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Essay 3, Chapter 2: Old Cultural Wineskins

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The second chapter of the third essay of James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World is called “Old Cultural Wineskins.” The abstract of this chapter, from Hunter’s website, reads as follows:

If sincerity were the same thing as faithfulness, then all would be well, for Christians, as a rule, are nothing if not sincere—not least in their desire to be “faithful in their own generation.” However, wisdom is required. The changes that have brought about the challenge of difference and dissolution go right to the core of the ability of Christians to live out there faith with integrity.

The three political theologies are the leading public edge of three paradigms of cultural engagement: “Defensive Against,” “Relevance To,” and “Purity From.” All three approaches develop strategies to address difference and dissolution and each approach is equally problematic. So the question remains: How can one be authentically Christian in circumstances that, by their very nature, undermine the credibility and coherence of faith

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

Hunter provides a good analysis of the three leading political postures among Christians, with corresponding phrases to help us understand them. He then looks at how each of these cultural stances deals with the problems of distance and dissolution (discussed in the previous chapter).

Hunter finds that the “relevant to” camp tends to abandon the struggle for difference. The “defensive against” has maintained distinctiveness, but has done so through an aggressive and confrontational approach. The “pure from” group has withdrawn from large sections of social life. None of these approaches, Hunter claims, seems to be adequate for the pursuit of faithfulness in this world.

In the following chapters, Hunter will seek to find an alternative way.

Essay 3, Chapter 1: The Challenge of Faithfulness

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The third essay in James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World is entitled “Toward a New City Commons: Reflections on a Theology of Faithful Presence.” The first chapter of this essay is called “The Challenge of Faithfulness.” The abstract of this chapter, from Hunter’s website, reads as follows:

Two overriding characteristics of our time are difference and dissolution. The problem of difference bears on how Christians engage the world outside of their own community, while the problem of dissolution bears on the nature of Christian witness. Pluralism creates both a fragmentation among worldviews and the social structures that support these worldviews. These are social conditions that make faithfulness difficult and faithlessness almost natural. For pluralism creates social conditions in which God is no longer an inevitability. There are key aspects of contemporary life that take us into radically new territory; into a social and cultural landscape that has very few recognizable features from cultures, societies, or civilizations past. The negative aspect of difference and dissolution is that they present conditions advantageous for the development of nihilism: autonomous desire and unfettered will legitimated by the ideology and practices of choice.

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

Hunter identifies two principal challenges that Christians have to face in the world today: difference and dissolution. He sees difference as affecting the way in which Christians engage the outside world and dissolution as complicating the nature of Christian witness.

The challenge of difference is about how Christians consider and interact with a world that is different from us. It arises from the reality of pluralism in our world today. People have always had to interact with those that are different from them, yet not to the extent that people do today. Hunter argues that what exacerbates this problem in the U.S. is that there really isn’t a dominant culture. There was a time when the Protestant culture dominated our country, but that is no longer true. Hunter states, “Fragmentation not only occurs among worldviews, but in the social structures that support those worldviews.” (pp. 202-03)

The social conditions no longer exist which made the existence of God an inevitability. One has to work harder to believe in God. And those that do no longer have a common language of faith to use with those outside.

The challenge of dissolution speaks to this absence of a common language. Dissolution refers to the disconnect between language and the realities it represents. In other words, the meaning of words is continually called into question. If words can mean anything, there is no possibility of a common meaning. (Sort of like Hunter’s use of the term “power” in the previous essay, where he changes the meaning to fit his argument) In such a world, we can never really be sure of what is true and what is real.

Both difference and dissolution have their positive aspects, but they also present great challenges for the church. The world is not the way it was. Christians need to learn to live out their faith in the new reality in which we find ourselves.

To Change The World: Some Reactions So Far

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A few thoughts on the book so far:

  1. The first essay makes a convincing point. I’m one of those who believes that Christianity will never be able to dominate a culture. I also believe that nations can’t be Christian. I have little quarrel with anything Hunter says in this first essay.
  2. What Hunter says about ressentiment in the second essay really rings true with me. I can see it in myself. I am so sick of the Christian Right and their unChristian tactics that I find myself naturally gravitating to the other views as a reaction. I’m not around a lot of people who push the views of the Christian Left, so that may be part of it. But even as I try to escape from politics, I find myself continually correcting mistruths and misconstructions, while trying to find the right attitudes that we all should have in such discussions.
  3. As I’ve said before, I think Hunter works too hard at including the neo-Anabaptists in his critiques. Since his final views would be described as neo-Anabaptist by many, Hunter has a hard time separating his arguments from their views. Much of it ends up being semantic, like his discussion of power.

The third essay is excellent, and we’ll begin analyzing it tomorrow.

Essay 2, Chapter 7: Rethinking Power—Theological Reflections

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In our survey of James Davison Hunter’s book To Change The World, we’re ready to look at the last chapter of the second essay. Chapter 7 is called “Rethinking Power—Theological Reflections.” Here’s the abstract from www.jamesdavisonhunter.com:

Only by narrowing an understanding of power to political or economic power can one imagine giving up power and becoming “powerless.” The creation mandate is a mandate to use power in the world in ways that reflect God’s intentions. Thus, the question for the church is not about choosing between power and powerlessness, but rather, how will the church and its people use the power that they have.

The church has two essential tasks. The first is to disentangle the life and identity of the church from the life and identity of American society. The second task is for the church and for Christian believers to decouple the “public” from the “political.” The way of Christ differs. His way operated in complete obedience to God the Father, it repudiated the symbolic trappings of elitism, it manifest compassion concretely out of calling and vocation, and it served the good of all and not just the good of the community of faith.

