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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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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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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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4 August 2010 at 10:47 pm by Bob Thune · book reviews, city renewal, culture, kingdom, 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 first installment.
Essay 1, Chapter 1: Christian Faith and the Task of World-Changing
Human beings are, by divine intent and their very nature, world-makers. People fulfill their individual and collective destiny in the art, music, literature, commerce, law, and scholarship they cultivate, the relationships they build, and in the institutions they develop—the families, churches, associations, communities they live in and sustain—as they reflect the good of God and His designs for flourishing.
Genesis 2:15 says that Yahweh “took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate [Hb. abad: work, nurture, sustain, husband] and keep [Hb. shamar: safeguard, preserve, care for, protect] it.” “These active verbs,” Hunter writes, “convey God’s intention that human beings both develop and cherish the world in ways that meet human needs and bring glory and honor to him” (p. 3).
Hunter lists numerous mission statements from denominations and parachurch organizations “calling each other to engage the world and to change it for the better” (p. 4). He argues that the dominant ways of thinking about culture and cultural change are flawed.
Essay 1, Chapter 2: Culture – The Common View
Charles Colson, Jim Wallis, James Dobson—all are cited as believing and promoting this “common view”, which holds that the essence of culture is found in the values (moral preferences) in the heart and minds of individuals. A culture, then, is made up of the accumulation of values held by the majority of people and the resulting choices those people make.
Common View: Good ideas form the basis for good values which lead to good choices. In contrast, bad ideas form the basis for mistaken or immoral values which lead to bad choices. Changing culture requires more and more individuals embracing the good (i.e., good ideas leading to good values leading to good choices) instead of the bad. The thinking goes like…“Change the values of the common person for the better and a good society will follow in turn” (p. 9).
Christians generally employ three tactics to implement this working theory of how to change the world:
- evangelism: not only as a way of saving souls but of transforming individuals and, indirectly, the culture;
- political action: elect Christians who have the right values and worldview and therefore will make the right choices;
- social reform: renew civil society through social movements of moral reform (addressing problems within families, schools, neighborhoods, etc.)
They all share in common a fundamental assumption: “Cultures change when people change” (p. 16, emphasis his).
Hunter lists three implications that are embedded within this view:
- cultural change must proceed individually—one by one;
- cultural change can be willed into being;
- cultural change is democratic—bottom-up among ordinary people (rather than top-down by the elites).
William Wilberforce is often listed as the exemplar, and the message is clear: “If you have the courage and hold to the right values and if you think Christianly with an adequate Christian worldview, you too can change the world” (p. 17).
What does Hunter think of this model? “This account is almost wholly mistaken” (p. 17).
Essay 1, Chapter 3: The Failure of the Common View
The problem of the common view’s “working theory” is idealism—that something non-physical is the primary reality.
Hunter clarifies that the three tactics—evangelism, political engagement, and social action—are themselves good things, and that much good can come from them. But, his criticism is with the “working theory that both undergirds these strategies and approves them as a primary if not only means for changing the world” (p. 18).
So why aren’t Christians having more of an influence to shape culture? Hunter says, [the common viewers] think that“Christians are just not trying hard enough, acting decisively enough, or believing thoroughly or Christianly enough” (p. 22).
But the problem with this working theory is its dependence upon idealism—the notion that ideas move history. As Colson puts it, “history is little more than the recording of the rise and fall of the great ideas—the worldview—that form our values and move us to act.” Hunter says many Christians think this way – and that’s a problem.
Two other elements give this idealism a uniquely American and Protestant flavor:
- individualism (“the autonomous and rational individual is the key actor in social change”)
- Christian pietism (“the most important goal in life is having one’s being right before God”)
Here’s the message that’s being communicated:
- If people just pay better attention, learn better, be more consistent, they will understand better the challenges in our world today;
- If they have the right values, believe the right things, embrace the right worldview, they will be better equipped to engage those challenges;
- If they have the courage to actually jump in the fray and there choose more wisely and act more decisively, they will rise to and overcome those challenges and change the world. (p. 27)
Christian culture-changers are trying to resist the dualism (secular vs. sacred) that exists between Christianity and Culture. They are trying to bridge the gap and engage culture. But, the irony is that most fall right back into dualism. Hunter writes, “Idealism reinforces dualism by ignoring the institutional nature of culture and disregarding the way culture is embedded in structures of power” (p. 27, my emphasis). Ideas and Individuals don’t change the world without first being embedded in Institutions (structures of power).
