Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2004 Summer Issue -- Christ and Culture: A Review

Rather than simply “going with the flow” it is important for Christians to think critically about the culture in which we live and reflect deeply about how to engage the world in a way that honors God and furthers His ends. By doing so we will be better prepared to live out our God-given purpose for existence and find true fulfillment. This book is a great starting point for such reflection.

Christ and Culture addresses an age-old, yet very relevant, question: “How is the Church to interact with the broader culture in which it finds itself?” In this work, Niebuhr lays out five ways that this question has been answered over the years. He then aligns a great many historical theologians and philosophers with his five-fold typology.

In the first chapter, Niebuhr defines the terms “Christ” and “Culture” and then offers the following five answers to the question:

Christ AGAINST Culture
Culture is condemned. The world is seen as corrupt and the Church must do all that it can do to remain untainted. Christians who ascribe to this answer tend to be sectarian and often withdraw from society. This “type emphasize(s) opposition between Christ and culture. Whatever may be the customs of the society in which the Christian lives, and whatever the human achievements it conserves, Christ is seen as opposed to them, so that he confronts men with the challenge of an “either-or” decision” (:40).

The Christ OF Culture
Culture is affirmed. Those who embrace this answer often see themselves as a “Christian culture” and tend to look past the parts of culture that are not in harmony with the gospel of Christ. “Recognition of a fundamental agreement between Christ and culture is typical of the answers offered by a second group. In them Jesus often appears as a great hero of human culture history; in him, it is believed, the aspirations of men toward their values are brought to a point of culmination; he confirms what is best in the past, and guides the process of civilization to its proper goal” (:41).

NOTE: Niebuhr sees these first two as extremes on a continuum with the following three types falling between the former two.

Christ ABOVE Culture
Culture is seen as good in that it is a gift of God. Christ is the Lord of culture and came to enhance it. Christians are loyal to both, though Christ takes precedence. The “third type understands Christ’s relation to culture somewhat as the men [sic] in the second group do; he is the fulfillment of cultural aspirations and the restorer of the institutions of true society. Yet there is in him something that neither arises out of culture nor contributes directly to it. He is discontinuous as well as continuous with social life and its culture” (:44).

Christ and Culture in PARADOX
Christ and culture are of opposite natures – good and evil. Christians who accept this answer strive to be in the world, but not of the world. In this type “the duality and inescapable authority of both Christ and Culture are recognized, but the opposition between them is also accepted. To those who answer the question this way it appears that Christians throughout life are subject to the tension that accompanies obedience to two authorities who do not agree yet must be obeyed” (:42).

Christ the TRANSFORMER of Culture
Christ is superior to culture and came to redeem it along with all creation. Christians are God’s fellow workers as He works through them to accomplish his ends. The fifth type “is the conversionist solution. Those who offer it understand with the members of the first and fourth groups that human nature is fallen or perverted, and that this perversion not only appears in culture but is transmitted by it. . . . Christ is seen as the converter of man [sic] in his culture and society, not apart from these, for there is no nature without culture and no turning of men from self and idols to God save in society” (:43).

In the subsequent five chapters the author unpacks each of the positions identified above. A final chapter titled “A ‘Concluding Unscientific Postscript’” brings the book to conclusion. In this 50th Anniversary edition an additional essay “Types of Christian Ethics” (previously not part of the book) is included as an Introduction. In this little essay, Niebuhr describes his typology in abbreviated form – a perfect appetizer for the interested reader.

First published in 1951 from a series of lectures delivered on the subject, this book is a classic. That said Niebuhr’s typology is not without its critics.¹ Christ and Culture remains the starting point for the discussion of Christian social ethics.

Mark Hopkins has taught as Adjunct Instructor of Religion at Pepperdine University. He is currently Adjunct Instructor of Church in Contemporary Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary where he is a PhD candidate. >He also serves as part-time Pulpit Minister for Costa Mesa Church of Christ.

[1] See, for example, Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture, by Glen Harold Stassen, Diane M. Yeager, John Howard Yoder, and H. Richard Niebuhr. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996; “Christianity and Cultures: Transforming Niebuhr’s Categories,” by George Marsden. From a lecture delivered on February 2, 1999, at the Austin Presbyterian Seminary commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture lectures. In Insights: The Faculty Journal of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Fall 1999, Vol.115, No. 1; Christ and Culture in Dialogue: Constructive Themes and Practical Applications, by Angus J. L. Menuge. St. Louis: Concordia Academic Press, 1999; and Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989, 40.