Christ and Culture, a refresher:

It has been a while since I read Richard Niebuhr's book Christ and Culture, but to the extent my memory serves, I found this brief commentary, by Dr. Kevin Bauder, to be on target and helpful. I can't vouch for the accuracy of all of his examples, but the ones with which I am familiar seem to ring true.

The relationship of Christ, and, more particularly His Church, to the culture in which the church finds itself is a question that must constantly be answered.

• How does the church respond when it is a culture that is hostile--much of the Muslim world and some of the former communist lands for example?
• How does the church keep from becoming the civic-religion in a land that is largely friendly to it?
• How does a church that values clear doctrine behave when it is in a situation where another version of Christianity, one that doesn't share the doctrinal distinctives of the church in consideration, dominates and has a friendly relationship with the dominant culture--Protestants in predominantly Roman Catholic or Orthodox cultures, or vice-versa, and any number of other combinations?

The article, as well as the book, is worth a read. I have added the book to me "to reread" list.