He’s not saying that renewing individual hearts and minds is a bad thing, or that worldview education won’t have good effects, or that Christians can be involved in social reform or the political process. Rather, “these things are just not decisively important if the goal is to change the world” (p. 27).
Andy Crouch (author of Culture Making) argues that, to change the culture, we have to create more of culture – that Christians should invest in creative cultural production. But Hunter believes that “this view still suffers from fundamental flaws that render it inadequate for understanding the complexity of the world and Christianity’s relationship to it” (p. 29). Despite its merits, it is still individualistic, with cultural change being willed into being (by investing in and creating cultural goods) and is democratic (a bottom-up approach to change).
Is there an alternative?
[Note: some of the material in Tyler's summaries is adapted from Justin Taylor's blog.]
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2 August 2010 at 10:58 am by Bob Thune · book reviews, culture, faith, theology
God has blessed Coram Deo with a litany of reflective, articulate writers and thinkers. In this post, public school teacher, grad student, missional community leader, and ad-hoc-pastoral-research-assistant Paul Putz offers a review of NT Wright’s most recent book.
NT Wright’s latest work, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, is the third in a series of books designed to be an introduction to Christianity (Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope being the first two). With a tone that is often pastoral, Wright is seeking to answer the question “How shall Christians live?” and “Why does Christian character matter?”
In his view, western Christianity has focused too much on the conversion experience as the end goal of a Christian life. Those Christians who do emphasize sanctification tend to err by suggesting either rule-keeping or authentic, spontaneous actions as the proper way to approach life. According to Wright, “Jesus…is inviting us to something not so much like rule-keeping on the one hand or following our own dreams on the other, but a way of being human, a kind of transformation of character.” This transformation of character is what philosophers throughout history have referred to as “virtue.”
In fact, “virtue” is a key theme of Wright’s book. In his native England, the book was released under the title Virtue Reborn, but in America, fearing possible Protestant backlash, editors chose to keep the word “virtue” out of the title. Part of Wright’s contention in the book is that too many people have “guileless confidence in the unalloyed goodness of spontaneous impulses” and they “merely assume…that ‘being true to oneself’ is the central human command.” What the Christian world, and in fact the world at large needs, is a rediscovery of virtue, a realization that “what comes naturally” is not always good, and that true character transformation actually takes hard work. Similar to what Dallas Willard might write, Wright points out that it takes moral effort, over time, to develop virtue. A person must make “a thousand small choices, requiring effort and concentration, to do something which is good and right but which doesn’t ‘come naturally’—and then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find that they do what’s required ‘automatically’ as we say.” This falls in line with Paul’s constant exhortations in the New Testament for the Christian to “put on” or “put off” or “put away” or “put to death.” Paul clearly has the idea that a Christian, saved by grace and given a new identity in Christ, must then make repeated conscious moral decisions to live out and develop their new identity.
In all theories of virtue, there is a telos, or goal, that one is working towards. For pagan philosophers of virtue, the telos tended to be focused on self-glorification. In contrast, Wright says, “The Christian vision of virtue is different from that of philosophers such as Aristotle in that Christian virtue isn’t about you—your happiness, your fulfillment, your self-realization. It’s about God and God’s kingdom.” A major part of Wright’s theology is that Christians are called by God to be the restored, genuine image-bearers of God, those people through whom God’s plan for the whole world will be worked out. Thus, Christians should be developing habits of heart and mind that anticipate God’s coming future. The already/not yet tension of God’s kingdom coming to the earth is something that exists within each individual Christian. To be a follower of Jesus means that the Spirit empowers one to work, in one’s own thoughts and actions, towards the goal of God’s kingdom coming in fullness to earth.
