Cultural Literacy in Christian Higher Education

Christian universities are properly concerned with biblical literacy. This makes sense. We need to know what the Bible says. I believe we should be just as concerned with cultural literacy.

For many in the Evangelical/Fundamentalist tribe, the only interaction with current American culture is sharp criticism. There is a lot of lamenting over the fact that we now have shows like Breaking Bad and Walking Dead. If only we could get back to Leave it to Beaver and Mayberry, we would be much better off and a lot closer to a biblical way of living and thinking.

We must remember that the whole Bible was written to fallen cultures. Genesis 1 was not written to pre-Fall Adam and Eve. It was addressing Israelites who thought and behaved like pagan Egyptians. All of Scripture must be interpreted in light of a cultural setting, and this cultural setting is always a fallen, sinful culture. People like N. T. Wright spend a lot of time telling us what first century Israel looked like. We need to pay just as much attention to the world we live in. We should do this to understand it, not to disparage it.

As we try to live out the gospel, then, we must know our culture well. As Karl Barth once said, we must read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Maybe today we need our iPad with the Bible app in one hand our our Tivo remote in the other.