I wish I had a list of the thinkers/books that have rocked my world over the years on various subjects. Thomas Kuhn and Eric Erikson had that effect on me in college. The Myers-Briggs personality inventory was great because it helped me understand how other people think. Bruce Malina added a third dimension to my understanding of the New Testament. Mary Douglas unlocked clean and unclean for me.
Ludwig Wittgenstein did it with language, with G. B. Caird's Language and Imagery of the Bible close behind. Michel Foucault batted Kuhn in. And almost every lunch with Keith Drury is a new insight into human politics and good leadership.
Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture is another groundbreaking work. I used his five point typology last night in philosophy class as a tool for the students to take out their assumptions about how to be Christian in the world and examine them. I argued that most of us are not even aware that we have a position on the relationship between Christ and culture. We tend to assume our intuitive position is the position with little awareness of any other option.
As usual, I have made Niebuhr my own. As I thought Mark Noll inappropriately gave places like Westminster Theological Seminary a pass (non-fundamentalist), I think it is wrong to put Calvin in the fifth, preferred category. You'll see.
1. Christ against Culture
This is the separatist view, the Christian perspective that tries to isolate itself as much as possible from the world. These are Quakers and my forebears--the people who located Houghton an hour away from the nearest McDonalds (although, to be fair, before trains I think the location was quite accessible along the Genesee River).
Holiness revivalism was probably in part a reaction to the growing secularization of America after the Civil War. My ancestors retreated from the modernism of the world into a more experiential and less heady form of Christianity. Much of the NT takes this tact in a world where changing the world seemed impossible through the normal channels. 1 Peter, Hebrews, Revelation, Jesus and Paul in relation to the Roman empire.
2. Christ in Culture
This is Christianity when it unthinkingly equates cultural values with Christian values. It is liberal Christianity when it reflects the broader culture and conservative culture during the same. What are considered the best cultural values are Christian values. It is confusing nationalism for Christianity in Nazi Germany or Bush America. It is thinking all religions are basically different versions of the same thing under the heading of loving your neighbor.
3. Christ above Culture
This is Christianity when enough of a culture is in agreement with it that it is empowered to fix the part that doesn't agree (i.e., to force the rest to obey its understanding). These are the Christian lobbyists in Washington, the Dobson machine, and the old Moral Majority. We'll see if Sojourners turns out to have this ilk. There is another way.
From my perspective, this was Calvin in Geneva with those who did not agree with him. Indeed, in my view this is the consummate Calvinist perspective (Niebuhr would disagree, I suspect) because it does not assume free will. It assumes a God whose sovereignty demands that others be forced to obey His will in the here and now, not just when Christ returns.
I think there is a more "god-ly" way to change the world.
4. Christ and Culture in Paradox
This is Luther. The world is thoroughly sinful and unredeemable. When we are dealing in the matters of the world, we cannot help but find ourselves dirty. The things of Christ are in a completely different category. This is the separation of church and state. This is the non-integration of faith and learning. When I'm doing science, it has nothing to do with doing religion. When I'm doing economics, it has nothing to do with my religion. I'm a business person following the bottom line during the week, and I worship God on Sunday.
5. Christ the Transformer of Culture
Obviously this is the category Niebuhr favors, and I do too once I have given it a Wesleyan-Arminian spin. Christ eats with sinners and does not separate from them to remain clean (Christ against culture). Christ recognizes the points where culture needs to be critiqued (Christ of culture) and doesn't consider it a lost cause (Christ and culture in paradox).
My Wesleyan spin is that Christ the transformer does not force the world to conform by changing the laws to mirror Christian values (Christ above culture) but because God wants people to choose Him of their own free will, He tries to woo them to change. He tries to influence them. He tries to change their attitudes so that their lives change.
I'm not saying that there is no time to "fix" America by changing its laws. I'm saying it's much preferable to teach and inspire a person to fish than to force one to eat a fish.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
By the way, in class I'm less clear about what I think (for example, they asked me what I thought of capital punishment and I was pretty non-committal). We actually tried to find issues where we thought each position was appropriate--times to separate, times to accommodate, times to change the laws, etc...
If I were to update Niebuhr (and I'm sure 1000's have before now), I would observe that he is thoroughly modernist and presumes that the Christian position on each issue is something we can ascertain clearly. One reason I like my version of #5 is because it allows for the uncertainty that we now more than ever recognize is part of determining God's will for a particular time, place, and situation.
