From Glory to Glory: The Imitation of Christ for Cultural Engagement - Paperback

by Charles L. Geschiere (Author)

The question of how Christians should relate to culture is an age-old query. According to the Westminster Confession, the chief end of man is "to glorify God." Easier to do, perhaps, when the focus is on spiritual matters. How to do that in a realistic and practical way in the public square at the local level, as culture-makers and shapers, is admittedly much more difficult. From Glory to Glory is a study of what culture is, as both deed (culture as verb), belief and habit (culture as noun), its opportunities and its risks, its possibilities and its limitations. Grounded in the Scriptures, its content and main message, taking its cue from past and present scholarship, the reader will be challenged to think about their own place in God's world, in today's culture. Christ-centered in its approach, this book turns again and again to the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus Christ in John 17. Having lived the whole of his life to the glory of his Father, as he paused just before his death to reflect on his thirty-three years (only three of which he spent in ministry), this prayer from the one who helped create the world and everything in it, who then entered the world to redeem a people, offers the thinking Christian disciple who seeks to imitate him in their own cultural engagement the very vision of Christ for those whom he sends into the world to relevantly represent him as his witnesses in all that they do, not only the why, but the how ("from glory) and the what, the where, and the when ("to glory"). Charles L. Geschiere is a graduate of Calvin University (B.A., Psychology, 1980), and of Calvin Theological Seminary (M.Div., 1987; Th.M., 2008), both in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has served as a pastor (Illinois, Virginia, and Michigan) and on the pastoral staff (Virginia) at four churches. He has five children.