We were delighted both by the attendance and the positive comments about our debate on the moral future of capitalism. It raised all sorts of important questions but behind the whole debate was the unstated question of the assumed or desired relation between Christianity and culture. How is the church placed to affect our culture and its moral values and how ought it to be placed?
In 1951 Richard Niebuhr published a seminal work entitled Christ and Culture in which he outlined five possible relationship between the church and the world:
1. Christ against culture where the Christian community is in conflict with the world and all forms of human culture, and retreats into the desert or the closed walls of an isolated sect.
2. The Christ of culture where Christ is the supreme example of universal human goodness and where the church takes a positive view of human cultural achievement which it believes will realise its ideals in relation to Christ.
3. Christ above culture where the church occupies the role of a loyal opposition in culture, actively part of yet also critical of society. The church seeks a synthesis with culture when it flourishes in accordance with natural law.
4. Christ and culture in paradox where Christians accept that they have to live in the world but where the role of the church is constantly to hold up to question the relationship between God and human kind and to assert the need for redemption.
5. Christ the transformer of culture which asserts that culture though opposed to Christ as part of a fallen world, can be converted through the activity of the church and established on a different and radically transformed basis.
Summarised so briefly these relationships may seem not always so clearly distinctive and in need of historical examples – all of which can be found in Niebuhr’s text. In our own circumstances we may certainly have come across those who believe the Church of England is overly identified with its surrounding culture and that Christian values need more resolute affirmation. The question of homosexual relationships often bears the brunt of this accusation. Accepting gay marriage is seen as a surrender to secular values, which the Church should resist, putting forward instead an alternative vision of a Christian society. On the other hand our debate on capitalism made it clear that there may well be limits to the extent to which the Church can really have a serious effect on policy making and social reform in a secular culture deeply uncertain about whether faith should have any part to play even in the discussion of such policies. Of course we may reject that view and argue for a church, which seeks to exercise a benign influence on society, seeking often at grass roots to make our culture more generous, caring and equitable.
Should we, however, be trying to transform culture at all? That is a question asked recently by the Dean of the new centre for theological study in the London Diocese, St Mellitus College. (Mission Shaped Questions ed. Steven Croft, ch. 6) It could be argued that the role of the church is not to transform a culture that has little time for the church other than as the private interest of a minority. Instead the church should be building its own society and culture in which it seeks to understand why the world is as it is. The role of the church is simply to bear witness to the Kingdom. In the past whenever the church has sought to gain the political and cultural upper hand, its record has born witness more often to the fallenness of human kind rather than the power of grace. The gospel teaches us both through the parables of Jesus and his teaching about the future, that the Kingdom of God is in God’s hands not ours; we can only lead lives of preparation for the Kingdom, pointing perhaps to its signs in our midst, living the kingdom symbolically though liturgy, but not making the mistake of believing that we can do much to make this world a better place. We must not get ahead of ourselves! We can only be a muddled and imperfect sign of a new heaven and a new earth. Our task is to point, embody, identify, demonstrate not to create the Kingdom.
Tomlin therefore argues that the church should have its own culture, ‘quite distinct from any geographical or communal cultural expression.’ By this he means not that we should reject all influences of contemporary culture on the music, art, appearance and language of church. Rather we should seek to foster a church culture in which the kind of distinctive virtue highlighted in the New Testament could be learnt and practiced in any cultural context. Such virtue consists in truthfulness, generosity, encouragement, chastity, love of enemies, compassion, humility and forgiveness. The church is to be a school of virtue. Whether or not its scholars can make the kind of difference that someone like William Wilberforce made will depend on the strength of their community and mutual support. The important point is that the curriculum of the Christian school of virtue begins with the fostering of communal relationships not with a programme for social reform. The latter arises in particular circumstances out of the former and cannot succeed unless the foundation has first been laid by relationships within the Christian community.
There is something quite appealing about Tomlin’s line of argument. It does, however, need some questioning and qualification. As presented it can sound at times rather inward looking, bearing some relation to Niebuhr’s first category. It also perhaps papers over some of the radical divisions in the church about what a virtuous life might look like. It is not at all clear what a holy life for gay people might look like, or whether certain levels and expressions of wealth might be unacceptable in a Christian community, or whether Christians should be part of the armed forces. It also neglects the great moral campaigns of our time, which have to do with world poverty and climate change in which Christians are actively involved alongside people of many other faiths and none. It also fails to provide guidance about how Christians are to engage with and critique the extraordinary diversity of Western culture which shapes our identities at levels far deeper than we are usually conscious of. Is it so easy to understand and apply the virtues of the New Testament in a culture so radically different?
Tomlin and Niebuhr between them do, however, raise interesting questions which we should be aware of in any future Hampstead debates. Perhaps we should invite the former to take part in one.
With my prayers and good wishes for a restful and thoughtful summer,
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker