to change the world
Posted by Paul | Filed under culture
Over the summer, I read the excellent ‘To Change The World’ by James Davison Hunter. Given the exposure that the book has been getting, I guess anyone reading this has come across it already. If not, James K.A Smith has posted a good review of it on the other journal. Here is a (very) brief overview together with some random personal reactions…
The book is an assembly of three interlocking extended essays on the subject of Christian interaction with culture. The first essay looks at the approaches that Christians try in order to have a ‘positive influence’ on culture. Hunter’s main target here is the assumption that all that is needed to change the world is for enough grassroots Christians to get their worldview sorted, resulting in a spread through the culture at large. The essay suggests that this misunderstands how culture works; the path of culture through history is not merely a story of ideas, but that other aspects — in particular, institutions and elites — have a significant role. That it is only when the right ideas are in the right places that the culture as a whole changes.
What I found interesting is the way this argument fits with a wider trend of rethinking the place of worldviews. Not that anyone wants to discard them completely. But there is a growing recognition in Christian writing that we are more that brains-on-sticks, that the idea of worldview has to be held in a wider context. Of particular note here is James K.A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, which emphasises the place of practices & liturgies in the formation of people, rather than purely knowledge and ideas. But we might also bring in Crouch’s Culture Making, which reminds us that just thinking an analysing is not enough, to live responsibly we also need to be acting and creating.
Hunter’s second chapter looks at the our current views on power. The focus is on the way that Christians, particularly in the USA, have become so politicised that anyone wanting to ‘make a difference’ in public life only thinks in political terms. Hence, the only solution to the problems we see are voting in the right candidate, lobbying for our issues, etc. Ironically, for me, the truth of this became most clear when reading some of the negative response to Hunter’s book. Frequently, the reactions reflected a purely political view of the world and fear that Hunter’ arguments will undermine the possibility of making a change.
You can get a good flavour of this second essay by reading the transcript of a discussion between Hunter and US journalists on the Ethics and Public Policy Centre website. An interesting point made there is that this politicisation is not such a temptation in Europe simply because there are insufficient Christians in the electorate to think that they can make an impact. This seems relatively uncontroversial to me, but I worry that we sometimes import the US attitude in the UK, even if we don’t have the overt politicisation. A key example is the use of fear to motivate people to lobby their MPs, with an underlying sense that we are being hard-done-by and our values being ignored. More than once Christians have been urged to write/pray/etc. based on the dire consequences that certain legislation might have for church life. The trend of such motivations could easily produce a bunker mentality where we defend ourselves from the culture rather than loving and serving those around us.
Which neatly leads into the final essay, which puts forward a model for Christian involvement in public life. Hunter characterises the predominant attitudes as ‘defensive against’, ‘relevant to’ and ‘purity from’. He notes that all have positive aspects, but have taken a wrong path. Hunter contrast these three with the idea of ‘faithful presence within’. (Tim Keller has also been discussing this model for a while, based on Hunter’s work; he has a good introduction in his talk to newfrontiers.)
The significance of ‘faithful presence’ can perhaps be described as going into the world (rather than withdrawing) as a distinctive community/voice (rather than assimilating), but with the aim of serving and enable flourishing wherever we can (rather assuming that we will somehow create a Christianised culture). For me this brings a great balance between the two extremes that either make Christianity about ‘personal salvation and holiness’ or assume that ‘given enough time, we’ll bring the kingdom of God in right-here-right-now’. It also brings out well the idea of service as a key aspect of our relations with others, which is obviously a focus in the Bible. It is not clear that the three alternative quite manage to give this the emphasis it should have.
This introduction of ‘faithful presence’ is really the key for the book. It is Hunter’s alternative to misguided attempts ‘to change the world’ (the title is ironic). Hopefully, it will stimulate new ways for Christians to truly serve the culture in a Christ-like way. This can be simply on a personal level — to recognise that our work and wider activities can be a part of our ‘faithful presence’ has the potential to revolutionise the way we approach daily life. But Hunter has more than this in mind; he is thinking also of serving communities, of institutions acting as a faithful presence. It will be interesting to see how the church responds to this challenge.
Things that helped this week…
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
A couple of things this week that were immensely helpful…
The first was a post by Don Miller on his blog: The Context for Spirituality is not Spirituality
If we think we are going to grow in faith by sitting around at a Bible study, we are wrong. That stuff is fine, but without a story, without diving into something really difficult, something that requires us to look to God for support and wisdom and comfort, it will be more difficult to become a person of great faith.
The second was an old talk by Tim Keller: The New Jerusalem. The stand-out for me in this was his discussion of the statement in Revelation that God is ‘making all things new’. He brought out the distinction – lost in english — between chronological newness and the quality of newness/freshness. That everything that God touches becomes fresh and new; there is endless opening up and discovery. We’re so used to decay and deterioration that we only experience this with chronologically new things, but with God and in the New Creation all that changes…
Desiring the Kingdom
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
James K.A Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom is one of the most interesting books that I’ve read this year. I’ve just found an mp3 of a talk based on the book at www.calvin.edu/january/2010/smith.htm. It picks up on a lot of the key points from the book, so makes a great intro if you haven’t read it…
Hauerwas on the Life of a Theologian
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Havel on politicians
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In honour of tomorrow’s events…
It is my profound conviction that the world requires – today more than ever – enlightened, thoughtful politicians who are bold and broad-minded enough to consider things which lie beyond the scope of their immediate influence in both space and time. We need politicians willing and able to rise above their own power interests, or the particular interests of their parties or states, and act in accord with the fundamental interests of today’s humanity — that is, to behave the way everyone should behave, even though most may fail to do so.
Vaclav Havel
Partially quoted by James Sire in Vaclav Havel: The Intellectual Conscience of International Politics and in full on Project Syndicate.
You can become all flame…
Posted by Paul | Filed under photos
from Desert Perspectives
Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’ then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.’
from stories of the desert fathers (HT: Daniel Siedell)
Tags: photos
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...