How Should Christians Engage Culture | Kristen Deede Johnson

Lecture Title - Reconsidering the Great Commission: Discipleship and Cultural Engagement
Many are asking questions about what it means to fulfill the Great Commission today, wondering how we are to be formed as disciples who can live faithfully in this complex cultural time. Exploring the origins of the term, “the Great Commission,” and the role this final command of Jesus has played in shaping contemporary conceptions of discipleship helps us consider how to live out Jesus’ parting words today. Connecting this historical account of the Great Commission with the larger narrative of Scripture, we see a vision of discipleship emerge that involves being attentive to our everyday vocations, our locations and communities, and intentional cultural engagement.
Kristen Deede Johnson (PhD University of St. Andrews) is Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs and G.W. and Edna Haworth Professor of Educational Ministries and Leadership at Western Theological Seminary. She is author of multiple books, including Theology, Political Theory, and Pluralism: Beyond Tolerance and Difference (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance (Brazos Press, 2016).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues-for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word-lay persons and scholars alike-for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
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[@juliegathman2923]

We need to hear more about this! Great talk. I came here by way of Tim Gombis.

[@garysweeten5196]

I love your history and wisdom. It seems to me that the early church was holistic because Christian life was lived in homes with no hierarchy separation o Lay and Clergy but gifts of all in operation. The ParaChurch movement is also lay led and operates on gifts not titles separating us by education. I was Asst Dean at a state university in the Jesus Movement and my church refused to accept the hippies. We opened our home to students and dozens came, were reborn, and recovered from sex, drugs, and porn. The Great Commission says go to all nations but that is ethnic groups and many rejected ‘saving heathen’ which is the core of Jesus’ call. Our house church was diverse in ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and denomination. Kingdom not denomination. We included females and males, young and old, educated and uneducated. Many of our new friends became full time Christians as lawyers, engineers, educators, pastors and priests. We prayed to the addicted, the lame, and those under spiritual attack and saw miracles. That approach is threatening to current structures and egos. I teach this model in over 50 nations of every race.