Issues Facing Missions
Today 32: Christ For Culture in a
Post-Christian World
Just how
should Christians engage culture in a post-Christian age? This is the question of mission to the
Western world. This brief consideration
of the question will begin with H. Richard Niebuhr’s work on this subject and
then proceed to three suggestions.
H. Richard Niebuhr and His ‘Christ
and Culture’ Paradigms
For over
sixty years, now, academics have appealed to or started with the five paradigms
of H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and
Culture to discuss the question of the relation between the Church and
culture.[1]
Niebuhr thought any one of the
paradigms could be derived from Scripture and articulated theologically, but he
clearly preferred the ‘Christ transforming option.’ The following chart offers a brief way to
represent his categories.
Christ Against Culture
|
Christ Above Culture
|
Christ Transforming Culture
|
Christ and Culture in Paradox
|
Christ of Culture
|
Church opposes and lives distinct from culture
|
Church controls culture
|
Church works to transform culture
|
Life in the Church and in society are somewhat
distinct
|
Culture controls life in the Church
|
The word
‘transformation’ has become the way
in which everyone speaks about his or her way to engage society and
culture. Thus, one of the major problems
with Niebuhr’s categories is that each paradigm can be represented as a way to
transform culture, not just the one getting the lucky label ‘Christ
Transforming Culture’. Anabaptists, for
example, would most naturally be placed in the ‘Christ Against Culture’
category. However, their view may offer
the most hopeful way to transform culture and not be cast simply
as a way to disengage from the wider culture.[2] Living ‘against the grain’ may offer a ‘Christ
for Culture’ alternative to Niebuhr’s
five paradigms. As E. R. Dodds argued in
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety,
Christianity won out over the other European religions in its first few
centuries for the following reasons:[3]
- It was
exclusivistic, offering a dogmatic faith within a syncretistic culture;
- It was
socially inclusive, being open to all economic groups, races, and not just
to men (as Mithraism) but also women, children, and slaves;
- It raised
the stakes, offering life in Christ or eternal damnation;
- It offered
a loving community of mutual concern.
Another problem with Niebuhr’s
categories is that they are not all options Biblically—and neither are the
various options within each paradigm that some have adopted in Church history.[4] This is not just a matter of the exegesis of
particular texts in Scripture but also a matter of having some understanding of
hermeneutics (how we use Scripture) and Biblical theology (how the diverse
authors and writings of Scripture over time fit together coherently). One cannot merely slap a text onto a model
and claim that it is Biblical. Most
significantly, the move from God’s people as a theocracy in the Old Testament
to a Church throughout the world in the New Testament, and the new identity of
God’s people as shaped by the cross of Christ, lead to a radically different
use of and approach to particular Scriptural passages. As Christians, for example, we would feel
uncomfortable with the exilic prayer of Israel in Babylon that concludes with
Psalm 137.9 ‘Blessed shall he be who
takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!’
precisely
because Jesus said,
Matthew 5.44 ‘Love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you.’
Three (Related) Suggestions
As
Christianity (which originated in the Middle East as a fulfillment in Jesus
Christ of the hopes of Israel) finds itself the despised parent of Western
culture, it needs to engage in all seriousness the question of how it will
relate to its wayward child. This is a
very large discussion, to be sure. I
will, therefore, offer only a few of the many things that need to be suggested
in a longer reflection.
A Minority Identity
First, as
John Howard Yoder began to teach Evangelicals in the 1970s, we need to stop
thinking of ourselves as a ‘majority.’[5] These forty years later, most Evangelicals in
the United States have still not made this shift in their thinking. They still want to grasp the levers of power,
defend territory as ‘Christian’, hope to appoint Christians to high office,
‘retake’ the schools, pray confessionally in public places before diverse
audiences, insist that Christmas is their holy day and not the major retail
holiday of Western capitalism, and support military troops no matter the war or
the cause simply because ‘God and country’ go together like pancakes and
syrup. Once we realize that Christians
are not a majority (as European Christians know full well!), that this really
never was the case, and that this certainly will not be the case going forward,
we will be free to offer that counter-testimony to culture that finally, really
engages culture and, therefore, may actually bring some degree of
transformation—as in the early Church.
