Coram Deo Blog
2 September 2010 at 5:45 pm by Bob Thune · announcement, book reviews, family, materials
Sarah Clatterbuck, our Deacon(ess?) for Children’s Ministry, is always on the lookout for good gospel resources to use with kids. She wrote the following review highlighting a new resource that comes to us from our good friends at Sojourn Church in Louisville.
At Coram Deo we believe that the home is the primary context for training and discipling children. Now we have found a book produced by one of our sister Acts 29 churches that illustrates this concept in a fun and engaging way that both children and parents will appreciate.
Written by members of Sojourn Community Church, Our Home is like a Little Church does a wonderful job of showing children how both their church and their homes engage and instruct them in Christian worship. Presenting the church and the home on adjacent pages, the authors demonstrate ways in which Sunday morning worship (praising, praying, reading Scripture, etc.) translates to the home through family worship. For example:
At church the pastor reads to us – the Bible in his hands / We learn about God’s love for us and all of his commands
[Opposite Page] My daddy reads the Bible, too. I listen and obey / I’m learning how to walk with God and follow in his ways
The fun rhymes and gentle rhythm carry throughout the book, keeping kids’ attention while also making it easier for them to grasp the deep theological truths being presented. We are confident that Our Home is like a Little Church would be a great addition to your read-aloud collection! The book is now available at the Coram Deo Resource Table as well as online booksellers.
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29 August 2010 at 4:20 pm by Bob Thune · book reviews, city renewal, culture, theology
In my review of James D. Hunter’s book To Change the World, I promised to post some content summaries from Coram Deo missional community leader Tyler Zach in order to help blog readers catch the flow of Hunter’s major arguments. Here is the fourth installment.
In this section of the book (Essay 2), Hunter deconstructs the three most common forms of Christian political engagement. His argument is that all three belie an incorrect understanding of cultural change; and that at their roots, all three are exactly the same in their use of power and politics to enforce their vision of change.
Essay 2, Chapter 2: Power and Politics in American Culture
The tendency in America has been the politicization of nearly everything.
We have begun to interpret all of public life through the filter of partisan beliefs, values, ideals, and attachments. As a consequence, we find it difficult to think in ways to address public (collective, common or shared) problems or issues in any way that is not political.
Our times amply demonstrate that it is far easier to force one’s will upon others through legal and political means or to threaten to do so than it is to persuade them or negotiate compromise with them.
My task in the next three chapters… is to lay out the story each [Christian] group (the conservative, progressive, and neo-Anabaptist) tells… the story that makes sense of their particular engagement with the world they want to change.
Essay 2, Chapter 3: The Christian Right
Conservatives are animated by a mythic ideal concerned with the “right-ordering” of society.
[They believe] America belongs to the people of faith, because it was their faith that provided the spiritual and moral foundations for America’s greatness. This legacy has not been lost, but taken away by “radical secularists.” The net effect of that loss is not only harm to America, but also harm to Christians and all people of faith, marginalizing them in most spheres of public life. Their response has been one of political engagement.
America has been taken over by secularists, causing harm to American and harm to the church… [and it is] time to “take back the culture” for Christ through a strategy of acquiring and using power.
Stephen Baldwin: “We are the hands of the Lord. I don’t know about you, but I am putting some boxing gloves on mine.”
Overall, these organizations (Christian Coalition, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family Action, Vision America, Joyce Meyers Ministries, Faith and Action, etc.) work to identify, educate, and mobilize Christians for effective political action. The Christian Coalition proudly announce what they all aspire to: “a place at the table again, and a prominent one at that.”
Pat Robertson: “The Christian Coalition’s goal is to gain substantial influence, if not full control, over the Republican Party apparatus in all 50 states.”
James Dobson has threatened, in effect, to undermine the Republican Party unless it made conservative social issues a higher legislative priority. “If I go,” he has said, “I will do everything I can to take as many people with me as possible.”
The Christian Right continues to experience a sense of loss, disappointment, anger, antipathy, resentment, and desire for conquest [against the secularists].
