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jrbennett's review
4.0
Niebuhr’s categories for how Christ and Culture relate are essential to interacting with conversations today about how the two relate.
jrlee27's review
2.0
Usually meandering, sometimes rambling, whatever the merits of the prime text of Christ & Culture HRN does not make conveyance of his ideas to the reader easy. These would have been better served by inclusion of clearly defined introductions, summaries and charts. The inclusion of HRN's essay Introduction: Types of Christian Ethics is a definite boon which also highlights the nebulousness of the prime text. Indeed one may find it of more value in far less time.
revbeckett's review
4.0
Throughout the book, Niebuhr brilliantly describes five types of Christians who attempt to resolve “the enduring problem” of reconciling Christ with culture: Christ Against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ Above Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox, and Christ the Transformer of Culture. However, he misrepresents Lutheranism in the Christ & Culture in Paradox category. It is true that Lutheran doctrine favours paradoxes (and maintaining the tension thereof), but he misunderstands this by comparing it to dualism. Dualism originates from Gnosticism, which posits that the material and spiritual realms are opposed and therefore matter is evil. This is how he describes the Lutheran doctrine of the two realms (or kingdoms), for example. Yet Lutherans do not teach that these two kingdoms are diametrically opposed to each other, but rather they coexist while there are vital distinctions between the two. Lastly, Niebuhr possesses a singleminded bias toward the last view, “Christ the Transformer of Culture,” or “conversionist” view. His fault here is that while he discusses advantages and disadvantages of the other types, he fails to fairly critique the faults of the conversionist model of Christ & culture.
alfonsoromero's review
4.0
It's aight. It's categories are a bit contrived, but they fulfill their heuristic purpose.
dansreading2021's review
Didn’t like it. Too abstract and conceptual in its explanation.
rebelin_therye's review
3.0
Considered a classic if not THE classic text of theological work around this topic I am glad I read it to give me a base for understanding current work and theology that has sprung from it. It's an important text, however, I think that we make the mistake of holding it a bit too high on the pedestal and that we lose ourselves in it for the expense of updated and more sociologically competent works. It's good work, but it remains limited in both worldview AND misses a few points for me when it seems to be privilege centric. That is, it almost skips over oppression in a way that is somewhat uncomfortable and ignorant. This writing style, reminiscent of its time, is also meandering, and I find myself sometimes wishing we could get to the point a bit. I guess that's theology for you.
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