“The Groundwork For An Alternative Way” is the third chapter of the third essay of James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World. The abstract of this chapter, from Hunter’s website, reads as follows:

Christians are called to relate to the world within the dialectic of affirmation and antithesis. If there are benevolent consequences of our engagement with the world, it is precisely because it is not rooted in a desire to change the world for the better, but rather because it is an expression of a desire to honor the creator of all goodness, beauty, and truth, a manifestation of our loving obedience to God, and a fulfillment of God’s command to love our neighbor. Antithesis, in contrast, is rooted in recognition of the totality of the fall. Consequently, however much Christians may be able to a affirm in the world, the church is always a “community of resistance.” The objective is to retrieve the good to which modern institutions and ideas aspire, to oppose those ideals and structures that undermine human flourishing, and to offer constructive alternatives for the realization of a better way.

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

Hunter says that Christian leadership has failed to interpret the times, spending precious energy and resources on politics while neglecting the bulk of society. What is required is formation, the “making disciples” from the Great Commission. Instead of being formed by the church, Christians have been formed by culture. The church must reclaim a presence in all of life, Hunter insists, by being both a culture and a community. The church must work at bringing God’s peace, God’s shalom, to the world around. More than that, Christians must embody this shalom in every part of their lives.

What the church must discover is how to relate to the outside world. It is to this question that Hunter applies the concept of “the dialectic of affirmation and antithesis.” (p. 231) Affirmation involves finding that that is godly in the fallen world around us. It means recognizing that there is still goodness, beauty and truth in the world. Antithesis means that the church must resist all that is fallen in the world. This resistance is not just negative; it also involves creativity and constructiveness. Rather than merely opposing society and its institutions, Hunter says that the church must offer “an alternative vision and direction for them.” (p. 235)

Rather than “defensive against,” “relevance to” and “purity from,” over the next few chapters Hunter will describe what he calls “faithful presence within” as the proper Christian stance toward culture.