Christ and Culture, Book Review Example

This is a book review of the book “Christ and Culture” which is authored by Richard Niebuhr and was published in1956 by Harper & Row publishers. The author main theme of the book is Christianity versus Culture, which has made its scope go behold Christianity faith. In the book he has been able to elaborate on how Christianity relate to culture and how it influence each other bearing in mind that Christ is sinless/perfect and he tends to mingle with imperfection which has been promoted by the relationship of civilization and Christianity. Richard views on how human beings endure problems in attempts to balance Christianity and culture which brings up civilization.

The author devised five views on how Christians tries to deal with the problem which includes “Christ of Culture, Christ against culture, Christ and cultural paradox, Christ above culture and finalizes with Christ transformation of culture”. The five views are the one which the author has elaborated all through the book to enlighten the readers on how Christianity relates to culture during civilization. In Christ against culture the author mainly focused on the uncompromising views which Christ has over culture. He elaborated on the counterpart of being loyal to Christ and those whom he referred not to be in agreement with the teaching of Christ hence being referred to as the children of the world.

However, those who have opted to reject the world it has not been easy for them as they had to endure mental and physical suffering and be willing to abandon properties such as homes and didn’t have government protection on their safety. Niebuhr argued that separation of Christianity and the world has never been achieved at any given time neither does it seem to be supportable.

He further stressed that there have been false notion that sin actually lies in culture hence those Christian who keeps off culture deceives themselves that they have escaped sin. Niebuhr stated that this not the case and people have been mislead as such separation makes them not recognize the spirit role of creation. Therefore, they have divided the world into material realm which is being governed by principles which oppose spiritual realm which is governed by Christ.

He also wrote about “Christ of Culture” whom he stated that women and men refer to Jesus as the Messiah of the societies which they belong to. In such cases Christ become of Culture to such a society and he is refereed to as the one who fulfills their aspirations and hopes and ensure their faith is perfect and he is being proclaimed as the source of the society holiest spirit. Such people in the society assure that they maintain to have fellowship with both unbelievers and believers. The author further elaborates that those who hails Jesus as the Messiah of their societies and they do not experience much tension between the world and the church. Instead they embrace culture and interpret it through Christ and gather the teachings which they get from Christ and harmonize it to fit best with civilization.

The author discussed about of Christ being above culture, this perspective does not at all make a scene of a battle between culture and Christ but instead opens up a battle field between man and God in a perspective of a sinful man and a God who is holy. In his writing he made sure that he made it clear that God orders culture and therefore it is neither bad nor is it good.

In his elaboration on Christ being above culture he said wrote that when one sins against the will of Christ by rebelling against God is mainly expressed in cultural terms. Therefore it is not possible to separate grace of God and the work of human culture. Use of this argument that Christ is above culture attempts to balance culture and seeing Christ. By use of this argument it is essential in development of moral law which the society should follow and the involvement of the society. He stated that when God has created man being a social being therefore its quite impossible for the society to be able to function well without the directions from God.

As Christ the Culture in Paradox view it is much similar as Christ and culture, he stated that people in this group want to hold together responsibility for culture and loyalty which they have on Christ. Such people reflect that the relation of Christ and culture there is a conflict which arises due to sin which is evident in culture. Therefore, when one is dealing with God and culture there is the tendency of seeing both the grace of Christ and sin of the culture hence the conflict between the two.

This view has also been reflected in the biblical tension which shows Christians in this world. The author states that man is under law of stipulated by culture and not under law but grace. He further specify that the paradox arise when one is viewed as being a sinner because of following cultural teachings and at the same time being righteous because of following the teachings of Christ. Due to this conflict Christians are not able to say anything which is regarded as being meaningful concerning their culture. This has mainly brought in confusion as neither do such people act in favor of Christ or Culture fully hence being in a state which Niebuhr specified as being compromising Christianity.

The author has also based his writing on Christ being a transformer of culture, in his argument he refers to Christ being in a position of giving hope towards culture by transforming it. The theological support which he used is God being the creator he has powers to transform culture to what he wants it to be to be suitable to man so that he would be not sinful when he follow the culture. Through the grace of God he can as well transform culture and human life to his glory. Therefore, he argued that because God has a hand on creativity of what is being done in human creativity and if there is any sin in culture it is believed that it is not all lost there has been hope through Christ who is in a position to redeem cultures. Hence, one would be able to defeat sin neither by fighting it nor by escaping it but by focus ones eye on Christ and the desire of being God oriented and positive will be the one which will enable someone to defeat sin.

The author has made the book clear and well organized for easy flow of his thoughts and understanding of the readers. Hence, the theme of relationship of Christianity and Culture is clear and evident in every sections of the book and he has not deviated out of the subject being discussed in the book. The author has made enough research which has enabled him to conclusively discus five different view of relationship of Christ and culture full with each of the views positive and negative aspect to man, culture or Christianity affiliation. The author has been able to fulfill my curiosity about the subject because he has provided it in different perspectives which has enabled me indentify with much of what he has written about as well as being able to evaluate my self and select the views which I belong. In its conclusion there have been no biases on how he has concluded the subject being discussed in his proposal he specified that people should move from insight to decision and consideration to action. He further stated that the problem of culture and Christ could not be solved through study but by individual believers making free decisions and being responsible communities

I would recommend people to read this book as it is informative and enables one understand the aspect of Christianity and culture and how they relate with each other. It also provides different perspectives of how different people view on culture and Christianity and further explains on positives and negatives of each of the five views which include. “Christ of Culture, Christ against culture, Christ and cultural paradox, Christ above culture and finalizes with Christ transformation of culture”. By the time one is through with the book he would be able to indentify with the views on which he belongs in and evaluates him or herself if it’s the correct one to be followed.

References

Niebuhr, R. (1956). Christ and Culture. New York: Harper & Row