Can using language and engaging cultural ideas have a negative outcome? Some think so. A group of American evangelicals have used the analytic tools of a contemporary political ideology to describe inequality in American culture. In response, a second  group has decried such a method as being incompatible with Christianity. Who is right? 

Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) transports triglycerides and cholesterol to repair and to provide cells with energy. We know this because modern science has discovered this reality and invented the language (low-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, and cholesterol) to conceptualize how my body works.

We use all sorts of words that our culture has invented and which derive from larger concepts.  We engage in a capitalistic, free-market economy. We program with Java and Ruby. And like LDL or other medical concepts, we use these words freely and participate in their respective systems of thought (e.g., the free market, nutrition, etc.).

But can using language and engaging cultural ideas have a negative outcome? Some think so. A group of American evangelicals have used the analytic tools of a contemporary political ideology to describe inequality in American culture. In response, a second  group has decried such a method as being incompatible with Christianity. Who is right?

Well, the answer to such questions relies on how we understand cultural words and ideas and their ability to integrate into Christian modes of thinking. Here are some scriptural and non-scriptural examples that will ground our thinking on the matter. 

Paul to the Corinthians

When writing to the Corinthians Paul uses words like sophia, teleios (mature), pneumatikos (spiritual), pseuxikos (physical), mystery, “spirit of the world,” gnosis, neos, pleroma (fullness), and so on. This language draws from the pool of nascent gnosticism. Yet Paul does not use it to communicate gnostic ideas. Just the opposite.

Regarding Paul’s use of (proto)gnostic vocabulary, Samuel Lauecli observes, “There is a tension between the meaning [of the vocabulary in its original frame and the new frame into which it is inserted” (The Language of Faith: 19; cited in Thiselton 2000: 226). That tension finds resolution when we observe how Paul uses (proto)gnostic language and why.

As to why, likely because the Corinthians used those words. Many felt they were superior due to their gifts. They were the true gnostics (1 Cor 8:1). But he uses common language to redefine and reassert Christian theology. As to how, Anthony Thiselton explains:

Paul takes up the major catchwords which had become embedded in the life of the church at Corinth, and his most urgent task at this point is neither to reject their validity nor to bypass what was important for his readers, but to reclaim the terms for the gospel by redefining them in the light of the nature of God and of the gospel (2000: 224).

The point is that Paul works in a Greek-speaking world in which he uses common vocabulary and concepts. Yet he does not use the word pleroma (fullness) according to gnostic dictums. He reclaims it by taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (e.g., Eph 1:23; 3:19).

Christians today may use the word nature that comes from the natural sciences. Yet we reclaim its meaning since we understood nature to be created by God with a purpose. Or even consider the word science, so formulated during the Enlightenment with its attendant meanings and perfect in recent times. Christians may define science as the study of first principles and the phenomena that follow them—not as the study of repeatable patterns observed in nature.  

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