DESCRIPTION: Issues of modernity, post-modernity, pluralism and globalization challenge the Church worldwide necessitating thoughtful, culturally relevant yet biblically sound responses. This course will examine the following key questions:

• Why has the church largely failed to challenge the negative effects of the modernist cultural paradigm?

• How do modernism, post-modernism, pluralism and globalization interact to bring new challenges to the contemporary church?

• How can we step outside our culture in order to see ourselves through "missional" eyes?

• How does a missionary approach to culture differ from conventional evangelistic approaches?

This course proposes the paradigm that missionary engagement should be the basic stance of the Church toward its cultural context, wherever the Church is located.

• demonstrated the ability to "read or "exegete" modern/postmodern culture using missionary criteria;

• discerned those values and characteristics in their cultural contexts that can be affirmed, promoted, and leveraged for the benefit of the Church as well as the cultural values and forces that bring spiritual lethargy and decline;

• designed strategies of missional engagement with contemporary culture that show cultural awareness and understanding, and in which the full resources of the Gospel are brought to bear in their ministries and churches.

Crouch, Andy. Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling. InterVarsity, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-8308-3394-8. Pub. List: $22.00.

Frost, Michael, and Alan Hirsch. The Shaping of Things to Come. Hendrickson, 2003. ISBN: 978-1-56563-659-0. Pub. List: $19.95.

Wallis, Jim. Rediscovering Values on Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street. Howard Books 2010. Pub. ISBN: 978-1-4391-8312-0. Pub. List: $24.00.

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989. ISBN: 2-8254-0971-5. Pub. List: $24.00.

Ramachandra, Vinoth. Subverting Global Myths. Theology and the Public Myths Shaping Our World. InterVarsity Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-0830828852. Pub. List: $23.00.

Supplemental required readings (included electronically in the course shell) (200 pages assigned).

*Publisher's list price is usually much higher than prices available from various book websites.

1. Weekly threaded discussions, reading interactions, and web research (34%)

2. A 600-word reading response on Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (6%)

3. A 2,000-word collaborative Culture Watch assignment (15%)

4. A 1,500 -word Cultural Analysis through Film comparing and contrasting two films and their post-modern cultural themes. (15%)

5. A 3,000 -word Case Study paper addressing a cultural theme and its practical outworking in a student's ministry context. (30%)