As Wright lays the theological framework for a life of Christian character, a life centered on living right now in ways that reflect how one will live when God’s kingdom comes in full, the reader may ask: “What practices should I be engaging in to develop this kind of character?” Wright’s answer (reading Scripture, praying, being in community, etc) is sure to disappoint those who are looking for a new Christian thing they can do. However, he says, it’s not the practices themselves that offer the cure, but rather the way a person consciously and reflectively engages in those practices that can develop Spirit-led character transformation.
Reinhold Neibuhr wrote, “A vital Christian faith and life is under the necessity of perennially preserving its health against the peril of diseases and corruptions arising out of its own life.” In essence, Wright’s book arises out of this corrective need. He is writing to correct the error that living a Christian life requires no hard moral work on the part of the individual Christian, or that a Christian must only focus on keeping some rules and then going up to heaven upon death. The benefit of Wright’s book comes not in what he suggests to do, but rather in the way that he provides a rich theological framework for understanding why a Christian should develop a life of virtue, and how that life can then reflect God’s purposes for mankind.
For those familiar with Wright’s previous work, it will come as no surprise that throughout the book he interacts with and provides insightful reflections on culture, politics, society, philosophy and more. Sometimes, it’s these digressions that make for his most salient points. Take, for example, this passage where he pushes the reader not to let the difficulty of Scripture stop one from studying it:
“This isn’t to say there aren’t hard bits in the Bible – both passages that are difficult to understand and passages that we understand only too well but find shocking of disturbing (for example, celebrating the killing of Edomite babies at the end of Psalm 137). Avoid the easy solutions to these; that these bits weren’t ‘inspired,’ or that the whole Bible is wicked nonsense, or that Jesus simply abolished the bits we disapprove of. Live with the tensions. Goodness knows there are plenty of similar tensions in our own lives, our own world. Let the troubling words jangle against one another. Take the opportunity to practice patience (there may yet be more meaning here than I can see at the moment) and humility (God may well have things to say through this for which I’m not yet ready).”
These frequent digressions, although useful to some, might also be off-putting for some readers. Reading Wright is not like reading an organized, systematic presentation. Rather, it’s more like being placed in a whirlwind of ideas and thoughts, some awe-inspiring, some confusing, all of them centered on and swirling around a couple of key themes.
It should be noted that After You Believe has been criticized by some for its portrayal of the Reformers, particularly Martin Luther. At times, Wright suggests that Luther believed the development of Christian virtue to be hypocritical and unnecessary, a suggestion which has been contested by men such as Michael Horton. Despite this, I recommend After You Believe for any person who is looking for a deeper biblical understanding of why Christian character is needed and how it can be developed. Those who have enjoyed Wright’s work in the past will almost certainly enjoy this book. Those who have never been exposed to his writing would do well to take this opportunity to examine the insight of one of today’s Christian intellectual giants.
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31 July 2010 at 2:46 pm by Bob Thune · culture, evangelicalism, sermon, subculture
One of the best musicians and songwriters you’ve never heard of is Steve Taylor, a Christian recording artist who had his heyday in the late 1980′s. During the years before indie rock and iTunes, when ‘Christian music’ meant K-Love-style crooning, Taylor was a counter-cultural fly-in-the-ointment. His specialty was using his considerable lyrical genius to satirically lambaste the Christian subculture. As such, he was frequently misunderstood by well-meaning Christians who just didn’t get the joke. For instance, in 1987 he wrote a song called “I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good,” written from the perspective of an abortion-clinic bomber who thought he was doing God’s will. Taylor’s point was to cleverly show how ludicrous such thinking was; but some Christian bookstores interpreted the song as endorsing violence and pulled the album from the shelves. (Evangelicals have never been quite at home with satire).
Reflecting on Psalm 89, a Psalm written to lament God’s absence, I asked, “What do we tend to do, instead of engaging with God in the midst of rejection and abandonment?” Answer: we give up hope. Taylor wrote a song about that, with college philosophy professors as his whipping boys:
“Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel a Lot Better” – Steve Taylor – from the album I Predict 1990
Enter the young idealist
Chasing dragons to slay
Exit the hustler
Packing up his M.B.A.
