Cardboard Culture

At least the ancients longed for the highest truth and beauty.

Ancient mythology possessed much that was beautiful. It was an illusion, but it prepared many people for that beauty which is no illusion. One great authority on classical literature, a man converted in midlife, Gerhard Nebel (1903–74), put it thus: “The encounter in Christ that was granted me in these years made it necessary for me to rethink … the myth and the beautiful from the perspective of the crucified and risen Lord” (from the Foreword, Das Ereiginis de Schönen, 1953). Nebel states repeatedly and in many ways that the concepts of beauty and strength, truth and virtue, that he found in the myths, did not and could not bring even true satisfaction (not to speak of salvation), but that they did create an empty stage, brushing aside the trivial concerns of banal daily living, and creating an expectancy that only the gospel could fill.

Nebel was also convinced that the ancient myths cannot be revived. Their beauty, even with its flaws, is lost as a real force in human lives (although we can still admire it at a distance, like statues in a museum of ancient art). The gospel is real, and proved far too strong for the gods and heroes of mythology. We can no longer believe in them, nor should we—even though we may learn something from them. But when the gospel is lost, when the true truth, real virtue, and absolute beauty that the gospel represents are forgotten and banished from our “post-Christian culture,” then we are worse off than ancient man with his imperfect but beautiful mythology.

To borrow Nebel’s imagery, we no longer have an empty stage, from which great tragic drama has swept false hopes, leaving us ready to hear the true hope of the gospel, but we have a pit, a sordid abyss filled with the wretched residue of culture.

Is it possible for a drunken man to understand the gospel? No doubt it is not impossible, but most of us would prefer trying to explain it to him when he is sober. His drunkenness may point out to others the misery of his condition, but it usually deprives the man himself of the ability to recognize it, or even if he does recognize it, to do something constructive about it. Ancient philosophy and literature did not have answers to the human predicament, but often left men with a sense of longing and expectancy that made them receptive to the gospel when it was proclaimed. Modern “culture,” in many of its forms, is more like drunkenness. To those observing it from the outside, its misery, futility, and despair seem to cry out for transformation, for salvation. But to those within it, that which looks disgusting to the outsider seems like that which is most desirable. One is not likely to look for a way out, and even less likely to find it.

Paul speaks of the “eager expectation” or “anxious longing” of the whole creation for the revelation of God (Rom. 8:19). Ancient culture, despite its often high, always flawed ideals, could not satisfy this longing, but it did share it and often increased it. Modern culture seems to have lost its myths, debased its heroes, and preserved only its demons.

Jesus said, “Seek, and you shall find” (Matt. 7:7). The cardboard heroes (at best) and the larger-than-life villains and demons of modern “culture” are creating such a disillusioned society that fewer and fewer people have the courage or even the curiosity to “seek the things above” (Col. 3:1).

It would be comforting to think that our popular culture might be renewed, and thus once again offer a kind of preparation for the gospel. In fact, however, the culture cannot renew itself. It lacks the power, the insight, the motivation. As Wilhelm Roepke wrote years ago, successful capitalist culture consumes itself, and rots from within. It needs to be renewed by something coming from outside itself. The only thing that is really and truly from outside culture is the Word of God.

Ancient myths had fascinating and attractive elements of beauty. But as the gospel was heard around the world, it superseded them and revealed their hollowness. During the Age of Reason—the eighteenth century, when the United States came into being—many people, including the majority of America’s Founding Fathers, thought that they could replace the narrow dogmatism of “sectarianism” (i.e., of Christianity) with the broader virtues and ideals of a renewed classical civilization. This hope is reflected in the monuments and ideas of the early days of the United States, which are so frequently drawn from the Roman republic. But such “republican” virtues, which were not as strong as the gospel, have no power in a world that thinks it has made the gospel obsolete.

In America today, two trends are in conflict: the sense of unbelief, which leads to the culture of corruption. In the most degenerate days of ancient Rome, there was a deep sense of self-disgust throughout society. Before society destroyed itself, the gospel was proclaimed, and there was social and cultural renewal as well as new spiritual life. Can such a thing happen once again in Western, “Christian” society? Indeed, it can, but it will require a consistent proclamation and living out of the Word of God with patience and perseverance, despite the fact that the senses of society seem to have become too gross to comprehend it.

Harold O. J. Brown is currently serving as interim pastor in the Evangelical Reformed Church of Klosters, Switzerland. He is on leave of absence from his post as professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois. Professor Brown’s latest book is Heresies (Doubleday, 1984).

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