Hopper argues that the problem is, in a word, tolerance. He acknowledges the pragmatic worth of tolerance for getting on with necessary tasks, but expresses reservations about the sufficient, sustaining nature of tolerance for the faith community in an altered, global world. Divine Transcendence and the Culture of Change seeks to reclaim necessary dimensions of faith that have collapsed into the cultural vacuum created by thoughtless tolerance, and to restore God’s transcendence to the center of all biblical religion.
Hopper argues that the problem is, in a word, tolerance. He acknowledges the pragmatic worth of tolerance for getting on with necessary tasks, but expresses reservations about the sufficient, sustaining nature of tolerance for the faith community in an altered, global world. Divine Transcendence and the Culture of Change seeks to reclaim necessary dimensions of faith that have collapsed into the cultural vacuum created by thoughtless tolerance, and to restore God’s transcendence to the center of all biblical religion.
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Overview
Hopper argues that the problem is, in a word, tolerance. He acknowledges the pragmatic worth of tolerance for getting on with necessary tasks, but expresses reservations about the sufficient, sustaining nature of tolerance for the faith community in an altered, global world. Divine Transcendence and the Culture of Change seeks to reclaim necessary dimensions of faith that have collapsed into the cultural vacuum created by thoughtless tolerance, and to restore God’s transcendence to the center of all biblical religion.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780802865052 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company |
| Publication date: | 12/16/2010 |
| Pages: | 276 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Divine Transcendence and the Culture of Change
By David H. Hopper
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Copyright © 2011 David H. HopperAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8028-6505-2
Chapter One
Theology and Multiculturalism: A Reappraisal of the "Christ and Culture" Question
Recent decades have seen more and more talk about "culture," the conflict of cultures and/or civilizations, and the assertion of cultural and ethnic "identities." This talk goes on in the pages of our leading newspapers and journals and in our educational institutions. It is increasingly a matter of foreign policy considerations in the troubled developments of a post–Cold War, post-9/11 world. On most college and university campuses "multiculturalism" is the lodestar of curriculum development, a common selling-point in the recruitment of new students. Amidst our new "global" modes of thought it is to be expected that we should ponder the cultural differences that divide as well as attract. Certainly there is an objective historical basis for all of this discourse. But whether the talk has the concreteness it tries to project will demand ongoing scrutiny and analysis. Much of the discussion carries ideological suppositions, and there is a need to maintain a critical perspective.
In these discussions of "culture" it is generally the case — and this is readily understandable — that religion comes up for analysis primarily as an aspect of the assumed larger term. Religion has most often been understood as one, but only one, of the determining and conserving factors in a culture, along with history, crafts, folklore, literature, and varied ritual celebrations. In the contemporary embrace of multiculturalism, the quest for meaning is frequently presented as a quest for "identity" within a cultural, tribal, ethnic tradition. This often entails the effort to experience and relive neglected religious traditions. The two terms, "experience" and "identity," figure large in our present intellectual/ spiritual ethos. "Religion" is often viewed as one among the variety of options that yield an experience or an identity within a larger cultural context.
In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries anthropology appeared, for the most part, to have claimed title to the old term, "queen of the sciences." And theology, which long ago claimed that title itself, seemed put upon to describe for itself a new and lesser role. For the most part theology seemed caught up in these anthropological, multicultural trends of the recent past—at least in the United States, where discussions were pressed at times with some fervor. In the most recent past however, especially in the aftermath of the terrorist attack of 9/11, religious fervor, if not theological analysis, has regained increased attention.
In this particular context it is instructive to reexamine a work of another era — a work that addressed, well over fifty years ago, the religion and culture question in terms of the categories "Christ" and "culture." Published in 1951, H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture continues to command interest, especially among theological ethicists, though it is not often a focus of major theological analysis. Niebuhr's book spells out the variety of ways in which the Christian community, in the course of its history, interacted with its broader social/cultural context. Primarily a socio-ethical work, the book's major purpose was to outline the various historical expressions of Christian social interactions. In Christ and Culture, Niebuhr identified five types, five patterns, of relationships identifiable, though not realized fully, in the various Christian traditions and/or denominational church groups as they interact with the societies in which they find themselves. Niebuhr described the types under the headings "Christ against Culture," "the Christ of Culture," "Christ above Culture," "Christ and Culture in Paradox," and "Christ the Transformer of Culture." Let us briefly summarize each of the types as a basis for describing the shift in discussion that has taken place in recent times and continues into our present.