Once we realize this, then we begin to understand that in discussions of
social issues, the word ‘we’ means ‘we as Christians,’ not ‘we as citizens of
this or that country.’ This is no more
anti-patriotic or against culture than Paul, who could understand ‘we’ to mean
‘Christians’ while still speaking of being subject to those in authority
through paying taxes, showing respect, and honouring those to whom honour is
owed (Romans 13.1-7). (Naïve patriotism
will, of course, be criticized repeatedly by people who want more for their
country than the status quo.) Paul, who
was ultimately beheaded by the Romans, could say in his lifetime,
1 Timothy 2.1-2 ‘I urge that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who
are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and
dignified in every way.’
Prayer for
those in high positions is not an endorsement of what they do but a prayer that
they do what is right and not make life too difficult for believers.
Ministry to Culture (‘Christ for Culture’)
Second,
precisely by understanding ‘we’ as a minority group distinct from culture,
believers can minister to culture more significantly. Medical personnel, for example, might see
themselves as citizens of a given country, but their ‘office’ as healers commits
them to help persons on either side of a conflict. Christians, likewise, have an ‘office’—or,
better, a role—in the world as ones through whom the Gospel of Jesus Christ
comes to all peoples, including enemies.
The further removed culture is from Christianity, the more Christian
justice and righteousness, defined by Scripture and the witness of the Church
through the ages, will look foreign, impractical, and even unjust and
unrighteous. But it will, for that reason,
stand out more starkly in the culture.
As Paul says, ‘When anything is exposed by the light, it becomes
visible’ (Ephesians 5.13)—meaning that Christians should take no part in the
darkness of their culture but expose it for what it is. The early Christians intentionally and
inevitably engaged the world while being careful not to take ahold of the
world’s wiles or ways. Jesus said,
John 17:15 ‘I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them
from the evil one.’
Maintaining Convictions and Practices
Thus, third,
by understanding their identity in Christ as a unique identity, distinct from
the cultures of the world, Christians can maintain their convictions and
practices more intentionally. This does not
(except in cases of severe persecution) entail life as some obscure sect hiding
from the wicked society but it may well mean living as a light on a hill and
the salt of the earth (Matthew 5.13-16).
Paul, too, warned believers not to be ‘conformed to this world’
precisely because, through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ—the mercies of
God—it was now possible to be ‘transformed by the renewing of your minds’
(Romans 12.2). Early Christians saw this
transformation as a foretaste of the resurrection from the dead, for already
they began to live the new, Christian life.
They could say to one another, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the
dead, and Christ will shine on you’ (Ephesians 5.14).
Conclusion
The Church’s
mission is not a saving message to individuals that can easily fit into
whatever culture there is. It is often a
radical clash of cultures precisely because it entails Christians identifying
themselves over against culture as a minority group, seeing their role not as a
separation from or domination of culture but offering Christ for culture, and maintaining their own convictions and practices. Pagan sacrifices to other gods and spirits
cease, injustices are called out, the ways and means to achieve good ends are
upended by the cross,[6]
and society is not strong-armed into God’s Kingdom but God’s people witness
by their confession of faith and community (their ‘economics’ and ‘politics’)
what God’s in-breaking Kingdom means for the
culture of their day.
[1] H.
Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture
(New York: Harper, 1951).
[2]
See, e.g., Glen H. Stassen, D. M. Yeager, and John Howard Yoder, Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of
Christ and Culture (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995).
[3] E.R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of
Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to
Constantine (1965).
[4]
Readers might pursue this point by reading Donald Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012).
[5]
John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972).
[6]
See, for example, Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity:
Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2001).