Strong and Weak Lines Review and Expositor, 108, Summer 2011 Strong and Weak Lines: Permeable Boundaries between Church and Culture in the Letter of James By Darían Lockett ABSTRACT This article aims to reconsider the social function of purity language in the letter of James, specifically to ask whether such language indicates impermeable social boundaries and identity through difference. Looking at the relationship between Christian community and culture through the lens of purity in James indicates a demand for separation between the believing community and culture. Yet the question remains what type and degree of separation. To clarify this question the article considers the overall cultural stance of James and what it may indicate regarding the degree and kind of separation in view. The research here suggests that forcing James into either an open or sectarian social stance fails to take account of the nuanced language of the letter. Rather than categorizing the letter as entirely open or sectarian, it is better to understand the boundary lines between church and culture as definite, yet permeable—strong in the case of antithetical values deriving from the world, weak in the case of social relationships. The theological outlook of a Christian community inevitably shapes that community's stance toward society and vice- What is believed and versa. What is believed and practiced in any practiced in any Christian Christian community is demonstrated community is concretely in social interaction—if changes are ï^^-f^J^^ 617 made in behavior or social interaction, sooner or later the theology changes too. Volf claims that: in social interaction. . . . * Darían R. Lockett is Assistant Professor of New Testament in the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in La Mirada, California. 391