Tag Archives: to change the world

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.

Chapter 4: An Alternative View of Culture and Cultural Change

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We’re going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. My primary reason for this is purely selfish… I want to use some of this material in the future, and this is a good way to force myself to analyze it and preserve the important parts.

Here’s the abstract of chapter 4 “An Alternative View of Culture and Cultural Change” from Hunter’s website:

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. Cultures are very resistant to change, but they do change under specific conditions.

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

This chapter centers around 11 propositions, seven on culture and four on cultural change. The propositions are:

  1. Culture is a system of truth claims and moral obligations
  2. Culture is a product of history
  3. Culture is intrinsically dialectical
  4. Culture is a resource and a form of power
  5. Cultural production and symbolic power are stratified in a fairly rigid structure of “center” and “periphery”
  6. Culture is generated within networks
  7. Culture is neither autonomous nor fully coherent
  8. Cultures change from the top down, rarely from the bottom up
  9. Change is typically initiated by elites who are outside of the centermost positions of prestige
  10. World-changing is most concentrated when the networks of elites and the institutions they lead overlap
  11. Cultures change, but rarely if ever without a fight

The chapter ends with the statement:

Christians will not engage the culture effectively, much less hope to change it, without attention to the factors here.

When first reading, I’m a little baffled at this point. Hunter still sounds like he’s advocating that Christians set out to change the world, yet the means he’s suggesting don’t fit with what I understand to be the Christian way. Actually, Hunter is merely laying a roadmap to proper engagement of culture, but that will only be clear (at least to me) at a later point in the book.

So what do you think of Hunter’s propositions?

Chapter 3: The Failure of the Common View

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We’re going through James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. My primary reason for this is purely selfish… I want to use some of this material in the future, and this is a good way to force myself to analyze it and preserve the important parts.

Here’s the abstract of chapter 3 “The Failure of the Common View” from Hunter’s website:

If cultures were simply a matter of hearts and minds, then the influence of various minorities—whoever they are and whatever that may be—would be relatively insignificant. But they are not. The real problem of this working theory of culture and cultural change and the strategies that derive from it is idealism—that something non-physical is the primary reality. Idealism has three features in this view: ideas, individualism, and pietism. However, idealism misconstrues agency; underplays the importance of history; ignores the way culture is generated, coordinated, and organized; and imputes a logic and rationality to culture. Every strategy and tactic for changing the world that is based upon this working theory of culture and cultural change will fail—not most of these strategies, but all.

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

In this chapter, Hunter talks about the apparent problem, the one articulated by “world change” advocates. This apparent problem has two parts: (1) Christians aren’t fervent enough; (2) There aren’t enough Christians who really embrace God’s call. Hunter argues that the real idea is what he calls “idealism,” the concept that what is real is the non-physical. The material world exists but what has “greater ontological significance” are ideas. To illustrate this concept, Hunter quotes Charles Colson as saying, “history is little more than the recording of the rise and fall of the great ideas—the worldviews—that form our values and move us to act.” According to Hunter, this is the belief of most American Christians.

Hunter argues that this fails to take into account the material realities that drive culture. It ignores the “institutional nature of culture” and overlooks the fact that structure is “embedded in structures of power.” (p. 27)

In a coda, this chapter looks at Andy Crouch’s teachings about “culture as artifact,” culture being defined by the goods it produces. Hunter admits that this view overcomes the dualism of the primary view, but it doesn’t recognize the structures holding culture up.

Both of these views, idealism and “culture as artifact” focus on the individual, rather than the church. Hunter insists that there must be an alternative view. That view will be expressed in later chapters.