Essay 2, Chapter 4: The Christian Left
Progressives have always been animated by the myth of equality and community and therefore see history as an ongoing struggle to realize these ideals. The key word for them is justice.
The biblical tradition that Christian progressives appeal to is the prophetic tradition (Isa. 58:9-10; Isa. 10:1-2; Jer. 5:28; Ps. 140:12; Prov. 31:9; Matt. 25; James 1:27) in its condemnation of the wealthy for their abuse of the poor, the weak, and the marginalized. To them, Jesus = liberator of the oppressed.
For politically progressive Christians, the salient movements of American history are:
- Abolition
- Women’s suffrage
- The female seminary movement
- Child labor reform
- The programs of social relief in the Social Gospel movement
- The peace movement before World War 1
- Desegregation and the civil rights movement
- War again Vietnam
Among the names and organizations associated with this political renewal are Jim Wallis (most visible figure), John Perkins, Tom Sine, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, Sojouners, and Red Letter Christians.
For Christian progressives, the Christian Right has harmed the faith by not representing Christianity fairly. Tom Sine said, “Seemingly out of nowhere, in the late seventies the religious right appeared and hijacked the evangelical movement. Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, Tim La Haye… and a host of others took over the evangelical parade and detoured it sharply to the right. It was an intellectual takeover from which American evangelicalism has never recovered.”
Jim Wallis: “For decades the religious right has held the upper hand in religion and politics. This is changing and they must share the stage.” Wallis also said, “It feels sometimes that our faith has been stolen in the public arena. And when your faith is stolen, it’s time to take it back.”
BUT: The Christian Left imitates the Christian Right
The style of engagement of politically progressive Christians mirrors that of their politically conservative counterparts.
Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation, wrote, “Wallis’ evangelicalism is as much a power play as Pat Robertson’s. And Wallis is as much a power player. By a remarkable act of providence, God’s politics turn out to be curiously tailored to the current crisis of the Democratic Party.”
Wallis protests that he is neither or Republican nor a Democrat. But the net effect of his work as a consultant and advisor to the Democratic Party, his grassroots activism, and his own writing is as partisan and Democratic as Dobson’s is Republican.
Wallis and others in the Evangelical Left engage in the identical practice for which they criticize the Christian Right. They blame the Christian Right for invoking God’s name and the bible to push their agenda. But Wallis uses this same practice when he:
- cites Micah 4:1-4 as the standard for American policy
- reasons that the US should have not gone into Iraq
- uses Isaiah 65:20-25 as the standard by which to measure the Federal budget
- quotes Isaiah in defense of an increase in minimum wage
Essay 2, Chapter 5: The Neo-Anabaptists
Commonalities between the Christian Left and the neo-Anabaptists:
- They share a common antipathy to the human and environmental consequences of an unrestrained market economy, and, for some, this is hostility to capitalism itself.
- They tend to share a cultural style by virtue of being upper middle class.
- Perhaps, most importantly, their discourse reflects a mutual contempt for the Christian Right.
The main point of difference between the Christian Left and the neo-Anabaptist position is found in their respective views of the State. The Christians Left is committed to a strong State. The neo-Anabaptists keep their distance from the State, maintaining a basic distrust toward its structure, action, and use of power.
The mythic ideal that animates the neo-Anabaptist position is the ideal of true and authentic New Testament Christianity… living in simplicity, sharing goods in common, caring for the poor and the widowed, seeking reconciliation, and making peace.
No one has been more important in the development of the neo-Anabaptist vision for making it intellectually respectable than the Mennonite theologian, John Howard Yoder.
Neo-Anabaptists believe that after Constantine became a Christian and Christianity was made the official religion of the empire, the church lost its distinctiveness in the following ways:
- rather than challenging the principalities and powers, the people of God became united with the powers
- rather than proclaiming peace, the church embraced an ethic of coercion, power, and, thus, violence
- rather than resisting the power of the state, the church provided divine legitimation for the state, which has invariably led to the hubris of empire, conquest, and persecution
- rather than modeling a new kind of society, the church imitated the social structures of hierarchy and administration
- rather than being a servant to the poor and oppressed, the church has been complicit in wielding economic and political power over the poor and oppressed
Following Christ and his example means that the believer should “accept powerlessness.” They admire the works of a few exemplary Christians such as Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, and their followers.