With the type "Christ against culture" Niebuhr offered an account of one of the oldest responses of the Christian faith-community to its surrounding social setting. The response is one of antagonism and conflict in which the Christian community sees itself called to be "in the world, but not of the world." The purposes and goals of the larger society are viewed as opposed to those of the faith community and/or "the kingdom of God." The convert, or believer, is called "out of the world" into a tight-knit community of believers, which, in the earliest years of the Christian tradition, even held material possessions "in common." The "world," in this faith perspective, was/is understood to be under the control of the forces of evil and outside the pale of redemption. Withdrawal from the world is the distinctive mark of this sociological response of faith, one in which the saving of individuals out of the world is understood to be the chief Christian task and duty. There are strong features of this "Christ against culture" response to society in the monastic movements of early Christian times and Middle Ages down to the present time. Various Protestant sectarian groups, in contrast to the "mainline churches," have reflected this pattern.
Niebuhr's second type of Christian response to the world is "the Christ of culture." In this pattern of response no great opposition is seen between Christ and culture: Christ is viewed as the embodiment of all that is best in culture, the fulfillment of its highest aspirations. The ethical teachings of Jesus are extolled as culture's highest achievement and usually there is the expectation that history will move toward an ever-fuller realization of those teachings. Although there are some expressions of this point of view in the early encounter of Christianity and Greco-Roman culture, its most common expression is found in nineteenth-century "Protestant liberalism," with its enthusiastic embrace of the rationalism of the Enlightenment and its corollary belief in Progress, also in the so-called "religion of Jesus" in contrast to assumed distortions of a "religion about Jesus."
Next in Niebuhr's analysis come three types which, in Niebuhr's words, seek to preserve the differences between the two previous types of Christ and culture, yet undertake "to hold them together in some unity" (Christ and Culture, p. 41). He identifies at this point "Christ above culture," "Christ and culture in paradox," and "Christ the transformer of culture," types represented most recognizably in Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.
With the "Christ above culture" category Niebuhr describes a relationship in which Christ is viewed as the fulfillment of culture, as one who brings into the cultural situation a meaning and possibility that is not inherent in culture itself. Culture has its legitimacy in and of itself; but, distorted by sin, the human condition requires a supra-natural redemption if an eternal bliss is to be gained in the life hereafter. Niebuhr offers the observation: "Christ is, indeed, a Christ of culture, but he is also a Christ above culture. This synthetic type is best represented by Thomas Aquinas and his followers, but it has many other representatives in both early and modern times" (p. 42).
"Christ and culture in paradox," unlike the type just described, sees in culture, in society and its institutions, no evidence of innate openings toward redemption, but rather only an ordering of human life, prescribed by God, allowing for — and needing — the proclamation of an unworldly gospel of redemption. In this tradition the believing Christian has the duty to help maintain a worldly order under the law of God while giving expression to an unworldly charity generated by the grace of forgiveness. Christ and culture live in tension with one another, in an interactive polarity. Christians of this paradoxical type are, Niebuhr writes, "like the 'Christ-against-culture' believers, yet differ from them in the conviction that obedience to God requires obedience to the institutions of society and loyalty to its members as well as obedience to a Christ who sits in judgment on that society.... [The believer] is seen as subject to two moralities, and as a citizen of two worlds that are not only discontinuous with each other but largely opposed" (pp. 42-43).
The fifth type, "Christ the transformer of culture," is referred to by Niebuhr as the "conversionist" type. He describes this outlook as consonant with the first and fourth types, which regard culture as pervaded by sin and fundamentally in opposition to the kingdom of Christ. "Yet the antithesis does not lead either to Christian separation from the world as with the first group, or to mere endurance in the expectation of a transhistorical salvation, as with the fourth. Christ is seen as the converter of ... [people in their] culture and society, not apart from these, for there is no nature without culture and no turning of [people] from self and idols to God save in society" (p. 43). Niebuhr cites Augustine and Calvin, especially the latter, as the chief exemplars of his fifth and final type.
In his "Acknowledgments" at the beginning of Christ and Culture (1951), Niebuhr states that he is very much in the debt of the German philosopher-theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) for the inspiration of much of his work and of Christ and Culture in particular. Influenced by Max Weber and others, Troeltsch, in his 1911 classic study, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, drew the important, influential distinction between the sociological forms of "church" and "sect." It is important to quote directly from Troeltsch on this matter, not only to understand Niebuhr's assimilation and use of Troeltsch's work, but also to anticipate arguments later in the present work that run counter to what Troeltsch and Niebuhr have argued.
The church, Troeltsch declared,
is that type of organization which is overwhelmingly conservative, which to a certain extent accepts the secular order, and dominates the masses; in principle, therefore, it is universal, i.e. it desires to cover the whole life of humanity.... The fully developed church ... utilizes the state and the ruling classes, and weaves these elements into her own life; she then becomes an integral part of the existing social order; from this standpoint, then, the church both stabilizes and determines the social order; in so doing, however, she becomes dependent upon the upper classes, and upon their development.
