Cultural Theology
In fighting fire with fire there comes a danger in reinterpreting the truth of Scripture in view of society, rather than presenting the truth of Scripture in a way relevant to one's societal context. The danger of the former is that as society changes, so too does the 'truth' of Scripture change. A system which needs constant redefinition is neither authoritative nor deserving of speaking into people's lives. We see in this a diminution of doctrine and theology in favor of an 'all we need is Jesus' religion. This is a religion which many believe can be propagated without defense, claiming it's experiential! The reality is that it does not require a defense because of it's being consonant with, as Machen has said, the current of the age: "this curious fact--when men talk thus about propagating Christianity without defending it, they thing that we are propagating is pretty sure not to be Christianity at all. They are propagating an anti-intellectualistic, nondoctrinal Modernism; and the reason why it requires no defense is simply that it is so completely in accord with the current of the age".1
- D. G. Hart, ed., J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2004), 144. ↩
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