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

The first part of this chapter is one of the weakest links in all of Hunter’s arguments. He sets out to describe why power can’t be separated from human experience, then states that the reason is because anthropology has shown that power can’t be separated from human experience. Oops. Resorting to circular reasoning is one of the surest signs of a weak argument. Hunter then defines power so broadly that it encompasses all human interaction. To rephrase a line from the movie The Incredibles, when everything is power, nothing is.

Power can be rejected. People can refuse to hold power over others. As Todd said in the comment section of the last post, one can seek influence rather than dominion. Hunter could have left this section out without distracting from his argument; in fact, his work would have been much stronger had he done so. Apparently he follows this tangent to try and find something to use against the Neo-Anabaptists.

Hunter then states three facts about power:

  1. Power tends to become an end in itself. “Even voluntary organizations protect their organizational interests against the interests and needs of the very members they are supposed to serve.” (p. 179)
  2. Power always generates its own resistances. “Even the weak possess the power to challenge, subvert, destabilize and oppose.” (p. 179)
  3. Power always seems to carry with it unintended consequences.

As the article begins to address power and theology, the Neo-Anabaptists come under fire. Hunter does make an important concession when he says, “there is subtlety, nuance and range in the theological positions of neo-Anabaptism for which a hurried summary cannot do justice.” (p. 180) This can explain some of the discrepancies commenters have pointed out thus far.

Hunter again argues that Neo-Anabaptism uses “a truncated theory of power,” while I would argue that Hunter’s definition is so broad as to be virtually useless in a discussion of theology, politics and power. When he says that “every grammar and every narrative is an imposition,” (p. 182) his desire to condemn all standard viewpoints has led him to hyperbole.

However, some of his arguments about Christians necessarily participating with the powers of this world are valid. The challenge for Christians is rightly defined as how to be in the world and not of the world. Hunter advocates the use of what he calls a postpolitical witness in the world. To achieve this, two things must be done. First, “Christians must disentangle the life and identity of the church from the life and identity of American society.” (p. 184) As Hunter points out, the way that Christianity has embraced the American political system is merely an outgrowth of the way believers have uncritically immersed themselves in American culture.

The second task is to separate what is public from that which is political. As Hunter explains, politics is a simplification of social life, and society is always much broader than the political arena. He states, “Politics is just one way to engage the world and, arguably, not the highest, best, most effective, nor most humane way to do so.” (p. 185) I’m actually a bit surprised that Hunter doesn’t do with the word “politics” what he does with the word “power,” for it would be easy to redefine both words to encompass all human social interaction. This time, however, he resists the temptation, probably because it wouldn’t advance his argument.

So what kind of “power” does Hunter think that Christians should be seeking? Well, the kind of power that isn’t really power. He says that this “power” has four characteristics:

  1. It is derived from complete intimacy and submission to the Father.
  2. It rejects status, reputation and privilege.
  3. It is motivated by love for God and love for fellow man.
  4. It is completely noncoercive toward outsiders.

(If you’re keeping score at home, this is what we mere mortals call “powerlessness”… but I guess I’ve voiced my disagreement enough)

The third essay will explore what it means to live out the model of power we learn from Christ.

Essay 2, Chapter 6: Illusion, Irony and Tragedy

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The sixth chapter of the second part of Hunter’s book (To Change The World) is “Illusion, Irony and Tragedy.” Here’s the abstract from www.jamesdavisonhunter.com:

Politics has become a “social imaginary” that defines the horizon of understanding and the parameters for action. What is never challenged is the proclivity to think of the Christian faith and its engagements with culture in political terms. For all, the public has been conflated with the political. But the ressentiment that marks the way they operate makes it clear that a crucial part of what motivates politics is a will to dominate. However, for politics to be about more than power, it depends upon a realm that is independent of the political process. The deepest irony is that the Christian faith has the possibility of autonomous institutions and practices that could be a source of ideals and values that could elevate politics to more than a quest for power. Instead, by nurturing its resentments, they become functional Nietzcheans, participating in the very cultural breakdown they so ardently strive to resist.

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

“It is not an exaggeration to conclude that the public witness of the church today has become a political witness…” (p. 169) Hunter starts with this assertion, then quickly moves to “So what?”

The first problem is the fact that the state can’t solve all human problems. Laws reflect values, but, as Hunter explains, they “cannot generate values, or instill values, or settle the conflict over values.” (p. 171) The belief that the state can truly address the principal concerns of society is an illusion.

The second problem is a series of ironies:

  • Politics is only about power unless it can depend on a sphere that is independent. Values have to be more than political slogans, but Christians have done more to politicize values over the last half century than any other group in society.
  • The political activity of Christians has been counterproductive to the goals they seek to obtain. Hunter says, “But the consequence of the whole-hearted and uncritical embrace of politics by Christians has been… to reduce Christian faith to a political ideology…” (p. 172)
  • Political participation often becomes an avoidance of responsibility. In Hunter’s words, “It is… much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty…” (p. 172)

The final problem is the conformity of the church to “the spirt of the age,” the making of politics the church’s principal witness to the world. Christians did not create the present political culture, but they have become full participants in it. When Christians build their identity on the resentment and hostility that is today’s political arena, they are accentuating the things that separate them from non-Christians. They are contributing to the very cultural breakdown they are protesting against.