Freshmen scream in a classroom
Was there a sound?
First degree in the vacuum
I’m on college ground
Took a class, big fun
Modern ethics 101
First day learned why
Ethics really don’t apply
Prof says, “One trait
Takes us to a higher state
Drug free, pure bliss
Get your pencils, copy this”
“Life unwinds like a cheap sweater
But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better
And the truth gets blurred like a wet letter
But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better”
Top of the class sits Ernest
He was brightest and best
Till the professor lured him
To the hopeless nest
Now he lives for the shortcut
Like a citizen should
Tells the class with a wink
“Only the young die good”
He says, “Ideals? Uncouth
Fatalism needs youth
Eat well, floss right
Keep the hungry out of sight
Save face–nip and tuck
Praise yourself and pass the buck
And don’t forget the best advice
Everybody’s got a price”
“Life unwinds like a cheap sweater
But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better
And the truth gets blurred like a wet letter
But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better”
“While the world winds down to a final prayer
Nothing soothes quicker than complete despair
I predict by dinner I won’t even care
Since I gave up hope I feel a lot better”
Nazis plead in a courtroom
“Pardon me, boys”
Profits fall in a boardroom
Did they make a noise?
Someone spreads an affliction
Company’s nice
Someone sells an addiction
Puts your soul on ice
Half wits knock heads
Candidates in double beds
Good guys defect
“I can’t precisely recollect”
Teacher’s pet theory’s fine
If you’re born without a spine
Can’t you spell wrong?
Sing it to him Papa John
“While the world winds down to a final prayer
Nothing soothes quicker than complete despair
I predict by dinner I won’t even care
Since I gave up hope I feel a lot better”
“Life unwinds like a cheap sweater
But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better
And the truth gets blurred like a wet letter
But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better”
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28 July 2010 at 10:34 am by Bob Thune · book reviews, city renewal, culture, kingdom, theology
By far the most thought-provoking book I’ve read so far this year is James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World. I finished this book about a month ago and have been ruminating on it ever since, trying to discern how exactly to pen an adequate review/summary. So if you’re not going to read on, I’ll just tell you now: you should buy this book and read it. Everyday readers will benefit from Hunter’s penetrating insights into evangelical Christianity’s interaction with modern culture. And spiritual leaders will gain a litany of reasons to question their assumptions about Christian mission and spiritual formation.
If you didn’t discern from the publishing house (Oxford University Press) that Hunter’s book is an intellectually weighty work, his aggressive thesis ought to get your attention – and leave you hoping for some substantive argumentation. Hunter’s contention is that though Christians far and wide are united in their desire to change the world, “the dominant ways of thinking about culture and cultural change are flawed.” The Christian/populist idea that cultural change results from “change to the heart and mind of the person, through the values and ideas that people live by… is almost wholly mistaken… [E]very tactic for changing the world that is based on this working theory of culture and cultural change will fail.” Thus, says Hunter, “If one is serious about changing the world, the first step is to discard the prevailing view of culture and cultural change and start from scratch.”
Starting from scratch is exactly what Hunter is attempting to do. His book is a massive work of deconstruction and reconstruction. He labors to tear down, bit by bit, the dominant Christian paradigm of cultural change and to replace it with a new and better way of thinking. Does he succeed? You’ll have to answer that question for yourself.
Hunter is a very cautious and charitable interlocutor. He is writing as a thoughtful Christian, and he is surprisingly warm and gracious even in his deconstruction. He does not denigrate the efforts of Christians to change the culture through evangelism, political activism, or social renewal. He is simply arguing that these methods do not work. It’s not that Christians lack good intentions or adequate will; it’s that they’re starting from wrong assumptions.
