A few weeks ago while on holiday, I had the opportunity to read O. Palmer Robertson's book, The Christ of the Covenants. The book is something of a legend in the Reformed world, a tradition which sees great significance in the covenant theme in Scripture. Not having read it before, I thought the week off would prove a good time to do so.

While the book as a whole is valuable, Robertson's chapter on the covenant of creation is particularly important. As I've written elsewhere, we have a tendency to devalue the covenant of creation, which in turn leads us to neglect the role God gives to humanity on this earth. Instead of recognising that the covenant of creation shapes the whole of man's life in relation to God, some view this relationship as only encompassing the prohibition God sets in place with respect to the tree in the garden because it is key in ushering in the subsequent covenant of redemption.

Robertson rightly demonstrates that this perspective effectively ignores the whole of man's responsibilities under the covenant of creation, and instead

an extremely dangerous dualism will develop between man's 'religious' or 'spiritual' responsibilities and his 'cultural' or 'work-a-day' responsibilities. Adam under the covenant of creation did not have one set of duties relating to the created world, and another more specific duty of an entirely different nature which could be designated as 'spiritual' (81-82).

How we understand the covenant of creation has all to do with how we understand the gospel and the Kingdom of God. Failing to fully understand the implications of the covenant of creation often results in limiting the transforming power of the gospel and the rule of Christ to the spiritual dimension of life. For Robertson, however, the covenant relationship is a "total-life relationship," one in which God expects humanity to submit the whole of their lives to his rule.

Too often [Christians] may fail to consider adequately the effect of redemption on the total life-style of man in the context of an all-embracive covenant. That view results frequently in a by-passing of the responsibility of redeemed man to carry forward the implications of his salvation into the world of economics, politics, business, and culture (82-83).

The covenant of creation originally called Adam to exercise authority over all of creation as God's co-regent. That mandate has not ceased or been overturned. Our continuing call as God's people is to bear witness to his sovereign rule over the totality of creation. The fall into sin adds a different element to our task in that we now need to carry out our work in the context of a creation distorted by sin. But the redemptive work of Christ ensures the redemption of the whole of creation and enables us to continue fulfilling the cultural mandate and already now to work towards freeing creation from the corrosive effects of sin.

In this way we faithfully carry out the role assigned to us in the covenant of creation and honour the sovereign King who so graciously brought us into relationship with himself.

Something of a 'blog war' over the 'culture wars' has unfolded recently, beginning when Rachel Held Evans presumed to speak on behalf of millennials by declaring, 'My generation is tired of the culture wars.' This post is not going to be a response to that post specifically, as guys like Jamie Smith and Brian Mattson have already done a fine job addressing the problems her post is laced with.

All this, however, does raise the important question of what faithfulness in the context of our culture looks like. What should we expect as the community of believers when we live under the rule of our King? Last week, I was sitting with four university students as we finished working through Albert Wolters' book, Creation Regained, and we spent some time chewing over this bit in the postcript, which he co-authored with Mike Goheen (and which loudly echoes the renowned missiologist, Lesslie Newbigin):

Mission entails suffering; faithfulness to the gospel of the kingdom will mean a missionary encounter with the idolatrous powers of our own culture. Loyal allegiance to our kingdom mission will mean a clash of comprehensive stories. The gospel makes an absolute claim on the whole of our lives. The story that shapes our Western culture is likewise a comprehensive story which makes totalitarian claims. There is an incompatability between the gospel and the story of our culture. Every culturally embodied grand narrative will seek to become not only the dominant, but the exclusive story. If we as the church want to be faithful to the equally comprehensive biblical story we will find ourselves faced with a choice: either accommodate the Bible's story to that of our culture, and live as a tolerated minority community, or remain faithful and experience some degree of conflict and suffering.

Ours is a mission under the cross. The good news may call forth opposition, conflict, and rejection (John 15:18-25).

Though it is hard to get accurate statistics on such things, some estimate that about 170,000 Christians die each year for their faith. All of us would agree, I'm sure, that this is a group of people that really gets what Jesus is saying in John 15. The disaffected millennials – indeed, all of us – should stop and think about this for a moment when we're tempted to try and find ways around bits of Scripture we find uncomfortable or that require us to be in stark opposition with the culture around us. Hundreds of thousands of Christians are willing to die (and millions more willing to endure persecution) instead of capitulating to a culture that demands they live unfaithfully. And all the while we try to fit Jesus into a mould that will make him easier for us to get on side with.

I'll be the first to agree that the 'culture war' mentality is problematic and unhelpful (I think James Davison Hunter makes an excellent critique of that paradigm in his book, To Change the World), but deciding that we should be the ones to set the terms for our faith is not the answer. This is simply idolatry, replacing the rule of Christ with our own authority.

Newbigin's idea that we need to understand ourselves as missionaries in a culture whose story is entirely antithetical to the story of Scripture is so important to remember at this point. We bear witness to the rule of a King who makes a total claim on all of life, and at every point the gospel challenges a culture which rejects that rule. And so we should expect conflict.

Trying to live faithfully under the lordship of Jesus Christ isn't about making Christianity palatable to the culture around us. As it is, sometimes the total allegiance that Jesus demands will make it feel like we're sititng all alone in a crowded room. Sometimes it is even going to hurt. But for Christians, it is the only option.

In the middle of December I was on a bit of a rant tweeting about how Christians so often misunderstand work and vocation. I find myself returning to this topic more and more because I think it is so important. Browse through the gallery to see the tweets:

Then Steve Bishop posted this cartoon the other day and I thought that it did a good job illustrating the way the church often adds to the problem.

It's my hope that in 2012 churches will do a lot more to help believers think about their work from a Christian perspective.

Recently, I came across something called The Colossian Forum, a new initiative to designed to facilitate conversations on the relationship of faith and science, especially for those who are preparing young students to go to university and out into the world. One of the people behind the project is James K.A. Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

What I find most encouraging about their work is that they are not attempting to hold one position above another, or to take sides on different points of contention, but they are giving people the tools to think about the often controversial relationship of faith and science and how Christ can be exalted as Lord in the midst of differences of opinions on this matter.

Here's an 8-minute clip in which members of the Forum talk a bit more about their work.

Simon Smart, of the Sydney-based Centre for Public Christianity, sat down with Kevin Vanhoozer to talk a little bit about the importance of looking at culture through a theological lens, and the responsibility of the church in the world. Vanhoozer contributed to a book a few years ago called Everyday Theology, which forms the basis for their discussion, and looks at the calling and challenge of living as a faithful disciple of Christ in all parts of life. The two part, 15-minute discussion is below: