Beatnik Christianity Syncs the Rigorous Study of Theology and Culture

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Within the field of theology, exegesis is where the interpreter extracts meaning from the biblical text in light of its literary and cultural-historical contexts. This is good. The opposite is eisegesis, which is where the interpreter imbues the text with a meaning foreign to its original contexts. This is bad. For instance, in Matthew 6 Jesus says you cannot serve both God and mammon. It’s fair game to extract from that passage a principle about Jesus’ ethics toward money, but it’s a theological faux pas to anachronistically impose modern capitalism upon this ancient passage.

That much I learned at my evangelical college. What I didn’t learn was a practice that Richard Mouw describes as “two-way exegesis.”1 That is, rigorous study of both the Bible and of one’s own culture. It means taking equally serious one’s interpretation of Scripture and interpretation of culture. Mouw is radically dialing up the importance of cultural study. He suggests that only after we’ve carefully grasped what Scripture says and understood our own contemporary cultural context can we wisely discern how best to live out The Way of Jesus in our own time and space.

Mouw’s concept of two-way exegesis was a game-changer on my spiritual journey. It prompted a reconfiguration of priorities, not by lowering the importance of studying the Bible but by raising the necessity of studying culture. Suddenly the weight of the two were harmoniously synced. It was not OK to be fluent in the complexities of Scripture yet inarticulate about the complexities of culture. But more than that, by perceiving one’s own cultural presuppositions you gain an ability to somewhat transcend the present cacophony and see the people of Scripture with fresh eyes.

There are different ways of studying culture, of course. Some people value the more quantitative, data-driven nature of sociology. Others prefer the more qualitative, experiential nature of a field like cultural anthropology. It’s all good either way. What’s important is consciously forming some kind of cultural literacy that helps people understand such multi-faceted dynamics as myths, languages, kinship structures, social organizations, legal systems, economics, religious beliefs, social etiquette, ideological frameworks, social change, rites of passage, and sexual mores.

The original beatniks tried to transcend the assumptions of their own cultural context yet also endeavored to be counterculturally present within it. Beatnik Christianity aims to do much the same. For example, in recent years Jesus followers have increasingly become mired in social media’s hot take culture. People are unaware of being algorithmically enculturated in these hostile echo chambers of superficial tribalism that seldom allow the discourse to slow down and go deeper, but I truly think the joint study of theology and culture creates a broader perspective.