They have a separatist impulse – fearing that the church will be contaminated by worldliness and therefore withdraw from culture.
Where the identity of the Christian Right is forged largely through their opposition to secularism and secularists, where the identity of the Christian Left derives from their opposition to the Right, the collective identity of the neo-Anabaptists comes through their dissent from the State.
Like the Christian Right and Left, this group also tries to change the world through politics – the politics of Jesus. They practice “negative intervention” against the dominant powers. Charles Mathewes says they have a “passive-aggressive ecclesiology.”
The neo-Anabaptists have been known more for what they are against rather than what they are for. This theme was captured well by a “liturgy of resistance” advocated by Shane Claiborne.
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26 August 2010 at 1:56 pm by Bob Thune · announcement, worship song series
The hallmark of Coram Deo’s worship style is old hymns set to new music, as evidenced by the selections on the Coram Deo worship album Doxology (see sidebar). One of our mentors in this effort has been Indelible Grace Music, a community of singers and songwriters in Nashville. The best-known voices among Indelible Grace’s cadre are Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken; Coram Deo attenders will recognize Webb’s song “The Love of Christ” (from Indelible Grace’s album For All the Saints) as one we sing often in our corporate worship gatherings.
Our friends at Grace Reformed Church on 93rd and Fort Streets will be hosting Indelible Grace, featuring founding member and songwriter Matthew Smith, in concert on Wednesday, September 15 at 7 PM. This will be a great chance to learn from some of our mentors, enjoy music that is both artistically excellent and lyrically rich, and advocate for a deeper, more historic approach to worship among churches in Omaha. If you love music, come. If you know people who are involved with worship ministries at other churches, bring them.
This concert is a ticketed event; you can reserve your tickets at the Grace Reformed website. Hope to see many of you there.
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26 August 2010 at 7:57 am by Bob Thune · liturgy
O God, the Author of All Good,
I come to thee for the grace another day will require for its duties and events.
I step out into a wicked world,
I carry about with me a wicked heart,
I know that without thee I can do nothing,
that everything with which I am concerned, however harmless in itself, may prove an occasion for sin or folly, unless I am kept by thy power.
Hold thou me up and I shall be safe.
Preserve my understanding from subtlety of error,
my affections from love of idols,
my character from stain of vice,
my profession from every form of evil.
May I engage in nothing in which I cannot implore thy blessing, and in which I cannot invite thy inspection.
Prosper me in all lawful undertakings, or prepare me for disappointments;
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee and say, Who is the Lord? or be poor, and steal, and take thy name in vain.
May every creature be made good to me by prayer and thy will;
Teach me how to use the world, and not abuse it,
to improve my talents,
to redeem my time,
to walk in wisdom toward those without, and in kindness to those within,
to do good to all men, and especially to my fellow Christians.
And to thee be the glory.
- from The Valley of Vision: Puritan Prayers and Devotions
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25 August 2010 at 8:49 am by Bob Thune · gospel, leadership, sermon, theology
In our Gospel-Centered Life series, we have defined the gospel as:
The good news…
…that God saves sinners…
…through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The gospel is news, not advice. It is news concerning the nature of God (his holiness, perfection, and glory) and the nature of humanity (sinners separated from God by our rebellion and self-worship) which reveals our need for salvation. And it is news about how God has provided for that salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who lived the life we should have lived, died the death we deserved to die, and rose in victory over all His enemies and ours.
Last week Justin quoted Martin Luther’s famous saying that the gospel is “the principle article of Christian doctrine… most necessary is it that we know [the gospel] well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.” As we think about developing a “gospel-centered life” – a life rooted in and continually centered on the good news of who Jesus is and what he’s done – this quote is a good way to assess our progress. Some of us are still at the place of learning the gospel well (and we need to stay there as long as it takes for us to truly know it well). Some of us know it well and need to teach it to others (while reminding ourselves of it constantly). And after we have known it well and taught it to others, we still need to “beat it into their (and our) heads continually” by making sure that all our teaching, all our discipleship, all our counseling and leadership and influence constantly comes back to the gospel.
