Book
Craig A. Carter. Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006.
Reviewer
Duane K. Friesen, Edmund G. Kaufman Professor Emeritus of Bible and Religion, Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas
Craig Carter has two purposes in writing this book. The main theme is a critique of Christendom, which he argues is the underlying presupposition of H.R. Niebuhr's classic, Christ and Culture. Carter defines Christendom as the “concept of Western civilization as having a religious arm (the church) and a secular arm (civil government), both of which are united in their adherence to Christian faith, which is seen as the so-called soul of Europe or the West” (78). He correlates Christendom with tendencies toward a docetic Christology that denies Jesus is fully normative for ethics. Christians with Christendom assumptions legitimate violence to further the aims of civil government. Carter argues for a post-Christendom christology that is fully consistent with the Nicene Creed. If Jesus is both divine and fully human, then his incarnation is normative for a Christian's relationship to culture, which mandates the rejection of violent coercion.
The author’s second purpose is the development of a post-Christendom typology as an alternative to Niebuhr's five types in Christ and Culture. He describes how Niebuhr's rhetorical style effectively convinced readers that the fifth type, “Christ Transforming Culture,” has advantages over the other types. He builds on John Howard Yoder's criticism of Niebuhr by arguing that Niebuhr's Christendom assumptions led him to be least objective in describing the “Christ against Culture” type.
Carter goes beyond Yoder to construct an alternative typology. He defines his project not as a taxonomy to classify empirical data but a typology, a heuristic device for analyzing and comparing that data. This responds to James Gustafson’s objection in the foreword to the new edition of Christ and Culture that Niebuhr's critics fail to make this distinction. Carter's standard for a good typology is not whether it fits empirical reality but whether it helps “to illumine the choices …we face in Christian ethics” (63).
The author builds on and modifies the outlines of a typology I proposed at meetings of the Society of Christian Ethics in 2003. Carter constructs six types. Three are Christendom types that accept violent coercion: Christ legitimizing culture (e.g., the German Christians); Christ humanizing culture (e.g., Luther, Billy Graham); and Christ transforming culture (e.g., Augustine, Cromwell). Three are non-Christendom types that reject violent coercion: Christ transforming culture (e.g., William Penn, Martin L. King, Jr.); Christ humanizing culture (e.g., Mother Teresa, Mennonite Central Committee); and Christ separating from culture (e.g., St. Benedict, the Amish). For each type Carter examines the biblical support, its view of Jesus’ teaching, and its christology, particularly whether it is consistent with Nicea.
Carter's typology succeeds in discriminating three non-Christendom types that Niebuhr conflated into the “Christ Against Culture” type. He also shows that the transformation of culture is developed with different meanings within both Christendom and non-Christendom types. Carter improves on Niebuhr, because his typology illuminates options in church history that Niebuhr treated inadequately or failed to identify.
In other ways, the typology does not succeed as well. Carter’s normative argument against the Christendom types, which at times becomes quite polemical and pejorative (especially his portrayal of the United Church of Canada, 23-24), works at cross purposes with an objective typology that fairly sets forth the ethical options that appear in church history. We do not gain much ground if in criticizing Niebuhr's negative portrayal of the “Christ Against Culture” type we create other stereotypes in which proponents of those types (e.g., Niebuhrians) cannot recognize themselves.
Carter could better accomplish both purposes if he incorporated more sociological analysis such as the strength of Ernst Troeltsch's original church/sect typology. Though many Christians may still hold onto Christendom assumptions, the secularization process, such as the rise of liberal democracy, has eroded several main features of Christendom. Niebuhr and many other “Christendom” types defend religious liberty and pluralism, two central features of a post-Christendom world.
Is the justification of violent force always necessarily to be equated with Christendom? A careful typology must show how some Christians who meet Carter's standard of a Nicene Christology might support limited violent force, and if not war, then police force to protect the neighbor from harm. A Barthian theology of prophetic cultural criticism keeps Carter from showing how Niebuhr too is a critic of his culture, especially its racism and the social forces dividing the church. Though Niebuhr was not a pacifist, he was severe critic of war and the conduct of both sides in World War II. I do not find it inconceivable, as does Carter, that in the German context Niebuhr might have supported the Barmen Declaration.
Though Carter makes improvements to Niebuhr’s typology, we still need a more objective and fair typology that illuminates the options in relating Christ and culture.