Hunter’s thesis is relatively straightforward. But it’s the robust argumentation he pursues to defend that thesis that makes this book compelling. As a professor of religion and culture at the University of Virginia, he clearly has the research horsepower to deliver the goods. To whet your appetite, I’ll quote Hunter’s own summary of his argument near the end of the book:
I note in Essay I that Christians have long had a healthy desire to change the world for the better, a desire with roots in sound biblical and theological reasoning. In the past, however, they have done so with mixed effect…
The first problem is that the implicit social theory that guides so much of their efforts is deeply flawed. Christians… tend to believe that cultures are shaped from the cumulative values and beliefs that reside in the hearts and minds of ordinary people… This is why Christians often pursue social change through evangelism (and conversion), civic renewal through populist social movements, and democratic political action (where every vote reflects values). The evidence of history and sociology demonstrates that this theory of culture and cultural change is simply wrong and for this reason, every initiative based on this perspective will fail to achieve the goals it hopes to meet. This is not to say that the hearts and minds of ordinary people are unimportant. To the contrary. Rather, the hearts and minds of ordinary people are only relatively insignificant if the goal is to change cultures at their deepest levels.
Against this view I have argued that cultural change at its most profound level occurs through dense networks of elites operating in common purpose within institutions at high-prestige centers of cultural production… Thus, for all the talk of world-changing and all of the good intentions that motivate it, the Christian community is not, on the whole, remotely close to a position where it could actually change the world in any significant way.
Were Christians to be in a position to exert enduring cultural influence, the results would likely be disastrous or perhaps mostly so. The reason, I argue in Essay II, is that world-changing implies power and the implicit theories of power that have long guided their exercise of power are also deeply problematic… In conformity to the spirit of the modern age, Christians conceive of power as political power… they mistakenly imagine that to pass a referendum, elect a candidate, pass a law, or change a policy is to change culture… In so doing, Christians undermine the message of the very gospel they cherish and desire to advance.
Finally, I argued in the present essay, the political agendas of the Christian Right, Christian Left, and the neo-Anabaptists are just the leading edge of larger paradigms of cultural engagement that I call, respectively, ‘defensive against,’ ‘relevance to,’ and ‘purity from.’ Each of these paradigms operates with different understandings of what it is that most needs changing within the contemporary world… In opposition to [these paradigms], I have suggested a model of engagement called ‘faithful presence within.’
As you can see from this excerpt, Hunter’s book offers much to digest. He takes to task all forms of Christian political engagement (not just the Christian Right). He examines wrong ideas about power and counters with what a biblical approach to power might look like. He offers thoughtful support for his contention that culture is shaped by institutions, not individuals. Along the way, he makes complex sociological principles accessible to the average person. For instance: does symbolic power seem like an abstract concept? Well, just think of it this way: an editorial in the New York Times carries more ‘clout’ than one in the Lincoln Journal-Star. That’s because the Times has greater symbolic power – which makes it more culturally influential. It’s those kinds of insights that make Hunter’s arguments plausible not just to sociologists, but to thoughtful Christians everywhere.
Hunter’s book isn’t without weaknesses, and others have offered valid critiques. But for all Christians seeking to thoughtfully engage culture – and especially for Coram Deo members seeking to live on mission and bring renewal within the city – this book is a must-read.
For those who will be called to lead the church either now or in the future: it would be wise not to say or write anything about cultural engagement until you’ve read this book. Why? Because according to Hunter, Christians need to “abandon altogether talk of ‘redeeming the culture,’ ‘advancing the kingdom,’ ‘building the kingdom,’ ‘transforming the world,’ ‘reclaiming the culture,’ ‘reforming the culture,’ and ‘changing the world.’” You may end up disagreeing with Hunter on this point. But you shouldn’t do so until you’ve weighed his argument.
[One of Coram Deo's missional community leaders, Tyler Zach, read Hunter's book with laptop at hand, summarizing the key arguments and assertions. In weeks to come we'll post some of Tyler's summaries to help readers more thoughtfully engage this important tome.]
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16 June 2010 at 8:05 am by Bob Thune · brokenness, culture, formation, sin
from Tony Woodlief in WORLD magazine, June 19, 2010 // link to original article
Several weeks ago I was in a bookstore, where I noticed a boy of 10 or 12 thumbing through the most recent Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. His mother stood nearby, her boy and his newfound reading material in full sight. She seemed not to care. It’s a sign of something—decayed community bonds, perhaps, or moral cowardice—that the thought of speaking to her about this made me cringe. Then the boy put down the magazine, and they wandered to another part of the bookstore, and that was that.
