Niebuhr’s Five Viewpoints

Niebuhr discusses at length in Christ and Culture how Christians have and do interact with the culture they live in. These five viewpoints are summarized below:

Christ against culture

This viewpoint holds that Christ is the sole authority and that the Christian owes no loyalty to culture.[1] This has the effect of segregating the believer from culture, and making their Christian walk almost monastic. The Christian should hold no political office, not serve in any military capacity, shun philosophy and the arts, essentially remove themselves from any kind of public life. Niebuhr stated that “(t)he movement of withdrawal and renunciation is a necessary element in every Christian life, even though it be followed by an equally necessary movement of responsible engagement in cultural tasks.”[2]

Theologically, he points out that those with this view can often be accused of legalism and of neglecting grace in the Christian life. This can lead to the creation of rules which will overstep the saving grace of Christ.

Christ of culture

The second viewpoint Niebuhr explores is that of the Christ of culture, the view that while one considers one’s self a Christian, they still hold great allegiances to culture. These people “interpret culture through Christ” but “understand Christ through culture.”[3] Niebuhr compares those who hold this viewpoint to the early Gnostics, people who are trying to synthesize Christ with contemporary reason, philosophy, and science.

Like the Christ against culture believers, the Christ of culture adherents have issues associated with grace and sin, though typically on the other end of the spectrum. These believers think reason “the highest road to the knowledge of God and salvation.”[4]

Christ above culture

If the previous two viewpoints represent opposite ends of the spectrum, Christ above culture falls directly in the middle. This type represents the large center of Christianity. Rather than focusing on the struggle between Christ and culture, adherents appear to be more concerned with the relationship between God and man.[5] Thus, not much attention is paid to the issue of Christ versus culture. This does not mean that believers with this viewpoint do not hold to the authority of Christ, but simply that they don’t believe that Christ and the world can be opposed to each other. This is the synthetic view, which holds that one can live in both the Christian culture and the worldly culture at the same time. This person’s knowledge of the meaning of Christ differentiates him from the Christ of culture type, but his appreciation of culture separates him from the Christ above culture viewpoint.

The first issue with this type of belief is that this is a type of spiritual pragmatism where the ends justify the means. By synthesizing the two previous viewpoints, Christ above culture becomes a melting pot of everything. It inherits the problems with grace and sin, but includes a new problem of the institutionalization of the church, making something Christ freely did for all humanity more like a human achievement.[6] Niebuhr adds that throughout history, an adherent to this belief “tends to devote himself to the restoration or conservation of a culture and thus becomes a cultural Christian.”[7]

Christ and culture in paradox

To the believers in the paradox between Christ and culture, one cannot compare God and man, much less Christ and culture. While previous viewpoints hold human achievement in some regard, those who believe in the paradox “see that all their works and their work are not only pitifully inadequate, measure by that standard of goodness, but sordid and depraved.”[8] Thus nothing could redeem the culture except Christ, but Christ is not in the culture. The paradoxical believers typically consist of those who are worldly-minded but wish to acknowledge Christ slightly, or those who are radically pious and feel they owe some allegiance to culture.[9]

Christ transforming culture

The final viewpoint that Niebuhr expounds on is that of Christ transforming culture. These adherents have a decidedly more positive view of culture and tend to live more in the theological “now”, believing in what Christ can do to the culture. They have “a view of history that holds that to God all things are possible in a history that is fundamentally not a course of merely human events but always a dramatic interaction between God and men.”[10]

Why Christ and Culture?

The main point that Niebuhr makes is that Christians are constantly interfacing with the culture. Whether intentionally rejecting the culture and embracing faith, or embracing the culture and casually acknowledging faith, Christians are constantly in the trenches in the war with culture. Since this is the case, knowledge of theology is crucial. One must be able to apply theology to their culture, regardless of their particular viewpoint.

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[1] Ibid., 45

[2] Ibid., 68

[3] Ibid., 83

[4] Ibid., 110

[5] Ibid., 117

[6] Ibid., 147

[7] Ibid., 146

[8] Ibid., 152

[9] Ibid., 184

[10] Ibid., 194