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Although the questions have been brewing over the last couple of months about Obama’s church and his relationship with it (even Snopes already had an article about it), it has come to a head over the last week. As someone who is writing about how different Christians engage their culture in light of Christ, I cannot avoid commenting on this topic.

There are five basic ways that Christians engage their culture, as delineated by H. Richard Niebuhr. The question I am interested in is which way describes Obama as his faith in Christ leads him to engage his culture. Rather than stereotype Obama into any one of these categories, it is more helpful to take a specific example and describe how Obama engages culture in it. Although Obama has been mentioning his faith throughout his campaign, his “More Perfect Union” speech most directly talks about it. So how does Obama engage culture in light of this speech?

Follow up:

First of all there are two things to ask about Obama that will help us understand his position here. The first question is how he views theology. From this speech we learn about his confidence in mankind, hinting at its goodness. We don’t hear much about Jesus (from a theological perspective) at all. This implies that he might have a lower view of Christology- focusing more on the humanity than the divinity of Christ. These two theological positions help us place Obama in one of two “radical” positions of Christ and Culture.

The second thing we want to know is how he views culture. Although he does believe that parts of culture are broken and maybe even sinful, he also embraces culture. For instance, he believes in a good education in some of the most respected cultural institutions in our country. He even believes in culture enough to hold and run for public office.

This combination of factors places Obama in the Christ of Culture perspective. In other words he redefines Jesus as the highest example of what our culture should be, and his Christianity in light of that image of Christ. Of course, this is my reading of his speech; it would be more accurate if he were to take the Christ and Culture Survey.

Because of Obama’s focus on change- even improvement, if we were to give him the benefit of the doubt- you might be tempted to place Obama in the Christ Transforming Culture category with Martin Luther King, Jr. While both men are incredible orators- Obama’s story about the girl at the end of his speech made me tear up- the fundamental difference between the two is that King’s higher view of Christ motivated his desire for change.

Christ of Culture and Christ Transforming Culture are often confused positions. From their own perspective each is trying to make culture into something. The difference comes from how they view Christ. The Christ of Culture group’s lower view of Christ tries to make him into their own image. Christ becomes a tool of their adjenda as they hold him up as the supreme example of their opinions. On the other hand a higher doctrine of Christ, as held by proponents of Christ Transforming Culture, Christ motivates the change as he challenges all parts of culture- even the parts they are in the midst of. For example, John Newton and William Wilberforce were proponents of slavery until Christ got a hold of them and they began to work against it. The passive, non-violent actions of Christ motivated Martin Luther King to take his stand against racism in the US. We don’t see Christ being as fundamental to Obama’s desire to change as these examples, however.