Thanks...the problem becomes if someone doesn't like or want to "fish" at all. Should we still seek to "sell" them on "fishing"?...cultural values do influence us more than we would like to admit and that also means American Christian culture, as you have pointed out.
I think that your transformer of culture is a person who recognizes his own values and has the character to influence another with those values.
Ken, I would sure love to be able to have lunch with you and "Coach D" on a regular basis.
I agree, I think, with your post, except that I think Dobson and his movement are mischaracterized. They may be wrong even about themselves, but the whole conservative movement has seen themselves as preservationists against a liberal onslaught. In the minds of Dobsonites (I was one for years) it has been the ACLU and their kind who have changed laws to rid the public square from any vestige of Christianity. I realize that some notables, such as Cal Thomas, have pulled away from this movement, and are calling for an end to partisanship. I tend to fall into the preservationist camp. Back in the day, when it was legal and perhaps common enough to actually read scripture in schools, pray some sort of generic prayer, when there was stigma associated with illegitimate children, and there were no GLBT clubs on the local high school campus, we were not a theocracy, in my mind anyway.
Anyway, thats my two cents.
P. S. I finally listened to one of your lectures on Hebrews. Great stuff.
I think on number four you are right that Luther saw the great dichotomy between the two kingdoms of the world. The state can't be expected to rule according to the Gospel because it is altogether different from God's kingdom. But when it came to vocation, one of Luther's major views was that one's vocation was part of worship whether clergy or secular employment.
Lindberg says in "The European Reformations", "To Luther, the only difference between the 'religious life' and the 'secular' life is the form, not the content. Luther's abolition of distinctions among Christians opened the way for his view of the priesthood of all the baptized and of all the Christians as having a divine calling, a vocation in the world." Later he says, "If one wished to be a monk, the choice must be as free as other human vocational choices, and it should be clear that that choice is in no way superior to the choices to be, say, a farmer or a teacher." (page 99)
Maybe you were only speaking in terms of the larger society and not an individual's personal vocation so maybe I read you wrong. The way the classes have been offered at Gordon Conwell this year have had me taking a lot of Luther. Though he hasn't done a thing to change my Wesleyan theology, I do like quite a bit of what he had to say.
Mark, thanks for the info on Luther! Indeed, we cannot transform everything in culture. Really, we can only seek to transform ourselves.... And worshipping God in whatever form is commenable. But, we must not seek to impose upon others what we ourselves would not desire to be imposed upon us...such is loving our neighbor as ourselves. Uncertainty indeed when it comes to gauging "God's will" for others, as it concerns vocation.
As a Calvinist I cannot resist responding to your "slight" against him by labeling him "Christ Above Culture." Okay, I'm kidding but I disagree with your characterization.
The Christ Above Culture position is true for the majority of Christians. It's the way that the Roman Catholic church contextualized as it moved through Europe. It is the way christian bands preform rock music- whether or not they cover a secular song. This position is using the aspects of culture to promote Christ.
I don't see Calvin doing that. I think he was trying to work for the betterment of all people not just out to promote Christ- which is a better description of Christ Transforming Culture.
It is common for us to put our heroes (or even ourselves) into the Transforming Culture paradigm because (even though Niebuhr claims not to do this) he was promoting this position. There is a difficult balance to keep in maintaining this position, however. You want to change the world, but not conform to it (Christ of Culture). You don't want to escape the world (Christ Against Culture) but not use it solely to promote Christ (Christ Above Culture). I tend to fall into the Christ and Culture in Paradox position- separating the world into two spiritual and secular worlds- but I always endeavor to Christ Transforming Culture.
Thanks all for extensions and push backs. Maybe we are all mixtures of all of these depending on the issues?
I love how you say that God tries to influence people to change and become what he wants them to be. God is the persistant salesman, always trying to pitch his products and ways on uncooperative mini-gods called human beings. Maybe God would benefit from an Amway rally or attend a John Maxwell seminar and become a more effective influencer!
I like the image of a doctor better, offering healing to self-destructive patients.
I like the idea of a mighty God bringing new life to the spiritually dead and putting within them a new heart. I think that is a stronger view of a sovereign God than doctor or influencer.
Prof. Schenck: Thank you for your analysis. In what category would you place N.T. Wright or John Milbank?
Post a Comment