In 1951, H. Richard Niebuhr wrote a now-classic study of the relationship between one's beliefs concerning Jesus as the Christ and culture, which Niebuhr understood rather broadly as a mix of what we now call society and the cultural products of society. He gave four general views as distinct approaches which, while fuzzy around the edges, serve as a good typology for the ways the Christian churches have stood in relationship to the societies in which they exist, and of which they are a part. They were, in the order in which they appear in his book, "Christ Against Culture", "The Christ of Culture", "Christ Above Culture", and "Christ and Culture in Paradox". While dated in many respects, I think these distinctions are important as an intellectual exercise for interpretation. I do not think that they are necessarily good guides for figuring out a "best way to be the Church", however. We all feel our way along as best we can, of course, and often change our minds. For me, at this point in time, I would like to offer what I think is both a descriptive and proscriptive assessment of the relationship between the Churches and our contemporary American society and culture.
I think that it is necessary to take all four stances simultaneously. Part of the reason for doing this is my own commitment to erase the demon of choice and decision from the Christian life. For too long, we have been told that being a Christian involves making a choice. It is either, in the post-Enlightenment pietist view, an intellectual decision to accede to a body of doctrine concerning all manner of things. Or, in the Kierkegaardian, neo-orthodox view, it is an existential decision concerning how one is to live one's life. The radical view - that of liberation theology in all its forms, and post-Christian spiritual philosophy a la Henry Nelson Wieman and the ethical humanists - is that we need to decide to work for a better society, either through a recognition of the Divine "preferential option for the poor", or through a recognition of our ethical duty to make our society better because of the necessities of the moral law. While I do not wish to dismiss either of these positions, I do want to suggest that they are still held captive by a prior commitment to the whole notion that we must make a decision, and make a stand.
First of all, I think that it is impossible for anyone to completely divorce him- or herself from the society in which her or she finds him- or herself. It is possible to make certain imaginative leaps, and to think and live critically. Even the options for what constitute a critical stance, however, are dictated by social norms that, for reasons that should be obvious, are part of what all of us think of as "natural". A counter-cultural lifestyle is just a mirror of all that society thinks of as appropriate and acceptable.
Second, I think that the Church deludes itself when it thinks it can exist as, in the words of Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, "resident aliens". We are as much products of our society and all it sees as both good and evil as we are products of our baptisms, therefore redeemed and renewed for the service of God. Because the alternatives placed before Christians for living are always given in terms relative to the society and culture in which they find themselves, it is impossible to simply jump out of that set of givens and announce something sui generis, wholly other, handed down from Above on Stone Tablets.
Having said that, I do think that an uncritical embrace of the surrounding society is certainly not an option. Just as Jesus spent much of his time berating the religious and political leaders of Judea (and what distinctions actually existed between these modern designation?), we should speak the word of powerlessness, of faith, and love, of justice in a time when power, knowledge, hatred, and vengeance rule. At the same time, we should not bow to certain conventions of acceptability dictated by social position, status, race, or income. I have often argued that a great ministry would be to go to bars, especially those where prostitutes and drug addicts abound, and be a presence and moment of grace in lives filled with despair. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, this was popularized as "the ministry of presence", but it tended to be reduced to simply "being-there". I want something far more radical; I want our middle class churches (I surrender to my own middle class status, but call us to account for our inherent biases) to get out there and offer the love and forgiveness to those most outside our society. Not in a patronizing way. I want us to not just sit around and chat; we should be offering services, a way out of lives of despair and desperation and fear. Jesus did nothing less, scandalizing those who thought a spiritual leader should hang with a more respectable crowd.
Another point where I differ from many is my disdain in general for Christian alternatives to popular culture (this should be obvious). I think that the evangelical alternatives such as CCR, Christian television (DoveTV or whatever it's called; we don't have satellite or cable so I'm not up on these things), and other "family friendly" alternative cultural products distract the church from the possibility of understanding who we are as a people. If we insist our young people listen to various "Christian" artists and ignore Slipknot, or Snoop Dog, or Toby Keith, we are missing out on a necessary part of what it means to witness - we are refusing to understand the attraction of popular culture and addressing those concerns. It is not enough, however, to do this and then offer CCR as an alternative (to continue this example). I think it is important to listen to the most discordant voices around us and hear a word of grace and of judgment in the rage-filled screech of death metal, the preening and posing of the rappers, and the stories of infidelity, drunkenness, and broken lives and hearts that fill country music. If we refuse to listen because they are too loud, or filled with horrible imagery, or dirty words, or offer acceptance of activities we think are not conducive to a Christian way of living we are actually missing the point - we are refusing to hear people who are, like ourselves, children of God, in need of love, acceptance, care, respect, and are worthy of being listened to.
The dialectics inherent in the traditional Christian notion of the incarnation - the simultaneous immanence and transcendence of God - is too often difficult to balance. We either become comfortable with the idea of God immanent with us, or transcendent to all that we do and have and are, and we lose sight of the truth that lies within the paradox: God is both immanent and transcendent precisely because of God's love. God is both outside any category of thought or existence (however one wishes to define that) and intimately present in each moment of our lives. The incarnation, the person and work and death and resurrection of Jesus who is the Messiah, is just the clearest manifestation of an intimacy-within-distance that is rooted in the Hebrew faith as it sorted out its relationship to this God who brought it out of Egypt, nurtured its independence, and continued to care and love a people whose homeland had been stolen and who were cast in to exile. The dialectic of immanence and transcendence is at the heart of the Jewish and Christian experience of God, and as such should have served as a warning to those who insist that to be a Christian is to choose.