Of course that wasn’t really that, because the entire purpose of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and indeed of most pornography choking the stream of popular culture—be it sexual or violent—is to cast images that are unforgettable. Whether it’s a woman arching luridly, or a film villain carving up his screaming victims, their creators and especially their profit-seeking marketers want you to remember what you’ve witnessed.
And boys do remember. I remember discovering my stepfather’s stash of pornography as a child, and the heart-thumping realization that here was something secret and forbidden. There’s no regaining your innocence once you’ve looked upon obscenity. That’s one reason for obscenity laws, not so much that we might transform the onanist or pornographer, but because once a child sees the vulgar T-shirt or cast-aside magazine, he is forever changed.
The sophisticated will snicker. What’s wrong with a boy looking at women in bathing suits, after all? It’s hardly hardcore pornography, after all. And besides, boys will be boys.
Boys will indeed be boys, but there are a great many varieties of boys, and of men. The person who pretends that seeing women as items of sexual consumption doesn’t shape a man’s behavior is, in fact, the one who is being simple-minded, for all his feigned urbanity.
But we don’t want to talk that way, because it smacks of puritanism, and besides, these lovely women are just proud of their bodies, as are their families. This year’s SI cover girl, semi-topless Brooklyn Decker, reports that her mother cried when she made the cover. Out of pride. Her husband, tennis player Andy Roddick, tweeted his pride as well.
I once saw a talk show on which a porn actress insisted that she wasn’t cheating on her husband because the sex she performed for paychecks was “different.” This personalized truth is inevitable in a world more inclined to follow Pilate (“What is truth?”) than Christ (“Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice”).
It’s distortion that’s essential to the self-esteem of people inclined toward pornography but not yet liberated enough to call it such. Thus are the nearly naked women in Sports Illustrated, or the college girls who pose in Playboy’s periodic college campus issues, simply proud of their bodies. How dare anyone deprive these women of their self-esteem by telling them that, in blunt terms, they’re simply taking off their clothes for money and applause?
One might be tempted to think the damage is limited to the girl who exposes herself for cash, the boy learning to look at women the way a butcher eyes a cut of meat. But the damage is never limited. The compromised woman has taught countless girls that this is how to gain the admiration of men. The boy, meanwhile, has been weakened, and the seeds of a hunger have been sown, and he has started down a path toward the perversion of a man’s natural desire for women.
The libertine scoffs, but I know too many men for whom this is true. I am one of those men. Images are etched into my mind, and they spark a perpetual struggle. Many of my sins, especially those against my wife, are rooted in those illicit hours learning to see women as playthings.
The eyes and ears of children must be guarded—this is common wisdom garnered over centuries and across civilizations. Only recently has it been cast aside. “Guard your son” is what I should have told the mother in the bookstore. “It doesn’t end with this,” I should have said. God help me, I know.
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10 June 2010 at 6:54 am by Bob Thune · brokenness, culture, justice, poverty
Being a culturally engaged church means seeking common ground with the broader culture on issues of “common grace.” Our good friends over at inCOMMON modeled this well last Tuesday night. They brought together many of the city’s nonprofit leaders as well as the indie-film crowd by collaborating with FilmStreams to show the documentary The End of Poverty?
My plans to attend changed at the last minute due to a funeral. But a strong contingent of Coram Deo folks did attend; others were turned away at the door as tickets sold out. Props to our friends Christian and Sonya Gray for their hard work in promoting this event throughout the city. One of their goals was to contribute to the cultural dialogue on the issue of poverty – and certainly this event did so.
The evening wasn’t devoid of tension, mostly due to the content of the film. Filmmaker and scriptwriter Philippe Diaz is an avowed anti-capitalist whose goal in the film was to show that global poverty “is not an accident,” but rather a result of “unfair debt, trade and tax policies — in other words, wealthy countries exploiting the weaknesses of poor, developing countries” (from the film’s publicity materials). This film clearly has an agenda, and more than a few of those who viewed it on Tuesday night found it heavy-handed and unpalatable. One friend called the movie “a Michael-Moore-ish documentary, sans humor.” Some more academic reviewers have agreed, taking issue with the film’s underlying economic and philosophical assumptions. Even the New York Times blithely labeled the film a “guilt trip/history lesson.” As Christians, we affirm that the gospel of Jesus Christ certainly confronts capitalist excess. But it also confronts anti-Western neo-Marxism, which seems to be all the rage these days.