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22 August 2010 at 9:27 pm by Bob Thune · family, leadership, sabbath
Americans have lost the ability to rest. Statistical studies have shown that we now spend more hours at work than at any time since World War II: in fact, each year our work year increases by one day. And the proliferation of communication technology only exacerbates the problem by ensuring that we can bring our work home with us.
Our inability to rest affects even our approach to vacation. For many of us, vacations end up being stressful and harried as we rush to pack in as many amusement park rides, family visits, or leisure activities as we can. We come home needing a vacation to recover from our vacation!
After my sabbatical a few years ago, my wife and I decided to intentionally develop a rhythm of rest in our lives. Our definition of “vacation” has adjusted accordingly.
Last week was vacation week. Some generous friends gave us the keys to their lakeside cabin in the Ozarks. We packed up our four kids and the dog and spent 6 glorious days doing mostly nothing.
- We fasted from media – no email, no cell phones, no internet, no movies.
- We took off our watches and refused to keep track of time.
- We slept when we were tired and ate when we were hungry.
- We spent most of our days swimming in the lake, fishing, playing board games with the kids, reading books, and taking naps.
- We lived simply and enjoyed it: a family of six in a 900-square-foot cabin with one bathroom. And it was fine. (People have lived this way for most of human history, you know. Only in America does a newlywed couple “need” a 2000-square-foot house.)
Our kids LOVE this sort of vacation. They would rather go to the lake than to Disneyworld. The rhythm of rest is refreshing not just to us, but to them: no schoolwork, no video games, no set bedtimes, no schedule to keep. And the answer to most everything is “yes.” Can we stay up late? Yes. Can we swim across the lake? Yes. Can we drive the golf cart? Yes. Can we have ice cream for dinner? Yes.
Rest is God’s gift – and His command. If it’s been a while since you unplugged… get out your calendar and plan some time away. Your soul needs it.
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22 August 2010 at 7:48 am by Bob Thune · book reviews, city renewal, culture, theology
In my review of James D. Hunter’s book To Change the World, I promised to post some content summaries from Coram Deo missional community leader Tyler Zach in order to help blog readers catch the flow of Hunter’s major arguments. Here is the third installment.
Essay 1, Chapter 5: Evidence in History
Hunter’s thesis is that change in culture or civilization simply does not [most significantly] occur when there is change in the beliefs and values in the hearts and minds of ordinary people or in the creation of mere artifacts.
Hunter examines some key historical events to find out if this is true.
- The growth of Christianity
- The conversion of Barbarian Europe
- The Carolingian Renaissance (late eighth and ninth centuries)
- The Reformation
- Successor Movements (Awakenings, antislavery reforms, revival)
- Beyond Christianity (Enlightenment, European socialism [c. 1864-1914])
His big idea is that ideas can only have revolutionary, world-changing consequences when certain kinds of structural conditions are in place.
The common view of cultural change (ala Colson) does not offer a useful account of any of these periods. “The beliefs and values of ordinary people have a place in the unfolding drama; but it is neither the central nor the decisive place in the instigation and direction of change itself” (p. 77, my emphasis). Nor does cultural change comes from the mere creation of cultural artifacts (ala Crouch). The creation of cultural goods has a place, but artifacts are largely meaningless “absent critical sociological conditions surrounding the production and consumption of material goods” (p. 77).
What, then, is decisive?
In history, “at every point of challenge and change, we find a rich source of patronage that provided resources for intellectuals and educators who, in the context of dense networks, imagine, theorize, and propagate an alternative universe.” Along with the elites there are often “artists, poets, musicians, and the like who symbolize, narrate, and popularize this vision.” New institutions give tangible expression by forming and enacting that culture. The result is a “vibrant cultural economy that gives articulation in multiple forms, and critical mass to the ideals and practices and goods of the alternative culture in ways that both defy yet still resonate with the existing social environment” (pp. 78, 79, my emphasis).
