This Sunday and for three Sundays in November, except for Thanksgiving Sunday, I am going to do something I have never done before. I’m going to offer a sermon series based on a book, Christ and Culture. H. Richard Niebuhr wrote this book in 1951, and it still being used in seminary classrooms and discussed by theologians. In this book, Niebuhr creates five ideal types to show the various ways in which Christians have engaged in what he called “the double wrestle” of loyalty to the demands of Christ and loyalty to demands of culture. The purpose of the book is to help us think more deeply about our own double wrestle with discipleship and citizenship, and to come to deeper appreciation of the way others with whom we may deeply disagree engage in this same struggle. More than an academic exercise, I hope through this series to help members of PVCC come to deeper understanding of your own faith and your call to discipleship.
I will focus on four of the five type Niebuhr identifies: Christ Against Culture (Oct, 29); Christ Of Culture (Nov. 5); Christ and Culture in Paradox (Nov. 12); and Christ the Transformer of Culture (Nov. 26). I invite your feedback.
In friendship,
David