Since Jesus Christ first confronted Jewish society, "a many-sided debate about the relations of Christianity and civilization" has been an "enduring problem." H. Richard Niebuhr delineates "typical Christian answers to the problem of Christ and culture" and thus contributes "to the mutual understanding of variant and often conflicting Christian groups." Informed by Niebuhr's categories, this paper examines a small slice of the age long experience of Christianity in its "double wrestle... with the Lord and with the cultural society with which it lives in symbiosos." In particular, it seeks to understand the encounter between Seventh-day Adventists and Australian society from 1885-1900, the formative years during which the movement was introduced to this country.