If the Old Testament can enlighten Christians on how best to interact with their culture, what does it teach us?
If the Bible is our guide for faith and practice, it seems to me that it will serve us in our quest to know how best to interact with our culture as Christians. But when we come to Niebuhr’s book, Christ and Culture, we see only half of the Bible considered- the New Testament. Is there something we can learn from the Old Testament to help us know how to interact with the world around us?
As discussed in an earlier post, every position of Christ and Culture refers to the Bible in some way. Our quest, as we study these positions, is to consider the entire Scriptures, and let them challenge our preconceived notions, rather than find some passages that support our position.
Still, it is helpful to consider whatever passages a position might quote to defend themselves. If you took any of these passages out of context and alone, you would probably conclude that the particular view of Christ and Culture was correct. Here are some possible passages each position might invoke to defend their unique approach to culture:
Niebuhr gave us four reasons why we should be hesitant to commit to any of the ways Christians have engaged their culture. But is he correct? Can the Bible give us an answer where Niebuhr could not?
This article offers a critique of Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture paradigm, stating that his liberal, pluralistic theology naturally lead him to disingenuously conclude that Christ Transforms Culture is the correct perspective despite his claims to remain neutral and not commit to any one perspective.
This article is one of the best I’ve read on Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture in a long time. I think it has a good handle on what Niebuhr was trying to say and summarizes the various critiques to his theories- and I say this having read a lot on this topic.
Lately in the Christian world there has been an increasing debate over environmentalism. Some would like to include environmentalism among the other political issues Christians feel are important. Others reject environmentalism as an unnecessary distraction- for various and sundry reasons.
As with most opinions on controversial topics the complexity of reasons can only be surpassed by the diversity of opinions. In order to better understand the reasons behind various Christian perspectives towards the environment I would like to filter the opinions through the eyes of H. Richard Niebuhr.
Niebuhr was an American theologian who is perhaps best known for his typology describing the various ways Christians engage their culture. In his seminal book on this subject, Christ and Culture, Niebuhr divides Christianity into five different perspectives based upon how they might approach their culture.
Back to the topic of the day: how would a proponent of one of Niebuhr’s particular categories approach then environment as an issue?
I’ve been preaching a series on the Lord’s Prayer lately (with the help of the Simpsons) and was wondering how people from different perspectives on Christ and Culture would mean “thy kingdom come” when they pray this in the Lord’s Prayer.
Yesterday the theology & culture blog posted Alster McGrath’s definitions of Niebuhr’s five perspectives as found in Christian Theology (wow! the book is available to view at Google!). I thought these definitions are so clear, that I wanted to share them too.
The New Dictionary of Theology’s entry on “Niebuhr, H. Richard” (the author of the book, Christ and Culture, upon which this discussion is based) defines his five categories as follows: