Christ and Culture in 1 Peter

Continuing with my lazy-blogging, let me throw out another article written by someone else. This essay, by Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf analyzes the ecclesiology of 1 Peter in light of Ernst Troeltsch’s church/sect dichotomy which H. Richard Niebuhr picked up on in his Christ and Culture.

Volf thinks that Christians should not be countercultural per se – i.e. shouldn’t define themselves by what they’re against. Nor, however, should they uncritically accept the values of the social world they find themselves in. Rather, rooted in a specifically Christian identity, they will find various aspects of the surrounding culture acceptable or not as they critically sift through them.

The stress on Christian difference notwithstanding, the “world” does not seem a monolithic place in 1 Peter. We encounter evil people who persecute Christians and who will continue to do the same, blaspheming what is most holy to Christians (4:4,12). We come across ignorant and foolish people who will be silenced by Christian good behavior (2:15). We meet people who know what is wrong and what is right and are ready to relate to Christians accordingly (2:14). Finally, we encounter people who see, appreciate, and are finally won over to the Christian faith (2:12; 3:1). Thus, the picture is more complex than just the two extreme and contrary reactions. This testifies to a sensitivity in 1 Peter for the complexity of the social environment.

One of the really appealing things about this is that, according to Volf, our confidence in our identity in Christ is precisely what enables us to be humble in the face of those who are different rather than trying to dominate them.

It might be appropriate to call the missionary distance that 1 Peter stresses soft difference. I do not mean a weak difference, for in 1 Peter the difference is anything but weak. It is strong, but it is not hard. Fear for oneself and one’s identity creates hardness. The difference that joins itself with hardness always presents the other with a choice: either submit or be rejected, either “become like me or get away from me.” In the mission to the world, hard difference operates with open or hidden pressures, manipulation, and threats. A decision for a soft difference, on the other hand, presupposes a fearlessness which 1 Peter repeatedly encourages his readers to assume (3:14; 3:6). People who are secure in themselves-more accurately, who are secure in their God-are able to live the soft difference without fear. They have no need either to subordinate or damn others, but can allow others space to be themselves. For people who live the soft difference, mission fundamentally takes the form of witness and invitation. They seek to win others without pressure or manipulation, sometimes even “without a word” (3:1).

Found this essay at Harbinger.

ADDENDUM: This article from The Christian Century sheds some more light on where Volf is coming from, I think. He endorses, with some qualifications, the attempts of some conservative Christians to practice what he calls “selective separatism.”