Plowing In Hope: Toward A Biblical Theology Of Culture

Plowing In Hope is a book that sets out to be a biblical theology of culture. It

examines culture within its redemptive-historical context by beginning with the first two chapters of Genesis dealing with God's commands to Adam and Eve and then ending in Revelation with the disclosure of the New Jerusalem. David Bruce Hegeman, the author, defines culture as "the product of human acts of concretization undertaken in the developmental transformation of the earth according to the commandment of God." Hegeman wrote this book out of comments and encouragement from people in a pair of Sunday school classes he taught on Christianity and Culture.

The book has ten chapters and is divided into two parts. The first part deals with "A Positive Theology of Culture" and the second deals with "Culture and Redemption." Culturative history (the history of the process of culture) and redemptive history (the history of human salvation wrought by God) are two strands of history which are decreed and ruled by God, in which Hegeman thinks are helpful to see culture operating within.

Hegeman argues in part one of his book that the Bible implicitly teaches that: (1) there is real cultural development, (2) occupational differentiation and societal stratification are necessary in order to meet God's command for global cultural development, and (3) some artifacts are recognized as having greater value because they are more intellectually and aesthetically refined and made with greater skill. (p.15)

In chapter two, the transformation and development of the earth from garden-paradise to the glorious city of God is brought about through God's unfolding purpose for man, which is culturative history. Now, culturative history is the strand of history concerned with culture-making. Here we see that human history begins in a garden and ends in a city.

Moving onto chapter four, we see that the cultural activities of man grow out of his relationship to work on the earth. This in turn shows that culture is an outworking of mankind's unique place within God's creation, bearing the image of God. Then we see how there are varying degrees of expressive intensity that culture manifests itself in. A "High" culture designates cultural artifacts for long use as objects of intellectual, aesthetic contemplation, or for religious service. While on the other hand, A "Low" culture has designated objects made for common purposes that focus especially on utility.