Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture

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Craig A. Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective. Brazos Press, 2007.

Referenced in: Christian Political Theory and Church-State Relations

LifeandLeadership.com Summary

This is a Carter’s reconsideration of the classic by H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (1951). He reinterprets Niebuhr through an Anabaptist lens. For an introductory summary and assessment of this viewpoint, consult Ron Sider’s chapter on the evangelical Anabaptist perspective in Kemeny, Church, State, and Public Justice: Five Views.

Also, it helps to understand Niebuhr’s five typologies, which are summarized in the post on Christ and Culture.

According to Carter, the chief weakness of Niebuhr is that his typologies assume a Christendom model of church-state partnership rooted historically in the ancient Roman emperor Constantine, which implies a coalition with political power and a participation in coercive violence. By contrast, Carter aligns with the Anabaptist theology of John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas, stressing a strict separation of church and state (see description of this philosophy by Ron Sider in Kemeny, Church, State, and Public Justice). This includes pacifism, nonviolent resistance against governmental abuse of power, rejection of civil religion and patriotism, and demonstrating an exemplary countercultural lifestyle.

Carter makes an important contribution to understanding the relationship between church and state, but he does so through a narrow theological lens. His “Post-Christendom Typology of Christ and Culture” divides faith traditions into six types, three on one side of a dividing line, and three on the other. The “central dividing line,” he says, is “the acceptance (one side, types 1, 2, and 3) or rejection (other side, types 4, 5, and 6) by the church of coercive violence used by the state.” (163) Faith traditions that accept coercive violence are “Christendom types,” and those that reject are “Non-Christendom types.” Historically, he sees the church from the time of Constantine until the Reformation as an “oppressive, totalitarian religious system, in which the Church became phenomenally wealthy and seriously corrupt” (85) because of its alignment with that state, which is a purveyor of coercive violence. Since the Reformation, all “Christendom types” have still coalesced with the politics of power.

While Carter frequently expresses the intent to represent a balanced and appreciative view of other viewpoints, he misses the mark. The result is a reductionist view of church history. As one Amazon reviewer expresses:

Carter’s Anabaptist glasses filter out any positive aspects of Medieval Roman Catholic faith in support of the mythos of a pure Anabaptistic remnant stretching back like a crimson thread to the Apostles. The complex tapestry of Christian history, with its often overlapping scenes of beauty and ugliness, is reduced to this one strand. History just isn’t that simple.

Also, seeing the state primarily as a source of coercive violence minimizes the many ways the state has and does express God’s intent of creating and maintain social order through peaceful means.

The above makes it all the more interesting that Carter, since writing this book, has described himself as “becoming more conservative in both politics and theology” and becoming increasingly disenchanted with writers such as John Howard Yoder, Jim Wallis, etc. (see “The “Goal of this Blog” at http://politicsofthecrossresurrected.blogspot.com/2010/02/socialist-temptation-i-introduction/, accessed 03-13-2020).

Nonetheless, the chief value of Carter’s text is in articulating an Anabaptist view of the relationship between church and state, and he does so in dialogue with other viewpoints. It is an excellent example of the separatist, countercultural, pacifist political philosophy that is implicit in much of the current literature on ministries of social justice (e.g. Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, and Shane Claiborne). For a balanced critique and a less separatist view, see Carter’s own blog (referenced above) as well as D. A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited, especially his discussion of Carter in chapter six (pp. 218-222). See also the chapter on John Howard Yoder in J. Budziszewski, Evangelicals in the Public Square.

From the Publisher

In 1951, theologian H. Richard Niebuhr published Christ and Culture, a hugely influential book that set the agenda for the church and cultural engagement for the next several decades. But Niebuhr’s model was devised in and for a predominantly Christian cultural setting. How do we best understand the church and its writers in a world that is less and less Christian? Craig Carter critiques Niebuhr’s still pervasive models and proposes a typology better suited to mission after Christendom.

Editorial Reviews

“H. Richard Niebuhr’s days are numbered. This carefully argued and well-written book should bring the curtains down on the more than fifty year reign of Niebuhr’s typology in Christ and Culture. Carter not only shows how this paradigm is inadequate for our world but offers an alternative paradigm that is at once fuller and richer for understanding the church’s social existence in the midst of a broken world that is loved by God.”—Mark Thiessen Nation, author of John Howard Yoder: Mennonite Patience, Evangelical Witness, Catholic Convictions

“Craig Carter has written an important book for everyone under the influence of H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, for everyone committed to the church’s witness in the world, and for everyone concerned about the impact of Christianity upon our common life.” – Jonathan R. Wilson, author of God So Loved the World

“This book is long overdue and much needed. Even though few works of contemporary theology are as influential as Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, there has been surprisingly little serious criticism of its main claims and organizing categories. Carter’s stimulating book provides not only a provocative critique of Niebuhr’s entire approach, it also breaks new ground by proposing an alternative understanding of the main options for the church’s mission to the world.” – Jeffrey P. Greenman, Wheaton College

“Craig Carter invites us to rethink critically the assumptions, arguments, and conclusions of Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture. With a well-developed sense of our postmodern, post-Christendom circumstances, and with fidelity to both scripture and the broad Christian tradition, he challenges the quasi-canonical status accorded to Niebuhr’s typology by many since the book’s publication in 1951, especially in the United States.” – Barry Harvey, Baylor University

“This exceedingly important and well-written book offers much more than a rethinking of Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture. In his effort to determine what is wrong with Niebuhr’s oft-cited typology, Carter digs deeply into two fundamental problems affecting not just Niebuhr but the majority of Western Christians—the church’s embrace of Christendom and its unblinking support for state violence. This book is theologically careful, historically rich, and ethically thoughtful. It is intensely relevant to the cultural moment in which we live.” – David P. Gushee, author of Only Human: Christian Reflections on the Journey Toward Wholeness

About the Author

Craig A. Carter (PhD, University of St. Michael’s College) is associate professor of religious studies at Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto, Ontario, and author of The Politics of the Cross.

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