Creation becomes the basis for understanding the nature and role of the church. The church is only a subspecies of creation and must discover the clue to its identity within the created order. The classic example is H. Richard Niebuhr, whose “Christ and culture” typology understands culture as the neutral, all-embracing reality (reality sui generis) within which Christians must configure their identity in terms of Christ against, Christ of or Christ for culture.2 Many modern ecclesiologies continue
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