H. Richard Niebuhr: The Interaction Between Christianity And Culture

Throughout history Christians have struggled with many questions regarding their faith and theology. One in particular that Christians have tried to answer since the time of Apostle Paul is should Christians interact with culture and how do they interact with it? Many theologians, priests, saints, and radicals have fashioned their own approach to this question. But how is one supposed to remove him or herself from culture, if that is indeed what is required, when the pieces of culture are far reaching and include almost all aspects of the human experience. Today culture means different things to different individuals based on their location, ethnicity, race, and social class. Due to this confusion, culture, in this argument, denotes dominant structures represented by “higher learning, secular reasoning, and the arts… government, business, and the common ideologies and …show more content…
One of these is H. Richard Niebuhr; he proposes the majority of Christians interact with Christ and culture in five unique ways. The first of theses he terms Christ against culture, this type argues Christians should separate themselves from culture. The Christ against culture type “uncompromisingly affirms the sole authority of Christ over the Christians and resolutely rejects culture’s claims to loyalty” (45). This can be taken to extremes—often proponents of this type renounce reason, are rigid legalists, and deny the God in favor of spirituality. The second type, Christ of culture, argues the other extreme, advocates of this type “harmonize Christ and culture…[and] seek to understand the transcendent realm as continuous in time or character with present life” (84). However, in trying to understand the character of Jesus by their own cultural values, their comprehension of Christ’s multifaceted character is limited. These “cultural Christians” may have departed from truth in favor of