Gospel and Cultural Engagement

One of the big divisions in the young, restless, and reformed movement is over cultural engagement. Last week Thabiti Anyabwile addressed the issue at the Together for the Gospel Conference, which I was grateful to attend. It seems to me that a big part of this divide is the inability of both sides to hear the concerns and understand the language of the opposing side. I thought this critique of Thabiti's message by Joe Thorn to be fair and balanced.

Overall, I thought Thabiti made some good points. I appreciated his observation that we don't just shape culture, but culture also shapes us. However, I also thought his message was overly simplistic and reactionary. I don't know that I disagree with Thabiti, but sometimes I had the feeling that his message was more like "What is culture? How do we engage? What will engagement accomplish? We don't know any of these answers, so let's just stick to Jesus and stop talking about it." That is probably not a fair assessment of his message, but I, and I think quite a few others, had more questions than answers after he was done.

For a different take on this issue, check out his helpful article from Boundless.