In the next chapter we’ll look at the place of Christianity in contemporary America.
Essay 1, Chapter 6: Assessing the Location of American Christianity
The vitality of American Christianity’s cultural capital resides almost exclusively:
- Among average people in the pew rather than those in leadership
- On the periphery not the center of cultural production
- In tastes that run to the popular rather than the exceptional
- The middle brow rather than the high brow
- Toward the practical as opposed to the theoretical or the imaginative.
The most visible way American Christianity influences the larger society today is in the political realm. The greatest strength and energy over recent decades has come from faith-based pressure groups and their leaders (i.e. Focus on the Family, Christian Coalition, Sojourners, National Right to Life).
In the economic sphere, the Christian presence in business and commerce and the professions tends to be weighted in small to mid-sized firms and organizations in smaller cities and in the suburbs and exurbs.
In the cultural sphere, preliminary indications suggest that very few resources within the Christian community go to supporting leadership in developing cultural capital in the centers of cultural production. In the Catholic and Evangelical organizations listed in the book, no fellowship program exists at all for supporting the most talented intellectuals, artists, or social innovators. As to self-described Evangelical foundations, the focus of giving has long been on:
- Missionary work and evangelism
- Evangelical college and seminary education
- Welfare organizations engaged in relief, development, and other services
Evangelicals have invested most of their energies into creating a structure of “parallel institutions”… generating hundreds of millions of dollars through book and magazine publishing, radio, and television.
This Christian cultural productivity is characterized by at least three features:
- The works that are produced are almost exclusively for Christians.
- The works tend to operate closer to the margins than to the center of cultural production (i.e. Colorado Springs vs. New York City, Orlando vs. Los Angeles, etc.).
- The works are oriented toward the popular. While there are exceptions to the rule, overall… the production reflects the most kitschy expressions (i.e. mega-church drama, “how-to” books, television is either in the format of a worship service or talk show).
Against the common view, the main reason why Christian believers today have not had the influence in the culture to which they have aspired is not that they don’t believe enough, or try hard enough, or care enough, or think Christianly enough, or have the right worldview, but rather because they have been ABSENT from the arenas in which the greatest influence in culture is exerted.
Essay 1, Chapter 7: For and Against the Mandate of Creation
Every person is made in the image of God and has been given the cultural mandate (“be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it”).
Elitism is the view that people are not equal in love and dignity before God. It’s exploitative. So, Christians despise elitism. This creates a tension.
Is it possible to pursue excellence and, under God’s sovereignty, be in a position of influence and privilege and not be ensnared by the trappings of elitism? How will Christians think about power? What kind of power will Christians exercise?
Thus far, it would be natural to conclude that Hunter’s thesis implies an alternative way for Christians to pursue, attain, and use political power to achieve faith-based ends. That’s completely wrong and an utter distortion of the creation mandate. It’s not about “saving Western civilization,” “saving America,” “winning the culture war,” or anything like it.
The antidote to “seizing power” in a new way is a better understanding of faithful presence. (More on that to come as Hunter builds his thesis.)
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14 August 2010 at 7:51 am by Bob Thune · evangelicalism, formation, leadership, theology
One of the most controversial blog posts we’ve ever written here was titled “Why You Shouldn’t Go to Seminary.” So I was interested to learn that the Gospel Coalition blog asked a similar question yesterday to four well-known seminary figureheads.
Readers of this blog will be especially interested to note the responses of Dr. Al Mohler, who argues that the local church is the most important training ground for future ministers, and of one of my own mentors, Dr. Richard Pratt, who admits: “After 22 years of teaching in a seminary, I slowly began to realize… we were not preparing the kinds of leaders that evangelical churches in North America need.”
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12 August 2010 at 8:28 am by Bob Thune · A29, book reviews, theology
Cole Brown is a gifted and godly Acts 29 pastor ministering in urban Portland. He spent years working in the hip-hop music industry before his conversion, and the early years of his spiritual formation took place under Pentecostal/Word of Faith teachers, especially those in the African-American church context.
