“Gnostics need more than a Trinity, liberals less. All along the line the tendency in the movement is to identify Jesus with the immanent divine spirit that works in men” (114). Unlike the “Christ against culture” position, and unlike the “Christ of culture” position, this stance, “Christ above culture,” Niebuhr understands to be the majority position in the history of the church. But it surfaces in three distinct forms, which constitute the three final entries in his fivefold
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