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Thus, Carson concludes that "the only human organization that continues into eternity is the church." This confirms the narrow eschatology hinted at earlier in the book when he claims that "what must be feared and avoided at all costs is the second death" (Rev. 20-22). For Carson the current relations between Christ and culture "have no final status; they must be evaluated in the light of eternity." One gets the sense that Carson's eternity lacks cultural institutions —an eternity without commerce or politics, art, or athletics. (While he occasionally tips his hat to other areas, Carson's analysis pretty much reduces culture to politics.) All that will remain is "the church" (though it's not clear just what the church will be doing since, according to Carson, "the church lives and dies by the Great Commission"). Such a flattened vision of our redeemed future is the correlate of a stunted understanding of creation.

Carson's laudable project of redirecting conversations about "Christ and culture" to the riches of the biblical narrative is a missed opportunity. Starting from a selective and narrow understanding of creation, he misses the opportunity to articulate a biblical theology of culture as a creational task, and his ensuing accounts of sin, redemption, and the final destiny of the world are similarly circumscribed.

Indeed, what Carson misses is an opportunity to finally undo our bad habit of disconnecting the cultural mandate and the Great Commission. Even those who affirm both too often see them as unrelated, failing to discern their intimate connection. Yet what is the gospel but God's call and invitation to be restored and renewed as proper image bearers of God — who bear his image by unfolding creation's potential in rightly ordered culture? Being God's image bearers is a calling, a vocation, and a task, not a static property of being human (I refer the reader to Richard Middleton's brilliant account of this in The Liberating Image). And Christ, as the Second Adam, has shown us what it looks like to do this: in a fallen and broken world, the shape of such a vocation is cruciform; being cultural agents of the crucified God is not a project of triumphal transformation, but suffering witness.

James K. A. Smith teaches philosophy at Calvin College. His new book, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, will appear next year from Baker Academic.

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Christ and Culture Revisited is available at ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.

In a smaller review published earlier this year, John Wilson gave Christ and Culture Revisited four stars.

Earlier articles on Niebuhr's Christ and Culture include:

"In the World, but … " | Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture is 50 years old—and still has something wise to say to evangelicals. By John G. Stackhouse Jr. (April 22, 2002)

Post-Christendom Christianity | A short review of Craig Carter's Rethinking Christ and Culture. (May 17, 2007)

Christ, Culture, and History | Is the main character in the church's story God, transforming faith, or an inspired yet wayward community? (April 1, 2002)

Is It Wrong-Headed to Translate the Gospel for Culture? | Christian History Corner takes on the Christ and culture debate. by Chris Armstrong (Oct. 28, 2005)

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October (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52