Christianity and Culture, continued
Niebuhr’s categorization of Christian’s response to culture: “against”, “of”, “above”, and “paradoxical”, indicates that most see culture in stark terms: it is either “good”, “bad”, or “irrelevant”, with little nuance. This is not to fault Niebuhr’s categorizations: rather it is the fault of humans for reducing things to simple categories. Interestingly, it is the “paradoxical” response (which Niebuhr also terms “dualist”, and which to borrow a phrase from modern reactionaries I will call “blackpilled”), that is the most subtle even as it is the most stark. In this category, human reason and religion are both fallen, and even what we consider to be “the good” is so potentially tainted that we may be (and probably are) elevating that which should be marginalized, both within the Church and as a society as a whole. In this sense the “paradoxical” category is somewhat postmodern, doubting the very foundation on which knowledge and truth can be discovered, albeit with an important carveout for revelation.
Most people also don’t think in terms of absolute “good” and “bad”, but in terms of the trajectory. A person who values democracy may feel like the world is on the right path in the early 1800s despite only a handful of countries being democratic; the same person today may feel the world is on the wrong path with ascendant autocrats in China and Russia despite the majority of countries being democratic. This is important when considering the complaints of modern Christians when addressing an increasingly secular society: in absolute terms Christianity may still hold a mildly privileged position (though certainly not in “elite” culture), but comparatively traditional Christian beliefs are much more marginalized than they were 20, 50, or 150 years ago.
My model for culture falls somewhere between the “paradoxical” and the “above” categories. I start with the following “axioms”: first, culture is unavoidable whenever humans interact. Second, culture is not inherently bad: Christ himself took part in it and explicitly requested Christians come together to pray (Matthew 18:20); if the first axiom is correct then this group no matter how small will have their own culture. Third, all culture this side of the second coming will be made up of sinners and will thus be deeply flawed. Fourth, (and this really is not strictly necessary for my remaining arguments) the culture as a whole cannot be “less sinful” than the sum of its individual members; thus we cannot merely get “society right” in order to usher in utopia.
From these axioms, even if an entire society was comprised of Christians the asymptotically optimal society would still fall far short of what our fully-aligned post-second coming society will be like. Society itself is on a continuum between complete rejection and opposition to God’s good plan and whatever asymptote is conceivably possible for flawed and fallen humanity. My suspicion is that no culture in history has ever been more than 5% aligned with God’s design, and that an asymptote would be reached prior to 20%.
In many ways, our current culture is more aligned with God’s design than many historical societies (at least, as a product of our current culture, I am biased to believe so). Rome was a brutal empire which not only normalized much of the hedonism of our current society but augmented it with extreme violence. And yet even Rome was considered civilized compared to the cultures around it. The Middle Ages was possibly more morally aligned with God’s design, yet strayed from the true nature of the gospel. It was also a time of comparative decline and stagnation, where human potential was not maximized.
How convinced are you of the reality that defines you?
I overheard two Christians interact recently about evolution. They both agreed on the topic and implied that those who took a different positions were either theologically or scientifically ignorant, if not both. While I was bothered by this “othering” of Christians who took a different position, that is not the reason I tell the story. Rather, this encounter started me thinking about deeply held beliefs, which sparked a thought experiment in my mind. If someone were offered a box that, if opened, would definitively tell them whether a position in which they find their identity was true or false, how many people would open the box? What category would such a choice reveal of the people who did open such a box?
What could be more fundamental to identity than whether the box revealed definitely whether or not there was a God1? One wonders whether Richard Dawkins would decide to look in the box. Would any Christian who uncynically makes their living from being a Christian be willing to look in the box? Fundamentally, the question is whether truth and knowledge trumps the cushy narrative that you have ensconced yourself in. (I am aware that especially for Rationalists like Dawkins and Sam Harris, the believe in truth and knowledge, as expressed through human reason, is its own cushy narrative).
An interesting thought experiment (and one that requires me to assign beliefs and motivations to others without their involvement), is what the response would most likely be from Christians in each of Niebuhr's categories. The Christ against Culture types may either be so convinced of their own correctness that they do not hesitate to open the box, or they may be too bought into the Christian narrative to be willing to risk it by opening the box. The Christ of Culture types, at least as represented by modern “mainstream” protestantism, while certainly believing in the institution of the Church, likely already doubt the existence of God (after all, our Culture doubts the existence of God). They may actually be more worried about being confronted with incontrovertible proof for God. The Christ above Culture and Culture “Paradox” types have a similar decision to make as the Christ against Culture, but I suspect that these types have more conviction that Christianity is real than the Christ against Culture types (but I may be applying my bias to this question).
Personally, I would open the box without hesitation.
There are of course philosophical issues around the existence of such a box: the only being that could answer a definite “yes” is God. A being that could answer “no” would have to know every detail of the universe and multi-verse, and would thus be indistinguishable from God.