zimmerBlog

I’ve been waiting on this book for a while and finally got to it a week or so ago. Although I have only had time to read a chapter (and the introduction) I am impressed and think this book could be everything I’ve looked forward to.

For one Carson’s world is very different than Niebuhr’s. This is clear from Niebuhr’s initial definition of “culture.” He, as many critics notice, almost takes “culture” for granted in his homogeneous 1950s WASP post WWII United States world. As Carson notes, today the world is much more multicultural. This is a point a brother of mine from India has brought to my attention. As I work through the issues of Christ and Culture, I hope the web will help more people from outside the United States will contribute to this discussion. Meanwhile I look forward to reading Carson’s book and seeing how multiculturalism affects Christ and Culture.

There is one problem I found with Carson’s initial description of Niebuhr, however. Although this slight exegetical error might have no real bearing, I think it misunderstands his categories. Carson correctly notes there are two radical positions in Niebuhr’s paradigm: Christ Against Culture and Christ of Culture. However he mis-labels the three remaining perspectives as all being Christ Above Culture. He stumbles over himself a little as he maintains that Christ Above Culture is both a perspective and category that includes itself along with Christ and Culture in Paradox and Christ Transforming Culture.

The error is that Niebuhr separates the first two perspectives as “extreme” ones and the later three as “centrist” not Christ Above Culture. As Niebuhr says (page 119-120):

Despite common characteristics, the Christians of the center do not constitute one ordered group in their attack on the Christ-culture problem. There are at least three distinguishable families among them; and each of them may at special times or on certain specific issues find itself more closely allied to one of the extreme parties than to the other movements in the central church. We have named them synthesists, dualists, and conversionists; and shall now try to give representatives of each.

This confusion might come from the fact that Niebuhr introduces the centrist positions in his chapter on Christ Above Culture.

I hope this distinction is helpful by offering more clarity and not nit-picky.