Apologia TV PREVIEW! Gary Demar on Al Mohler and Redeeming the Culture

The Biblical Basis for Redeeming the Culture

Well, here's the bottom line from the biblical perspective, and a part of this is linguistic. I don't think there's any New Testament justification for our attempt to redeem the culture.

All right, Gary, respond to that, please.

New Heaven, New Earth, and Christian Engagement in Culture

Well, of course, he goes on, he says, that's a bit messianic. What I mean by this, the Scripture doesn't tell us that the culture is going to be redeemed. Tells us that there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and it also tells us that Christians are to be actively engaged in the culture, and there's no doubt about that.

Then he goes down here below, and he says, and that certainly has to mean that we have to be engaged in the culture of our neighbor, and that means we are to be salt and light, and that means the culture ought to be different because Christians are in the culture, but we don't really have a biblical warrant for believing we're going to be able to redeem any culture.

This is like Newt Rockne telling Notre Dame to go out and lose one for the Gipper. You do all of this training, you prepare for this football game, but look, guys, your efforts are in vain, you're going to lose.

Eschatological Presuppositions and an Eschatology of Defeat

And look, I like Al Mohler, too. I really think if he had time to think about this a little bit more, he wouldn't have been so schizophrenic here.

I'm in agreement with you on that, yeah. Well, and so much of this has to do with his eschatological presuppositions, that's what's driving this. So I would say this, with love for him as a brother in Christ, what's driving his response to this question is not Scripture, not a thoroughgoing, exegetical type of looking at the Word of God, saying, what does it actually say?

It's that he has a presuppositional commitment to a particular eschatology that puts him in a place where he's got this collision that you describe, where on the one hand we're called to do this as Christians, to preach truth to the culture, it should affect the world around us and all those different things, but on the other hand he has a commitment over here to an eschatology that is ultimately an eschatology of defeat.