Cole has recently written an e-book entitled Lies My Pastor Told Me: Confronting 15 Church Cliches with the Gospel. Each chapter deals with a different lie or Christian cliche, focusing especially on the lies prevalent within the Pentecostal tradition: “Speak it into existence;” “This is God’s house;” “You have a generational curse;” and so on. You can get the e-book for free by becoming a fan of “Lies My Pastor Told Me” on Facebook.
From the introduction:
Believing a lie about God is all the more damaging than believing a lie about your physical health. It impacts your relationship with God, your relationship with others, your emotions, your behavior – everything. I know this from personal experience. I spent most of my twenties believing such lies and, while I did not realize it at the time, I lived in fear, pride and bondage as a result… the ‘pastor’ I refer to throughout this book is not a specific individual but a composite character based on many pastors I have known over the past twelve years. In many cases these pastors are not intentionally lying but simply saying what they believe to be true by repeating the clichés they have heard throughout their lives. Nevertheless, they must be held to account because, intentional or not, they are doing significant damage to those who have entrusted their souls to them.
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11 August 2010 at 7:43 pm by Bob Thune · book reviews, city renewal, culture, theology
In my review of James D. Hunter’s book To Change the World, I promised to post some content summaries from Coram Deo missional community leader Tyler Zach in order to help blog readers catch the flow of Hunter’s major arguments. Here is the second installment.
Essay 1, Chapter 4: An Alternative View of Culture and Cultural Change
Ideas do have consequences in history, yet not because those ideas are inherently truthful or obviously correct but rather because of the ways they are embedded in very powerful institutions, networks, interests, and symbols.
Hunter’s Seven Propositions on Culture
1. Culture is a system of truth claims and moral obligations.
“Culture is, first and foremost, a normative order by which we comprehend other, the larger world, and ourselves and through which we individually and collectively order our experience” (p. 32).
At the heart of culture is a complex of norms, or commanding truths, which define the shoulds vs should-nots of our experience (i.e., good and evil, right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, honorable and shameful).
Frameworks of knowledge and understanding are largely prereflective (we take them for granted and things seem obvious) and are mainly coterminous with language—which is why it’s very difficult to change or question one’s worldview. Most of what shapes and directs us “operates far below what most of us are capable of consciously grasping” (p. 33).
2. Culture is a product of history.
Culture is highly resistant and durable over time; it’s less an invention of the will and more a slow product of history; the relationship of a culture to its history makes it “lumbering and erratic at the same time” (p. 34).
3. Culture is intrinsically dialectical.
There are two forms of this dialectic:
- ideas and institutions
- individuals and institutions
Ideas and Institutions Intersect
“Culture is as much an infrastructure as it is ideas” (p. 34). It is better to think of culture as a thing, if you will, manufactured not by lone individuals but rather by institutions and the elites who lead them” (p. 34).
Individuals and Institutions Are Inseparable
“Institutions cannot exist without the individuals who make them work, but individuals cannot be understood outside of the institutions that form them and frame all of their activity” (p. 35).
4. Culture is a resource, and, as such, a form of power.
Symbols take the form of ideas, information, news, wisdom, indeed, knowledge of all kinds, and these in turn are expressed in pronouncements, speeches, edicts, tract, essays, books, film, art, law, and the like.
When cultural meaning is imputed to symbols, then culture can be thought to have symbolic capital.
Examples: a winner of a Nobel Prize in literature has more symbolic capital than a romance novelist; The New York Times has more symbolic capital than The Dallas Morning News; Yale University has more symbolic capital than Bob Jones University, etc.
Accumulating symbolic capital translates into a form of power and influence in terms of credibility and the power to define reality.
5. Cultural production and symbolic capital are stratified in a fairly rigid structure of “center” and “periphery.”
With cultural capital, it’s quality not quantity that matters.
“The individuals, networks and institutions most critically involved in the production of a culture operate in the “center” where prestige is the highest, not on the periphery, where status is low” (p. 37).
Example: USA Today may sell more newspapers than The New York Times but the latter is at the center of cultural production.
