconnect with beauty. Christianity expressed in terms that beguile rather than demand is surely a more meaningful, even truer, representation of the faith than one measured against a catechism only. “‘Beauty will save the world.’ It’s a startling statement… the more common saviors people turn to are money, machines, knowledge, or political power, not beauty” (117). Beauty as the road less taken is an ethos consistent with C.S. Lewis’s notion of stealing past the ‘dragons’ of plausibility structures: “But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could” (Lewis 1956).

Gould follows his look at beauty with a chapter on reason, which deals with the nature of truth as syllogistic logic is capable of revealing it. This is a helpful look at how logic functions, but it is also notable that the human element is not ignored. “The content level is the literal meanings of the words that convey our message. The relational level expresses the amount of affection, respect, and compassion between people” (138). We often overestimate the value of the content of our messages compared to the respect and compassion we offer in our attempts at communicating reason.

The conclusion of the primary argument, if not the book, is a chapter called Conscience, which corresponds to the virtue of goodness. One striking point comes from the English poet W.H. Auden. Whereas many people look at the world’s injustice, pain, and suffering, and so question God, this account from Auden is the inverse. Having rejected Christianity for atheism, Auden believed in a “natural human goodness” (151). But when he saw a documentary of the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, Auden found his atheism contradicted by the evilness he perceived in Hitler and his actions: “I thought I had done with Christianity for good” (151). The existence of genuine Good is far more difficult to reject than it is to accept.

Having never heard of Gould before, this book surprised me throughout — in a lot of good ways. First of all, I’m not sure I’ve ever come across another Christian who seems to have taken a spiritual journey so similar to mine. I eventually stopped being surprised and began to expect the conclusions and sources Gould would share next. I think anyone who gets deeply involved with C.S. Lewis (and his favorite authors) is likely to have pieced together the benefits and challenges that the “true, good, and beautiful” ethos brings to the table. I do believe Gould succeeds in consolidating and packaging the sometimes unobvious connections between the “old, dead Brits” into a cohesive vision for rethinking the church’s approach in the modern day.

Gould desires to make the biblical position seem “plausible and desirable again” for modern culture, and the road to this includes acknowledging how poorly evangelicalism has handled many issues over the years. Not for the purpose of casting stones or blaming, but to identify legitimate stumbling blocks and to correct those toward the things that are of first importance (e.g. the imago Dei, the equality of sinners, etc.). This application is a third way between the current leading options: recklessly affirm opinions, or vehemently reject them, and we desperately need it. It also succeeds as a case study that may be applied to other areas.

References

Gould, Paul M. 2019. Cultural Apologetics : Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.

Lewis, C.S. 1956. “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said.” New York Times (1923-), Nov 18.

Shmeman, Aleksandr. 2018. For the Life of the World : Sacraments and Orthodoxy. Yonkers, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Sunshine, Glenn S. 2009. Why You Think the Way You Do : The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan.