Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

N.F.S. Grundtvig's Approach To Christian Community And Civic Responsibility, Mark C. Mattes

The Bridge

A perennial concern of Christian social ethics is the attempt to discern the best paradigm for relating the Christian faith and life to wider culture. H. Richard Niebuhr's typology1 of how Christ relates to culture, i. e., "Christ against culture" (sectarian), "Christ above culture" (Roman Catholic), "Christ transforming culture" (Reformed), "Christ of culture" (liberal Protestant), and "Christ and culture in paradox" (Lutheran) continues to provide a helpful framework in which to understand the role of the Christian ethos in public life. One important interpretation of this latter type, "Christ and culture in paradox" is that of the nineteenth century Danish …