There will always be arguments about culture that range from the number of reality TV shows on the air at any given time, to the academic dissemination of mores and belief from the university level into the dominant 'culture'. Similarly, Christians have been arguing about how to 'do' culture, what to make of it, etc. since the beginning of Christianity.
A 20th century writer named H. Richard Niebuhr gave five categories for thinking about culture that are broad enough to help us think about it, and narrow enough to actually explain some of how we ought to then live - in regards to 'culture'. In summary:
Christ against Culture. For the exclusive Christian, history is the story of a rising church or Christian culture and a dying pagan civilization.
Christ of Culture. For the cultural Christian, history is the story of the Spirit’s encounter with nature.
Christ above Culture. For the synthesist, history is a period of preparation under law, reason, gospel, and church for an ultimate communion of the soul with God.
Christ and Culture in Paradox. For the dualist, history is the time of struggle between faith and unbelief, a period between the giving of the promise of life and its fulfillment.
Christ Transforming Culture. For the conversionist, history is the story of God’s mighty deeds and humanity’s response to them. Conversionists live somewhat less “between the times” and somewhat more in the divine “now” than do the followers listed above. Eternity, to the conversionist, focuses less on the action of God before time or life with God after time, and more on the presence of God in time. Hence the conversionist is more concerned with the divine possibility of a present renewal than with conservation of what has been given in creation or preparing for what will be given in a final redemption.
Typically, churches like Riverside have taken the fifth option. Now, there are issues with such broad categories. For instance, we (Riverside) would call ourselves 'Reformed' after the Reformers of the 16th century. Well, they certainly didn't agree on this, and Martin Luther is probably in the "Christ and Culture in paradox" camp.
ANYWAY, Riverside has a few programs that come out of our thinking on this topic. The Art Gallery: which exists for art and artists; with sub-hopes about what happens when a church is so fully behind such aspects of culture. On Tap: which exists for an almost naive belief in the power of conversation and dialogue; with similar sub-hopes.
The goal is to promote art and conversation. The assumption is that those two things are not easy to promote. The further assumption is that Christianity ought to bear weight in those places - but that that conversation is a long one, and one that probably begins with a lot of learning and listening. I hope you will join us with an openness to great art, great conversation. And then, to learn together what it means to observe Christianly (art), and to dialogue Christianly about Health Care (our September topic), or movies, or good food.
Thoughts???
Discuss...
-Matt Blazer
Great summary of Niebuhr and his perspectives. I wish more Christians would think about the relationship between Christ and Culture more intentionally like you are doing. Keep up the good work.
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