A review by revbeckett
Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr

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.