What is culture? Is there a difference between people and culture? If someone argues that Jesus calls to redeem people but not culture, are they really saying anything, or is the difference inconsequential?
It seems to me people make up culture; to reach people would be to reach their culture, and you can’t reach a culture as such because it’s a concept, a description. You reach people who think and act in patterns we describe as cultures, and if we apply the gospel to the making of art or business, then we are reaching people within their cultural context.
Or am I missing something?
I think the difference may be one of methodology.
People and culture are always in a symbiotic relationship; we are communal creatures and our interactions with each other form and necessitate culture–a shared but varying body of beliefs, attitudes, actions, objects, &c. which tie us together. This culture reflects the people who make it up, but it also takes on a life of its own to influence the people who create it.
I think all Christians should be able to agree that if everyone changes their heart and truly follows Christ, we would see a radically different culture. So all Christians should be for “changing people;” it seems to be the main thing Jesus did.
Some people, however, say that one can target the culture–the system–itself. Support marriage. Make movies and books that infuse an intelligent, Christian element to culture. Beat up money-changers who are replacing the temple’s culture of holiness with the culture of commercialism. The problem with this, as we’ve seen in the last 20 years, is that Christians have shown themselves all too easily-seduced into the concept of fighting “culture wars,” without necessarily choosing the right side or fighting in a Christian way. When we strive for “Christian culture” we may end up just labeling the culture we want “Christian.”
So I think the question is meaningful. To “redeem people not culture” is to target individuals while ignoring the larger issues of culture-making and power. It is a call for a Christianity that is more personal and less political, or at least less symbolic. Does this make any sense?
Yes, it makes sense, and I can see the weaknesses in terms of “culture wars” or politics. So if the argument is that we should reach out to people, not campaign for votes on issues, then I understand. Christians should be less political, I think, even if they are engaged in political professions.
But the people/culture distinction blurs for me when I think about normal life. We support marriage by building community in our churches and practicing church discipline properly with an eye toward redemption, as an example. That’s personal culture-making. The problem you point out is very good. That’s why some folks can’t understand how a real Christian could vote one way or the other.
People are people without modification or addition. Culture requires cultivation and may be regarded as a kind of tool, a useful system or abstraction, the product of long efforts on the part of many individuals.
Culture is useful to the extent that it is cultivated and pervasive, because the cultivation allows greater ease and finesse of expression, while the pervasiveness allows the various references (and culture is, in large part, an organized system of references) to be recognized.
So I don’t regard people and culture as a dichotomy or synonym, but simply as two distinct things.