Christ of Culture

The introduction to this series is here.
The second part, "Christ Against Culture," is here.

The second type we will look at is called "Christ of Culture."  We might call this group "cultural Christians."  For them, "Jesus Christ is the great enlightener, the great teacher, the one who directs all men in cluture to the attainment of wisdom, moral perfection, and peace." (p.92)  The tendency here is to do two things:

1. View Christ in terms of cultural values.
2. View culture in terms of compability with Christ.

In other words, there is some exchange back and forth.  The accusation many would make, of course, is that the whole endeavor is skewed toward the cultural mores of the person in question.  What detractors often don't realize, however, is that their own view of Christ may be equally as biased.  Here's a great example from recent history:

How often the Fundamentalist attack on so-called liberalism...is itself an expression of a cultural loyalty...Not all though many of these antiliberals show a greater concern for conserving the cosmological and biological notions of older cultures than for the Lordship of Jesus Christ...More significant is the fact that the mores they associates with Christ have at least as little relation to the New Testament and as much connection with social custom as have those of their opponents. (p.102)

While I do not want to be labelled as a cultural Christian, I do appreciate that such people are, at least in theory, intentional about filtering their theology through the lens of culture.  In my view, conservative Christians of the past century have been either unwilling or unable to perceive the ways in which their own theology is affected by the culture they are a part of.  Should culture be permitted to play any role in our understanding of reality?  This is a question I will continue to examine as we examine Niebuhr's other categories.

 

Comments

[sueann loney]

i am having a hard time finding research on Christ of Culture any ideals would be a great help. im doing research on an all white couple adopting an African/Vietnamese/American girl because they are from the south and all friends, family, church are all white. Just the occasional black postman or someone cutting grass. The couple wanted to adopt a girl for their granddaughter to have a companion, they adopted their granddaughter because their daughter could not take care of her . thanks so much