Tag Archives: B&B Friday

To Change The World by James Davison Hunter

Others have written about James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World, enough so that I almost feel like the late-comer to the party. Let me encourage you, for example, to read through Jay Guin’s analysis of the book.

Still, I feel that Hunter’s subject matter aligns so closely with matters near and dear to my heart (and oft written about in this blog), that I’d like to take some time to look at this book. Today I’ll do a bit of a review, or at least an overview. Later I’ll examine some of the ideas in a closer way.

The full title of the book is To Change The World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. The title is intended as a bit of irony, mainly because Hunter will argue that Christians can’t change the world without being changed by the world in the process. He contends that the world is changed not only through ideas (worldview) but also through elites, networks, technology, and new institutions. World-changing implies power, power that typically is defined in terms of conquest and domination. When power is seen primarily in terms of political domination, it becomes the opposite of what Christians are called to be.

Hunter analyzes three types of Christian politics: the Christian right, the Christian left and the neo-Anabaptists. He calls these views toward culture, respectively, “defensive against,” “relevance to,” and “purity from.” He sees these groups as utilizing ineffective means for engaging culture.

Hunter argues that the principal issues to be addressed are difference and dissolution: how do we relate to a world that is not our world and how do we deal with the “deconstruction of the most basic assumptions about reality.” (p. 205) The solution that Hunter proposes is “faithful presence.” Using Jeremiah 29:4-7 as his textual base, Hunter says that Christians should maintain their distinctiveness but do it in a way that serves the common good. He observes,

“In short, commitment to the new city commons is a commitment of the community of faith to the highest ideals and practices of human flourishing in a pluralistic world.” (p. 279)

In the end, Hunter says that Christians shouldn’t worry about changing the world, because the world, and history, cannot be controlled and managed. He states,

“To be sure, Christianity is not, first and foremost, about establishing righteousness or creating good values or securing justice or making peace in the world. … But for Christians, these are all secondary to the primary good of God himself and the primary task of worshipping him and honoring him in all they do.” (pp.285-286)

Hunter says that Christians won’t create a perfect world, but will help to make the world a little bit better.

Chapter abstracts of the book can be found on Hunter’s website.

B&B Friday: Reflections

A few years ago, I began reading Al Maxey’s Reflections. The more I explored his website, the more food for thought I found there. Al is a prolific writer, churning out well-researched, thought-provoking articles. I don’t always agree with Al, having had some fairly sharp disagreements on a few points, but I find that his writings stretch my thinking.

Besides his Reflections articles, Al also has some studies for Bible classes, debates and other materials available. I highly recommend you spend some time exploring his site.

B&B Friday: Heartlight

OK, so Heartlight.org isn’t a blog per se. It’s much bigger than that. There are graphic resources, articles, study resources… a wealth of material. They also offer a number of daily e-mails, from “Today’s Verse” to daily blog-like articles.

Phil Ware, minister at the Southern Hills Church of Christ in Abilene, developed and maintains the site. I first started receiving their e-mails over 10 years ago and now have the privilege of writing regularly for Heartlight. Our ministry team writes articles that are featured on the site each Wednesday.

If you haven’t visited Heartlight.org, do yourself a favor and explore the site a bit. There’s something there for just about everyone.

B&B Friday: Thought For The Day

For years now, I’ve enjoyed receiving a rather unique devotional by e-mail, something called Thought For The Day by Alan Smith. Alan no longer publishes every day; I’m not even sure if there’s a pattern to his schedule. A few months ago, Alan established a Thought For The Day blog that mirrors the e-mail devotional.

Alan takes some of the humorous stories that float around the story and shares them with us, along with a spiritual lesson that is drawn from the joke itself. The lessons aren’t always deep, but the stories are enjoyable and it’s a nice way to turn your mind to some spiritual things.

Do yourself a favor. Go to Alan Smith’s blog and read some of the posts there. Or go to the archive of older posts. If you’d rather get Thought For The Day in your e-mail, just send an e-mail to join-thought-for-the-day@hub.xc.org.

B&B Friday: Bloggers and others discuss alcohol and the Christian

bible_in_handsThis B&B Friday will be dedicated to blogs, somewhat, though not in a review. To cap off the series on alcohol and the Christian, I wanted to offer some links for those interested in reading more.