christ and culture
Christ and Culture:
The Challenge of Tomorrow’s World don’t seem to work how they were supposed to. This is a tough time to be a leader in any walk of life. I begin there because Christian leaders sometimes suppose that their own challenges are unique. Of course, there are unique he rest in peace and rise in glory, and may God raise up a new
elements. But many pressure points which we—you!—feel are
generation with the same fearless, Christ-centered passion for
things we share with leaders in politics, in medicine, business,
public service.
diplomacy, and international relations, here and abroad. Old
We need this especially because tomorrow’s world poses a challenge to all of us, whatever our faith or lack of it. The world is changing as well as shrinking; events have forced us radically to revise our assumptions about where things were going. I think of Francis Fukuyama’s suggestion that history had ended with the triumph of liberal democracy. Things haven’t worked out like that, as Fukuyama himself has acknowledged. Many countries have seen the chance of genuine democracy come and go. Others have voted enthusiastically, but have chosen parties and policies that
certainties have been eroded past recognition. The danger in any of these worlds, perhaps particularly in your world of Christian colleges and universities, is to cling to past certainties. We rightly affirm the unchangeability of God himself, but we too readily construe that in terms of our own desire for stability and continuity, both personal and institutional. Every generation faces this danger. But I think our own challenges, as the postmodern world produces more surprises and confusions, are of a different kind from any we have seen in my lifetime at least.
seem anathema to us. The world is confusing and puzzling. The
You might guess from this introduction that I am going to
solutions we in the West thought were ours to bestow on the world
encourage you to be bold in facing these challenges and finding
CCCU Advance | Spring 2012
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