By contrast, the sects, again as described by Troeltsch, are
comparatively small groups; they aspire after personal inward perfection, and they aim at a direct personal fellowship between the members of each group. From the very beginning, therefore, they are forced to organize themselves in small groups, and to renounce the idea of dominating the world. Their attitude towards the world, the state, and society may be indifferent, tolerant, or hostile, since they have no desire to control and incorporate these forms of social life.... The sects ... are connected with the lower classes, or at least with those elements in society which are opposed to the state and to society; they work upwards from below, and not downwards from above.
Niebuhr enlarged upon and added to these two major categories described by Troeltsch to provide the five sociological types of Christ and Culture. Troeltsch's definition of the sect is incorporated into and best represented by the "Christ against culture" type. Niebuhr then revised the "church" category of Troeltsch, breaking it down into the three "churchly" forms, "Christ above culture," "Christ and culture in paradox," and "Christ the transformer of culture," all three positively related to culture in one way or another. Niebuhr added yet another type, "the Christ of culture," in which Christ essentially collapses into an immanent principle of culture and history and serves as an embodiment of the general ethically good.
The point at which Niebuhr moved beyond, or offered emendation of, Troeltsch was in his assimilation of the incisive critique of nineteenth-century liberal Protestant theology by the Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). Barth's major contributions to the theology of the twentieth century were a recapture of the biblical sense of divine transcendence and an emphasis on the importance of christology within the faith of the church. Niebuhr picked up on Barth's christocentrism and offered analysis on the basis of a "Christ" and culture dichotomy, an emphasis not found in Troeltsch. Also, in exposition of the term "Christ," Niebuhr accented elements of transcendence in Christ's teaching and person, thereby setting up the dichotomy with culture, a point that Troeltsch seems to have recognized but was inclined to talk about most often in terms of an ethical idealism found, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount.
One can note in Niebuhr's analysis of the Christ and culture issue an appreciation for the significance of divine transcendence in distinguishing alternative standpoints in the debate. Four of the five types that Niebuhr identified are marked by some form of an unworldly, divine intervention in, or disruption of, the continuities of the cultural situation. The term "God" was understood to introduce "polarities," "tensions," and "discontinuities" within the human situation. "Revelation" bore the mark of an "otherworldly" or unworldly intervention in history.
Laying aside a thorough analysis of Niebuhr's theology, which at key points is itself ambiguous on the question of divine transcendence, it is of note for our study that if, in 1951, the weight of the analysis lay with appreciation of the phenomenon of divine transcendence, in subsequent times — in relation to schools of thought such as process, "secular," and feminist theology — discussions of "religion and culture" strongly favored belief in divine immanence, at least in professional, academic circles. This pattern continues into the present, though the most recent surge of "evangelicalism" has posed new challenges for interpretation and has also had an impact in the political/academic sphere. Prior to this most recent development God was seen primarily as a principle within culture and history rather than as One standing, say, in judgment over history. The reasons for the shift toward immanence after the theological struggles of the first half of the twentieth century have not met with a great deal of scholarly agreement. It is important nonetheless to attempt an account of this shift in order to work toward some judgment about the relevance and continuing viability of Niebuhr's analysis and then to offer a statement of the continuing theological importance of divine transcendence.
Although there have always been close ties between the intellectual history of Europe and that of the United States, there have been important differences as well. In our present situation the United States seems to be the great exporter of popular culture, from blue jeans to rock 'n' roll to Jerry Lewis. But in intellectual and other aspects of "high culture," in philosophy and also in theology, the main currents have, until recent times, flowed primarily from Europe to America. Certainly it is fair to say that in the late nineteenth and at least through most of the twentieth century, American theology was more influenced by the thought of Europe than vice versa. American theology for the most part seemed to lack a dimension of "depth." It seemed always too ready to move on to the next thing. Many will no doubt disagree with this assessment, but American theology seemed inclined to want to fix things, less intent on wanting to plumb the sources and nature of faith. Of course, to this point in time, and with the exception of the Civil War and the historical experiences of racial minority groups in this country, especially the African American and Native American communities, American culture has been less subject than Europe to the tragedies of history. It seems less inclined to "take stock," more inclined to "get on" with things. Pragmatism is an American philosophy, and the American "Social Gospel" of the early decades of the twentieth century illustrates this temper. Nineteenth-century American romanticism and New England "transcendentalism" tended to absent a sense for "tragic" depth.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Divine Transcendence and the Culture of Change by David H. Hopper Copyright © 2011 by David H. Hopper. Excerpted by permission of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction ix
1 Theology and Multiculturalism: A Reappraisal of the "Christ and Culture" Question 1
2 The Idea of Progress and the Culture of Change 23
3 Divine Transcendence and the Critique of Otherworldliness: Luther 61
4 Divine Transcendence and Corporate Historical Existence: Bucer and Calvin 119
5 The English Reformation: The Ripple Effect of Reformation in Francis Bacon 167
6 Theological Summary and Discussion/Interpretation 221
Index of Names 257
Index of Subjects 261