Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited

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D. A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited. Eerdmans, 2008.

Referenced in: Christian Political Theory and Church-State Relations

LifeandLeadership.com Summary

This is a D. A. Carson’s revisit of classic by H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (1951). It is one of at least three volumes that revive and reassess Niebuhr, including Craig Carter’s Rethinking Christ and Culture, and T. M. Moore’s Culture Matters. Of the three, Carson is perhaps the best place to start in understanding the plethora of issues involved in the debates regarding church-and-culture and church-and-state. Carson also provides a wealth of biblical and theological wisdom to guard against extremes.

It helps to begin with a summary of Niebuhr’s five typologies, which is included in the summary of Christ and Culture.

Carson appreciates Niebuhr, and does not propose to replace him. He does, however, offer helpful critique through a conservative evangelical lens (compared to Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture, who does so through an Anabaptist/Yoder filter). He begins by describing the current challenges faced by the church which require a reframing of the issues of church and culture. This reframing cannot occur without first considering the classic that has dominated thinking on this topic for over half a century, Niebuhr. Thus in chapter one he provides an excellent summary and critique of Niebuhr’s five typologies in light of scripture and history.

Chapter two includes a discussion of Niebuhr’s chief weakness, that some of his interpretations, e.g. Christ of Culture, are too broad and fail to distinguish between orthodoxy and heresy. He assesses Niebuhr’s handling of scripture, assignment of historical figures, and view of the canon. Next, he proposes that understanding the relationship between Christ and culture must go beyond Niebuhr’s models and be guided in a positive direction through the governance of the non-negotiables of biblical theology. By this he means the great turning points of redemptive history – creation and fall, Israel and the law, Christ and the new covenant, and a heaven to be gained and a hell to be feared. He weaves into this chapter important insights from Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God, Paul’s presentation on the role of government in Romans 13, and Jesus teaching to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” He concludes from this that any single view of Christ and culture may be theologically limited by omitting, minimizing, or over-emphasizing one or more pieces of the biblical story line, e.g. appreciating God as Creator but not as Redeemer. Multiple typologies may be appropriate simultaneously, depending upon the issues at hand.

In chapter three, Carson expands the questions of church and culture by considering how the current landscape necessitates a more careful definition of culture, postmodernity, and worldview. This section may not be comprehensible to those unfamiliar with the scholarly literature in the field.

Chapter four discusses four huge cultural forces that affect our understanding of church and culture. These are the seduction of secularization, the mystique of democracy, the worship of freedom, and the lust for power. He argues that each of these, including power, may be good or evil. This chapter provides a balanced corrective to much of the literature in social justice circles that attributes disproportionate evil to the workings of power.

Chapter five clarifies issues of church and state. Carson offers definitions of key terms such as religion, church, state, nation, faith, and society. This is followed by a discussion of the diversity of ways the New Testament treats the relationship between church and state in the first century, including comments on Mark 12 (“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”) and Romans 13. He also covers issues such as opposition and persecution, restricted confrontation, differing fundamental allegiances, the implications of Jesus’ servant leadership on the various styles of governmental rule and the exercise of authority, the transformational effect of Christian belief and practice on the larger society, and Christ’s ultimate victory. Next he suggests implications of this New Testament backdrop for American issues such as “the wall of separation between church and state” and pacifism vs. just war (e.g. Stanley Hauerwas, Glen Stassen, and David Gushee as influenced by John Howard Yoder).

In chapter six, the conclusion, Carson recaps the contents of his book up that point. He also discusses some of the “disappointed agendas and frustrated utopias” of various Christian groups. This includes The Fundamentalist Option, Luther and His Heirs, Abraham Kuyper, Minimalist Expectations, Post-Christendom Perspectives (e.g. Craig Carter, John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas), and Persecution. The third and final step is the Conclusion.

For the purposes of LifeandLeadership.com, chapters five and six are incredibly valuable. These chapters provide an excellent starting point to evaluate the “Jesus and Empire” perspective found in the popular literature such as Shane Claiborne in Jesus for President (though Carson never mentions Claiborne). It is perhaps one of the best overviews available of the authors and perspectives on how kingdom ethics informs church/state relations. It is more broad than deep, but more objective than most, with sufficient insight and direction for the serious student to launch from his foundations.

As stated above, Carson is probably the best place to start in achieving an academically objective exposure to issues of church and state. While it does less to articulate a refined philosophy on church/state relations, it adeptly places other authors and schools of thought in perspective, helping one to be guided by the full wealth of biblical teaching on the pertinent subjects. This may result in less acquiescence to the impassioned advocacy of leading authors and a greater capacity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their proposals.

From the Publisher

Called to live in the world, but not to be of it, Christians must maintain a balancing act that becomes more precarious the further our culture departs from its Judeo-Christian roots. How should members of the church interact with such a culture, especially as deeply enmeshed as most of us have become?

D. A. Carson applies his masterful touch to this problem. He begins by exploring the classic typology of H. Richard Niebuhr and his five options for understanding culture. Carson proposes that these disparate options are in reality one still larger vision. Using the Bible’s own story line and the categories of biblical theology, he attempts to work out what that unifying vision is. Carson acknowledges the helpfulness of Niebuhr’s grid and other similar matrices but warns against giving them canonical force.

More than just theoretical, Christ and Culture Revisited is also designed practically to help Christians untangle current messy debates on living in the world. Carson emphasizes that the relation between Christ and culture is not limited to an either/or cultural paradigm — Christ against culture or Christ transforming culture. Instead Carson offers his own paradigm in which all the categories of biblical theology must be kept in mind simultaneously to inform the Christian worldview.

Though several other books on culture interact with Niebuhr, none of them takes anything like the biblical-theological approach adopted here. Ground-breaking and challenging, Christ and Culture Revisited is a tour de force.

About the Author

D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois. He has written nearly fifty other books, including The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism and How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil.

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Church and Culture, Church and State, Political Theology, Social Ministry