Abstract
Craig Carter's Rethinking Christ and Culture is important, prophetic, and frustrating. Carter's central thesis is that H. Richard Niebuhr's canonical Christ and Culture presents a warped typology of Christian cultural engagement. The problem with Niebuhr's typology, Carter argues, is that each of Niebuhr's types arises from a "Christendom" perspective. Niebuhr's typology assumes that Church and state are co-equal in the process of cultural construction - whether as sparring partners, as in the "Christ Against Culture" type, or as dialogue partners, as in the "Christ Transforming Culture" type. The "Christendom" mentality, Carter claims, dates back to the Western Church's alliance with political power forged at the time of Constantine.