Abstract

In his masterly book Christ and Culture H. Richard Niebuhr identified five main attitudes which Christians have taken towards secular culture. The first emphasizes the opposition between Christ and culture. In the New Testament it is best seen in Revelation and in the First Epistle of John. But it appears in its most radical form in Tertullian, though even he is not wholly consistent. Men are under illusions from their very culture . Graeco-Roman society was shot through and through with what Tertullian regarded as superstition and idolatry, as well as immorality. So Tertullian repudiated political life, military service, many aspects of commerce, philosophy and the arts