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Title: Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr ISBN: 0-06-130003-9 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 05 October, 1956 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: This classic is a must read for students of Christianity.
Comment: Niebuhr's views, historical, cultural and religious, were solidly based in the context and culture of the late 40's and early 50's. He wrote as an ethicist who, in 1950, fully comprehended the cataclysmic failure of the German National Church. Now, over fifty years later, with the republishing of Niebuhr's book, his inquiry into the relationship of the Church and the contemporary culture remain valid, though the world and the church have dramatically changed.
In "Christ & Culture" Niebuhr describes five models of how the sacred & secular can interact. Ultimately he seeks to give insight into the question of "how shall we, as Christians, live?" I will not go into the five types, but of the five types, Niebuhr favors most the "Christ transforming Culture".
Faith, in Christ, Niebuhr believed, needs to go beyond separation, accommodation, adoration or polarization and engage dynamically the culture with the values of life that Christ espoused. Faith in Christ, through presence and social action, will transform the world. Thus, for Niebuhr, if Christ identified with the poor, we should too. If Christ took in the orphans and widows, we should too. If Christ healed the sick, we should too. Jesus is God-with-us, not to rescue us out of "all of this," but to redeem, transform, restore us and all of this. God's work of redemption is not at odds with God's work of creation. We live in the world, we create the world and we, through faith, are involved in bringing God's "kingdom come, here on earth as it is in heaven."
This is a must read for any student of Christianity. This is a serious read and it can be a bit dense and daunting at times, but it is non-the-less a Christian Classic that every pastor and thinking Christian should have in their library. Strongly recommended.
Rating: 2
Summary: A not-so Neo-Classic
Comment: Niebuhr's book has been seen as a classic for nearly half a century now, and to be honest, when I first read it I too was captivated by his typology: Christ Against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ Above Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox, and Christ the Transformer of Culture.
There are several nit-picky complaints about it-- for example, his desciption of the Mennonite Church as Christ Against Culture is not accurate. He probably meant the Old Order Amish. Second, culture seems to shift during his exposition, so that by the time you get to the end of the account you forget how he defined it. Third, and sorry if I am giving anything away, he fails to critique the fifth option (transformer) to the same extent as he does the first four. It is a bit of intellectual cheating that this position is his position of preference-- a quasi-calvinistic reformist view that wants desperately to keep Christianity relevant to the society in which it finds itself. Not to the extent of his brother, Reinhold, but certainly more than enough.
This book is more a theological treatise than an accurate historical account. The trouble is that the examples then become straw men for the theological or polemical point instead of being able to stand on their own merits.
Typologies are dangerous because they do not allow for a lot of barrier-transcending. Calling a group "Christ Against Culture" fails to consider that it too may be triving for some sort of "transformation". It may be one that is much more overtly Christian, which is considerably different from a perspective that sees the Church as the moral conscience of the secular state.
Finally, some revisions are necessary today for the diferent movements that have come up more recently. Christ the Liberator of Culture, for example.
Rating: 5
Summary: you can't read this and be unaffected.
Comment: Christ and Culture is one of those books that will forever change the way a person of faith understands their relationship to God and those around him. In part, Niebuhr is able to make this book so impactful because he himself avoids most value judgments about the merits of the perspectives he looks at; while he does (persuasively, I would add) advocate the fifth position, his discussion of each of the five categories is fair and even-handed. Indeed, his typology is consistant with his view that there is no single answer to this "enduring dilemma". No matter which of the categories you most feel compelled by, this method of even handed analysis is sure to build your appreciation of other Christian answers to the problem, and it forces you to examine your own view of this critical question.
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Title: Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement, Second Edition by David Dockery ISBN: 0801022746 Publisher: Baker Book House Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Guide to Theological Inquiry) by Kathryn Tanner ISBN: 0800630971 Publisher: Fortress Press Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics by Reinhold Niebuhr, Langdon Gilkey, Niebuhr Reinhold, Robin W. Lovin ISBN: 0664224741 Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: A Primer on Postmodernism by Stanley J. Grenz ISBN: 0802808646 Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pub. Date: February, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin ISBN: 0802804268 Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pub. Date: October, 1990 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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