The tension implied in this question arises from the fact that Christianity includes a foundational element of the divine, whereas culture is predominantly human. Where the divine relates to the human is the task of theology, and therefore the entire prism of Christian theology is relevant in a full answer to the question. However the scope of this paper is limited to a comparison between the writings of postmodern theologians Kathryn Tanner and James McClendon Jr., and their relevance to my own Christian experience.
All three of us concur that Christianity might be defined as a culture, but there are nuances in the meaning of the locutions, “Christianity” and “culture” that alter the relationship between them. For instance, whereas McClendon sees aspects of Christianity that form its own culture, Tanner sees the force of influence working in reverse, where Christianity is formed by culture. And yet their overall understanding of Christianity and culture works more characteristically in parallel, rather than in contrary motion. My own Christian practice is based on a perception of a transforming power of Christianity, closer to McClendon’s formula.
Tanner and McClendon both acknowledge a postmodern diachronic perspective of culture, in contrast to the modern notion of synchronic perspective, and therefore culture for them reflects the instability inherent in postmodern anthropology. Culture, therefore is an entire way of life and includes all the conflicts that keep it in perpetual motion. If Christianity were seen only as a principle or system without fluctuation, it would not be consistent with a postmodern sense of culture. However, Hans Frei denotes three orders of Christian theology that make it possible to broaden the definition of Christianity beyond the reliability of a constant system. While the first order establishes the continuity of Christianity through its confession of specific beliefs, and the second order serves as a commentary on the first order, it is the third order that allows for conflict and adjustment.1
The third order, according to Frei, meets the community and makes the attempt to tell others of the first two orders. It forms the effort to define Christian practice in human life, and this is naturally where tension should be expected. Culture itself is in flux, as it is influenced by a wide variety of factors, from historical events to the philosophical attempts for humans to understand themselves. So insofar as Christianity is seen in relevant relationship to an unstable culture, it can itself be defined as culture. Tanner’s analogy of Christianity to a poem illustrates the significance of practice in the defining characteristic of Christianity. “Christianity is one big poem,” she says, “in that the meanings of its elements are subtle and ambiguous, and the connections among them elusive and associative, as matters of practice always are.”2
When Christian practices become a way of life for a group of people, it can be said that Christianity is a culture, regardless of the ambiguity and conflict in those practices. In fact McClendon points out that culture consists of a set of conflicts; therefore the nature of conflicts that arise in Christian practice becomes irrelevant. The polyphonic characteristic of theology is merely reflected in the rich fabric of community practices and struggles.3
Tanner broadens this definition of Christianity as a distinct culture of its own by showing that theology is a form of cultural activity itself. Theology can therefore be seen broadly as an aspect of being human, as Gordon Kaufman posits.4 But Christianity is not lost in the overarching realm of culture, when Tanner reminds us of the all-important question, “Where is God’s influence in culture?”5 This is the question that unites Tanner, McClendon, and myself, as we would all agree that the task of Christian theology is to benefit all mankind in its cultural expression, even while it offers the means to salvation for the believer.
Tanner approaches the question of influencing culture from an analysis of academic and every day theology. While academic theology is responsible for the technical accuracy of first and second order theology, the third order may discern more accurately the beliefs and values of every day Christians. Tanner recognizes the power with which beliefs govern the practices and actions of people, and therefore she conceives the task of theology as a pragmatic one. Changing the beliefs and thoughts of Christians through every day theology can result in beneficial change;6 and of course, this third order of theology can ultimately inform the second and first orders through telling them the conditions and issues that need to be addressed.
Tanner does not claim, however, a tidy causal relationship between beliefs and actions. She explains that since people are able to act against their own beliefs, the needs of society are not met merely through a reworking of Christian beliefs. In her postmodern approach, she determines first which actions proceed from which beliefs, and on that basis she assesses the better beliefs. For example, the belief that people are created in the image of God can direct human action by either causing submission for oppressors or else strengthening for the weak.7 But there are four factors that influence those actions (meaning, circumstances, other beliefs, and applications), and it is the task of theology is to understand the relationship between beliefs and actions in order to support a Christian way of life.
McClendon agrees with Tanner that beliefs and convictions have practical relevance. But his focus is on the action caused in culture by the Christian message, or as he refers to it, the “Great Story”. McClendon uses four American histories to demonstrate what it means for Christians to connect beliefs and actions. The stories of the missionaries to the Navajo Indians, the justification of the American Revolution, the mixed report on the Gospel Revivals, and the defeat of the Social Gospel all illustrate the potential for Christian beliefs to make positive contributions to culture, but resulted in little reward.
McClendon’s concern for the weakness in Christianity’s ability to raise up “fruitful seed” in the soil of American culture lies in a breach between empirical and transcendental poles. Highlighted especially in his account of American visual art, he shows how the transcendentalism of the Hudson River School could never replicate the created world, while the empiricism of Eakins, Bellows, and Wood could never unite earthly facts with heavenly transcendence. McClendon finds the lingering modern culture still offers too feeble witness as it swerves between gnostic transcendence and gross experientialism,8 but he finds hope that the Great Story will exercise more authority in shaping the culture of America through some cultural examples such as jazz.9
The mending of the breach between transcendental gnosticism and worldly empiricism resonates in my Christian experience. I find the motives behind the Social Gospel movement similar to my understanding of the relationship between Christianity and culture, because I think of God’s kingdom as not “far off hereafter but [working in] the actual present world of people.”10 It results in good news to the needy and guidance to the conversion of the individual, and therefore the transcendental nature of God is able to connect with the fleshly needs of mortals. In this way Christianity is a culture. Reinhold Niebuhr critiques this Social Gospel system by writing it off as an impossible ideal, but as McClendon points out, the Social Gospel might have helped its cause by making more evident the solid Christian doctrine it espoused.11
My own modest practice of this relevant Christianity, closing the gap between the transcendental and empirical, leads me to think that more is possible. I hear and hope to heed the warnings from the failure of the Social Gospel. It is important to make better known the thoroughly Christian theology that supports it. Also, when the practice becomes too closely involved in the political structure, or when the entire way of Christian living becomes absorbed in the political struggle,
then the Christian practice is swallowed up in the work of the nation. I conclude with McClendon that “there is an ongoing need in every religious culture, every cultural religion, for the correction of ethics and doctrine that seeks once again to set Christ at the center.”12
1 Hans Frei, Types of Christian Theology, (Yale University Press, 1992), 21.
2 Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology, (Fortress Press, 1997), 91.
3 Class notes, February 12, 2004
4 Tanner, 64.
5 Tanner, 63.
6 Class notes, February 19, 2004
7 Ibid.
8 James Wm. McClendon Jr. Witness: Systematic Theology, Vol. 3 (Nashville: Abington Press, 2000), 180.
9 Ibid, 158.
10 Ibid, 92.
11 Ibid, 96.
12 Ibid, 97.
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