The chapter gives a nice accessible and succinct summary of the 5-fold typology Niebuhr introduced. According to Wikipedia Niebuhr's typology is,
- Christ against Culture. For the exclusive Christian, history is the story of a rising church or Christian culture and a dying pagan civilization.
- Christ of Culture. For the cultural Christian, history is the story of the Spirit’s encounter with nature.
- Christ above Culture. For the synthesist, history is a period of preparation under law, reason, gospel, and church for an ultimate communion of the soul with God.
- Christ and Culture in Paradox. For the dualist, history is the time of struggle between faith and unbelief, a period between the giving of the promise of life and its fulfillment.
- Christ Transforming Culture. For the conversionist, history is the story of God’s mighty deeds and humanity’s response to them.
Aside: One think I learnt was that Reinhold Niebuhr and H. Richard Niebuhr were different people (albeit brothers). The former's Wikipedia page makes fascinating reading.
I found those headings helpful too. But all in all I looked forward to that book for months, and found myself disappointed that it wasn't sufficiently self-contained. Having not read Niebuhr, I felt DC had expected me to.
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