Episode 04: How Should Christians View Culture and What Are Some Mistaken Views?

Discussion of the first subsection of the Reformed Libertarianism statement about culture. Also discussed are the significance of the fall into sin, common curse, redemption, and eschatology in relation to culture; as well as subjective sanctification of Christians' cultural activity, contrast of neocalvinist with scholastic and biblicist (or theonomic) views, and transformationalism.

https://reformedlibertarians.com/004

00:00 start

00:32 Episode description

00:55 Subsection 1.a. human production

01:30 Defining culture Genesis 1.26-28; 2.15; 9.1-7

04:30 The Reformed Libertarianism Statement & Principles
https://reformedlibertarians.com/reformed-libertarianism-statement/

04:44 Why is understanding culture important?

06:24 The fall into sin and common curse Genesis 3.16-19; Romans 8.18-23; Ecclesiastes

08:00 Original prefall design of culture and eschatology

08:43 Postfall institutional differentiation; establishment of Covenant of Grace; Christ's accomplishment of redemption and fulfillment of original mandate Hebrews 2.5-15

09:24 Subjective sanctification of cultural activity
By the application of Christ's accomplishment of redemption in regeneration, Christians are enable to rightly recognize the reign of God in all areas of life, and in all those areas perform those activities to the ultimate end of God's glory. This includes (however imperfect in this life) Christian good works (increasingly, according to the moral normativity of God's abiding moral will), and increasing conformity to whatever other abiding norms God has established for human action generally, and for cultural activity.
https://honest2blog.blogspot.com/2022/01/reformed-biblical-theological.html

11:20 Example: logical norms in creational revelation

12:54 Literal and figurative sense of fruitfulness

15:00 Temporal common curse on people, so also their labors and the world

16:02 The error of scholastic views of the relation of religion to cultural activity

17:47 Neocalvinism, against scholastic views, rejects the false idea that there can be any religiously neutral area of human life

19:40 Is this a "cultural Christianity"?

21:25 The error of theonomic views of Christian cultural activity

22:13 Neocalvinism, against theonomic views, holds that the Old (Mosaic) Covenant (and its law) is no longer in force, but has spiritual application for the church, and is not a model for believers' cultural activity in the New Covenant era

23:16 A distinctively Christian view of cultural activity is a matter of discerning creational revelation as understood through the perspective of Scriptural teaching

25:24 What about so-called "transformationalism"?

27:30 Regeneration, and union with Christ in faith, involves our whole selves and lives. All our activity may be service to Christ (Colossians 3.23-24), not in conformity to philosophy that is not according to Christ (Colossians 2.3-4, 8), but rather transformed according to an understanding that all things are created by, through, and for Christ, moreover, and that in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1.16-17)

28:48 The reality of present futility because of the fall, even for believers; and the reality of present meaningfulness by the measure of final resurrection life in Christ 1 Corinthians 15.58

32:48 Intro discussion between Pastor Nate Xanders and Gregory Baus on Reformed Libertarianism statement https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwrDNUO5MDu-56FIiArhzVisvc1TayOFS

The Reformed Libertarians Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute: https://libertarianchristians.com and a member of the Christians for Liberty Network: https://christiansforliberty.net

Audio Production by Podsworth Media - https://podsworth.com