6. Culture is generated within networks.
Thomas Carlyle’s view that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men”—is mostly wrong.
Rather, “the key actor in history is not individual genius but rather the network and the new institutions that are created out of those networks” (p. 38). The more “dense” (active, interactive) the network, the more influential it could be.
Yes, there have been charismatic, heroic geniuses in history (Luther, Calvin, Wilberforce, etc.). But “charisma and genius and their cultural consequences do not exist outside of networks of similarly oriented people and similarly aligned institutions” (p. 38).
7. Culture is neither autonomous nor fully coherent.
Culture (ideas + institutions) is “mixed together in the most complex ways imaginable with all other institutions” (p. 39). Because one cannot separate culture from its institutional spheres, “culture is never fully autonomous” (p. 39).
Given the tensions and internal antagonism of perspectives within culture, it can never be fully coherent.
Four Propositions on Cultural Change
8. Cultures change from the top down, rarely if ever from the bottom up.
Sometimes economic revolts and social movements occur “bottom up” as ordinary people are mobilized. But the deepest, most enduring cultural changes always occur “top down.”
The work of world-making and world-changing are, by and large, the work of elites: gatekeepers who provide creative direction and management within spheres of social life. Even where impetus for change draws from popular agitation, it does not gain traction until it is embraced and propagated by elites. (p. 41)
Cultural innovation happens through the following process: theorists to researchers to teachers and educators to popularizers. Enduring cultural change comes when the structures of imagination and frameworks and perceptions are altered, and that only comes from the top down.
9. Change is typically initiated by elites who are outside of the centermost positions of prestige.
Even within the central sphere of cultural life, there are degrees of prestige, with the highest being at the core or nucleus. Change usually comes from those in the center, but not from those in the core or nucleus.
When change is initiated in the center, it typically comes from outside of the center’s nucleus. Wherever innovation begins, it comes as a challenge to the dominant ideas and moral systems defined by the elites who possess the highest levels of symbolic capital.
10. World-changing is most concentrated when the networks of elites and the institutions they lead overlap.
“When cultural and symbolic capital overlap with social capital and economic capital, and in time, political capital, and these various resources are directed toward shared ends, the world, indeed, changes” (p. 43, my emphasis).
11. Cultures change, but rarely if ever without a fight.
“Conflict is one of the permanent fixtures of cultural change” (p. 44). Culture is the realm in which institutions and their agents defend their understanding of the world against alternatives—legitimizing themselves and seeking to delegitimize others.
It helps to see these eleven propositions (seven on culture, four on cultural change) contrasted with the common view:
- Against idealism, the view that ideas move history, we now see ideas inexorably grounded in social conditions and circumstances, not just material objects.
- Against individualism, which influences us to view the autonomous and rational individual—even if a genius—as the key factor in social change, we now see the power of networks and the new institutions that they create, and the communities that surround them that make the difference.
- Finally, against Christian pietism, which biases us to see the individual’s “heart and mind” as the primary source and repository of culture, we now see that hearts and minds are only tangentially related to the movements of culture, that culture is much more complicated and has a life independent of individual mind, feeling, and will; indeed, that it is not so much individual hearts and minds that move cultures but cultures that ultimate shape the hearts and minds and, thus, direct the lives of individuals. (p. 45).
A Critical Lesson
“Cultures are profoundly resistant to intentional change—period” (p. 45).
Evangelism, politics, social reform, and the creation of artifacts—if effective—all bring about good ends: changed hearts and minds, changed laws, changed social behaviors. But they don’t directly influence the moral fabric that makes these changes sustainable over the long term. (p. 45, my emphasis)
Culture is incredibly complex and resistant to change, but one thing is clear: “Christians will not engage the culture effectively, much less hope to change it, without attention to the factors mentioned here” (p. 47).
[Note: some of the material in Tyler's summaries is adapted from Justin Taylor's blog.]
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At Coram Deo we believe that the home is the primary context for training and discipling children. Now we have found a book produced by one of our sister Acts 29 churches that illustrates this concept in a fun and engaging way that both children and parents will appreciate.
