Christ and Culture

Better minds than mine have considered how Christ relates to earthly cultures. John Frame's introduction to a The Road from Eden outlines the five classic positions:

1. Christ Against Culture (some early church fathers),
   
2. The Christ of Culture (e.g. Clement of Alexandria),
   
3. Christ Above Culture (many medieval thinkers including Aquinas),
   
4. Christ and Culture in Paradox (Luther’s “two kingdoms”), and
   
5. Christ the Transformer of Culture (many Reformed thinkers, such as Abraham Kuyper).

John Barber, the author of The Road from Eden, firmly believes that Christ is the transformer of culture. Here's his thesis:

The Cultural Mandate is the church's directive to affect every area of life for King Jesus. Man's original stewardship of the earth developed beyond his humble agrarian beginnings to use all the earth's resources as a means to advance worldwide civilizations. Consequently, the work of the Cultural Mandate is an all-inclusive concept that extends to every sphere of life where man's mind and hands are employed to control and utilize the processes of nature for the good of all. The Church must see in this command its role in shaping every area of life according to God's will - including politics, the fine arts, science, law, medical ethics, and more.

It's hard to separate one's view of Christ's relationship to culture from one's eschatology, the doctrine of "the last things." If you think the world gets worse and worse until Jesus comes back, you don't tend to imagine the Gospel changing the global culture the way yeast leavens three measures of flour (Matthew 13:33). Premillenialism tends to produce a Christian subculture.

If you think the Church will be persecuted but must ultimately prevail, producing a "Golden Age" of health, peace, justice, prosperity, and beauty, then the Gospel must transform culture. Postmillenialism has fallen out of favor (World War I shook the West's faith in unbroken progress), but it used to be all the rage in Protestant circles. Postmillenialism is making a bit of a comeback in Reformed circles, but the primary focus has been on changing the laws rather than changing the arts.