Category Archives: culture

Essay 2, Chapter 2: Power and Politics in American Culture

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We’re going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. Here’s the abstract of the second essay chapter 2 “Power and Politics in American Culture” from Hunter’s website:

Power now does the work that culture used to do. This is seen in the tendency toward the politicization of nearly everything. Politicization is most visibly manifested in the role ideology has come to play in public life, the well-established predisposition 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 problems or issues in any way that is not political.

Politicization means that the final arbiter within most of social life is the coercive power of the state. Our times amply demonstrate that it is far easier to force one’s will upon others through legal and political means than it is to persuade them or negotiate compromise with them. What adds pathos to this situation is the presence of ressentiment, defined by a combination of anger, envy, hate, rage, and revenge.

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

This chapter describes what Hunter calls “the politicization of everything.” The state has become the principal framework through which we understand everything. The language of politics shapes our understanding of our lives, our purposes and even ourselves. People are known publicly as pro-lifers or pro-choicers, liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, traditionalist or progressive. We even apply many of these political terms to our religious views, defining religion in terms of politics instead of vice versa.

We also have come to view political solutions as the only viable ones for public problems. That’s why holding power seems to be so important to us, since we see this power as the only way to have a voice regarding social life.

Adding depth to this situation is what Nietzsche called ressentiment. It is a combination of anger, envy and revenge as a political motivation. It is grounded in a sense of entitlement and a belief that one has been wronged. Hunter doesn’t claim that everyone is power-hungry and resentment-filled; he does say that these are the dominant forces driving our political culture today.

Faith has become just as politicized as everything else. Outsiders view Christians as being very political, and Christians describe themselves in political terms. Hunter will discuss the three dominant political positions in American Christianity: Conservative, Progressive and Neo-Anabaptist. That will take place over the next few chapters.

Essay 2, Chapter 1: The Problem of Power

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We’re going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. The second essay is entitled “Rethinking Power.” Here’s the abstract of the second essay chapter 1 “The Problem of Power” from Hunter’s website:

When faith and its culture flourish, it does so, in part, because it operates with an implicit view of power in its proper place. When faith and its culture deteriorate, it does so, in part, because it operates with a view of power that is corrupt.

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

The second essay will look at how power is understood and practiced in today’s America. Hunter will especially focus on the church’s relationship to this power. The blunt truth is that the church has allowed the world to define power and to dictate how it is gained and used.

What we need is a new understanding of power, which is what Hunter will seek to present in this essay.

Chapter 7: For and Against the Mandate of Creation

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Largely for my own personal benefit, I’m going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. Here’s the abstract of chapter 7 “For and Against the Mandate of Creation” from Hunter’s website:

Populism is organic to American Christianity, yet on the other hand, populism is, in some ways, at odds with what we know about the most historically significant dynamics of world-changing. In other words, there is an unavoidable tension between pursuing excellence and the social consequences of its achievement; between leadership and elitism that all too often comes from it. The antidotes to “seizing power” in a new way is a better understanding of “faithful presence.”

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

Yes, Hunter does like to use big words, something I’m not a fan of. I still argue that the true scholar is the one who can express deep thoughts in simple terms. Still, Hunter has some things to say, if you dig through the excess syllables.

In this chapter, which closes the first of the three essays that make up this book, Hunter returns to the concept of the creation mandate, which he discussed in chapter one. He maintains that a proper understanding of the creation mandate leads us to see that Christianity isn’t about changing the world at all. He says that

contemporary Christian understandings of power and politics are a large part of what has made contemporary Christianity in America appalling, irrelevant, and ineffective—part and parcel of the worst elements of our late modern culture today… (p.95)

(Yeah, I stood up and applauded at that one.) Christians are to reject the entire idea of “seizing power,” focusing on what Hunter calls “a faithful presence” (topic to be explained more fully in the third essay). Social theory, which explains how the world is changed, goes in the opposite direction of good theology.
What the church needs to seek, rather than power, is “faithful presence in all areas of life.” Again, that will be explained more fully in the third essay.

So that’s the gist of Essay #1. Hunter describes how the world is changed, then explains that Christians can’t be about changing the world without changing their mission first. Faithfulness to the cause of Christ means rejecting the idea of “winning the culture war,” “taking our nation back,” or any of the other slogans so popular over the last few decades.

What do you think? Take some time to read the summary of all seven chapters, then tell me if you agree with Hunter’s conclusions.

Chapter 6: The Cultural Economy of American Christianity

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We’re going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. Here’s the abstract of chapter 6 “The Cultural Economy of American Christianity” from Hunter’s website:

The actual vitality of American Christianity’s cultural capital today 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, and almost always toward the practical as opposed to the theoretical or the imaginative. The collective impact of the Christian community on the nature and direction of the culture itself is negligible. They have been absent from the arenas in which the greatest influence in culture is exerted.

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

Hunter looks at spheres of influence and Christian presence in those spheres. He grants that Christians have been actively pursuing a presence in politics. In the realm of economics, he finds that Christian influence is greatest in small and mid-sized businesses; there is little Christian influence on the leadership of American capitalism.

The author then turns his focus to what he calls culture. He finds the use of Christian funds to be lacking; little money is invested in developing Christian intellectuals, social innovators or artists. Christian cultural artifacts are being produced but they are almost exclusively designed for Christian consumption. What is produced tends to be marginalized, rather than mainstream, and populist, rather than innovative. They are not the kind of works that impact the culture at large.

Even more critically, Hunter states, Christians are absent from the halls of cultural power. He lays out a cultural matrix, with headings of knowledge, morality and aesthetics, and he finds that Christians are not among the elite cultural players in any of those areas.

All of this seems to indicate, Hunter argues, that Christianity is a weak culture within the larger cultural spectrum. Two principal causes of this are fragmentation within the Christian movement and widespread acculturation by Christians in America. The result of all of this, according to the book, is “the idea that American Christianity could influence the larger culture in ways that are healthy and humane is, for the time being, doubtful.” (p.92)

Do you agree with Hunter’s assessment?

Chapter 5: Evidence in History

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We’re going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. Here’s the abstract of chapter 5 “Evidence in History” from Hunter’s website:

The alternative view of cultural change that assigns roles not only to ideas but also to elites, networks, technology, and new institutions, provides a much better account of the growth in plausibility and popularity of these important cultural developments. This is the evidence of history—particularly clear in an overview of key moments in church history and the rise of the Enlightenment and its various manifestations. Change in culture or civilization simply does not 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.

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

OK, I’ll admit it. This chapter bothered me. Again, looking back, I can see that Hunter wasn’t really advocating what he was describing, he was merely reporting what had happened. In his description of the spread of Christianity, he in no way shows how the world changed the church even as the church was changing the world. In later essays, he’ll make it clear that that very thing is inevitable; you are always changed in some way by the very thing you seek to change. This especially applies to the church when it tries to use the ways of the world to change the world.

Getting back to the book, Hunter in this chapter traces key moments in church history and shows how the changes brought about at those times were top-down, institutionally-driven changes, rather than “grassroots” movements. Changes in beliefs and values don’t bring about culture change, nor does the production of artifacts (books, movies, etc.). As Hunter states, “ideas can have revolutionary and world-changing consequences and yet they appear to do so only when the kinds of structural conditions described here are in place.” (p. 78)

In the end, this chapter merely provides the historical evidence to back up the propositions of the last chapter.