Does Christianity have anything useful to say about the prevailing culture ?
Both Jesus and St Paul had things to say about the ‘world’ which, in context, means the ‘prevailing culture’.
In Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, we read what Macbeth has to say –
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
(Act 5 scene 5)
Macbeth says this just after hearing that his wife was dead and just before a messenger arrives to tell him that Birnan Wood has begun to move.
If this section of Macbeth’s speech was set as an exam question for you as a committed Christian, would your answer look anything like this ?
At this stage of Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, having gone through so much –
ambition to be king instead of Duncan
murder of Duncan
accomplice to the murder by Lady Macbeth of Duncan’s guards
the consequences that surely followed
ravages of conscience
and being abandoned by many friends and allies
he (Macbeth) is only buoyed up by the (false) prophecies of the three witches.
His despair grows by the hour.
At this very low ebb, he reflects in this speech on the meaning and quality of life itself and, judging by his words, life doesn’t amount to much.
The first two lines of the speech are what everyone could agree to but when he says “And there is heard no more” that is just, I think, where a Christian would dissent.
No more would a Christian be likely to agree that “It [life] is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Can a Christian really say that life signifies nothing ?
Surely, that is the very opposite of what Christians believe.