The Trinitarian Factor
on the Key to Cultural Recovery
"If you need a moment of Zen . . .” the announcer said bizarrely while encouraging people to tune their dials to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) for their classical music listening, as if there were anything Zen-like about Western classical music.
Sometimes I encounter such intriguing signposts of Western civilization’s fracturing. I do not mean the mere decay of cultural standards—though, of course, that is there. No, I mean the more tragic and ironic efforts to lift the whole cultural edifice of Christendom and plop it down on pagan foundations with the expectation of solid results. Christian culture is built on the firm foundation of the one, true, and triune God and his gospel. The Trinity is the bedrock of a truly flourishing civilization and all its fruits, but the West, having discarded public acknowledgement of the true God, is in a desperate and tragicomical effort to grasp unity and diversity, with no principle to bring these together. Rejecting the Trinity means a double-minded dance between oneness and plurality, just as rejecting the freedom of Christ means surrender to either chaos or coercion (Europe has generally preferred coercion, America chaos, but we may yet change our minds).
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Joshua Steely is Senior Pastor of Pontoon Baptist Church. He lives in the greater St. Louis area with his wife and children.
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