For those of you who attended, or who have seen the film in another context, I’d be interested in your take on it. What did you find thought-provoking, challenging, insightful? What did you find contrived or objectionable?
Not all proposed solutions to poverty are good ones. And not all reasoning about the causes of poverty will be agreed upon. But being aware of poverty – and troubled by it – is a step in the right direction. Kudos to inCOMMON for helping us take that step.
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3 May 2010 at 11:18 am by Bob Thune · church planting, city renewal, culture, theology
In 1951 the Yale theologian H. Richard Niebuhr wrote Christ and Culture, which to this day remains a watershed book examining the relationship between church and culture. Though Niebuhr’s work is genius, the average Christian probably won’t want to invest the time and effort to navigate it (due to its philosophical and academic rigor). Thankfully, urban ministry pioneers Harvie Conn and Tim Keller have recast Niebuhr’s insights in the language of city-centered church planting. I came across their material in my study for our church planting series and thought it might be helpful to share it.
Five models for how the church relates to the city:
- Christ against the City. The city environment is partially to blame for the troubles of society. Small-town life is humanizing; the city is de-humanizing. Churches that buy into this model exist as fortresses that gather Christians together for warmth in the spiritually cold urban space.
- Christ of the City. Salvation = liberation for the oppressed. The church does not exist to build a distinct identity as the people of God, but simply to join the flow of history toward liberation and freedom. Churches that buy into this model have lost touch with the need for conversion of heart and life; they become little more than community centers, concert halls, and political action groups. They are mirrors celebrating and cheering the more liberal aspects of the city’s culture.
- Christ above the City. Cities are good places for Christians to live and grow… in a privatized, individualized way. Christians end up “using” the city for their own self-improvement, but give little back to it. They don’t seek to heal social brokenness or transform culture through their vocations. Churches that buy into this model end up with members who are very behaviorally “pure” but very worldly in the way they use their time and resources.
- Christ and the City in Paradox (i.e. the Pilgrim model). Recognizes both the brokenness of the city and the power of God for change, but sees these forces in a sort of dualistic tension with each other. Churches that buy into this model tend to be a “spiritual MASH unit” to heal people broken by the sinfulness of the city. They are very active in ministry but tend to have a short-term vision. They see their role as pilgrims… “this world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through.” Therefore they do not tend to be serious about seeking long-term structural and systemic change that would actually make the city better for all residents.
- Christ Transforming the City. Churches that buy into this model take seriously the kingdom promise of a renewed material world – the “new heavens and new earth” are not a completely new creation (ex nihilo), but rather God’s redemption of this fallen creation. Therefore they see their role in the city as working toward this end. Harvie Conn paints a beautiful linguistic picture:
Perhaps the best analogy to describe all this is that of a model home. We are God’s demonstration community of the rule of Christ in the city. On a tract of earth’s land, purchased with the blood of Christ, Jesus the kingdom developer has begun building new housing. As a sample of what will be, he has erected a model home of what will eventually fill the urban neighborhood. He now invites the urban world into that model home to take a look at what will be. The church is the occupant of that model home, inviting neighbors into its open door to Christ… As citizens of, not survivalists in, this new city within the old city, we see our ownership as the gift of Jesus the Builder (Luke 17:20-21). As residents, not pilgrims, we await the kingdom coming when the Lord returns from his distant country (Luke 19:12). The land is already his…in this model home we live out our new lifestyle as citizens of the heavenly city that one day will come. We do not abandon our jobs or desert the city that is….We are to seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which God called us in exile (Jeremiah 29:7). And our agenda of concerns in that seeking becomes as large as the cities where our divine development tracts are found.
Adapted from the Redeemer Church Planting Manual, c. 2002, Redeemer Presbyterian Church
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