What are we living for?
Welcome to our pluralistic society, where everyone seems to have different thoughts and ideas and each one claims theirs to be true. Like I stated in an earlier post, I teach my Analysis of Social Policy class some of the basic philosophies with the purpose of helping them understand what people are using to make and justify their decisions if they are not using scripture. Matthew Petrusek’s book Evangelization and Ideology went deeper into some of the philosophies than what I teach.[1] Petrusek provided two models that illustrate the process of making moral decisions. Each model contains seven elements that Petrusek defines: Politics, Applied Morality, Morality, Epistemology, Anthropology, Ontology, and Theology. On both models, Petrusek highlights epistemology, which he defines as “What can human beings know and how can we know it?”[2] Petrusek states that “epistemology has the unique status of serving as the interpretive key that unlocks the content of all other domains.”[3] Our ability to define anything, such as God or morality is dependent upon “what we can know and how we can know it.”[4] One of the models is a pyramid, in this model, Petrusek states that the higher blocks are dependent on the presence and I would add stability of the blocks beneath them. As a Christian, it follows that how we see and interpret the rest of the world is dependent upon the stability of our beliefs in God. Petrusek focuses on much of the rest of the book discussing how various epistemological beliefs shape a person’s ideology including Catholic social thought and the problems each has when compared to Catholic social thought.
I had so many different thoughts running through my mind and how I might apply these in the classroom. I momentarily even debated assigning this book for my students to read as we no longer require students to take a basic philosophy class. One area my thoughts focused on was social justice and how it relates to Petrusek’s Hope model and also Petrusek’s discussion on worship. As a social worker, one of what the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) calls their core values is social justice with “social workers challenge social injustice” being a guiding ethical principle.[5] From a Christian perspective the desire for social justice should stem from, as Petrusek talks about, the inherent dignity and worth that a person has from being created in the image and likeness of God.[6] As we (social workers and Christians) strive to make the world a better place by righting injustices, Petrusek suggests that we must keep our focus on the fact that we will never eliminate all injustices, this is part of his Hope model in dealing with societal perfection[7] I bring this up because of a conversation a couple friends of mine were having. One of them was lamenting his perception that his church’s denomination is focusing too much on social justice issues and losing sight of sharing the Gospel. After hearing about this conversation, I thought about Petrusek’s section in the book discussing idols and worship. Petrusek writes “We either live for something in the world, for something in space and time . . . or we live for that which transcends space and time, a reality that is immaterial, non-contingent, changeless, and eternally alive, which we could, in the language of Acquinas call “Being itself,” or more colloquially, “God.” Both logically and metaphysically, it’s either one or the other.”[8] I wonder, is it possible that as Christians we can focus all our efforts on trying to right an injustice that we begin to worship our cause instead of God?
In the last chapter Petrusek gives “practical advice for evangelists in the public sphere.”[9]] In this chapter Petrusek warns that in our pursuit of social justice that we do not compromise our faith to gain an ally. This is a good thermometer to gauge our potential idolatry. If we find ourselves willing to compromise our faith to gain movement on a social justice issue, then we have lost our focus.
To be transparent, this is a good book, but one that is hard to read at this point in the week and semester. There is so much to digest in this book and that’s hard to do right now. What I would like to do is spend more time digesting Chapter 8 “The God of My Tribe” and compare it to Yascha Mounk’s The Identity Trap.[10] I do not believe that it is coincidental that both of these books were published in 2023. Chapter 8 seems to focus on many of the topics found in Mounk’s book. It contains many of the pluralistic beliefs that are currently inundating our world. Along with spending more time in Chapter 8, I just heard a podcast interviewing John Inazu about his new book Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect.[11] This book sounds like it may be a good companion book helping people navigate tough conversations.
[1] Matthew Petrusek, Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture, (Park Ridge, IL: Word on Fire, 2023. Kindle Edition.
[2] Petrusek, Chapter 3, Kindle.
[3] Petrusek, Chapter 3, Kindle.
[4] Petrusek, Chapter 3, Kindle.
[5] NASW, “Read the Code of Ethics,” 2021 https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
[6] Petrusek, chapter 4, Kindle.
[7] Petrusek, Chapter 4, Kindle.
[8] Petrusek, chapter 5, Kindle.
[9] Petrusek, chapter 10, Kindle
[10] Petrusek, chapter 8, Kindle; Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, (New York, Penguin, 2023).
[11] John Inazu, Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2024).
About the Author
Jeff Styer
Jeff Styer lives in Northeast Ohio's Amish Country. He has degrees in Social Work and Psychology and currently works as a professor of social work at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. Jeff is married to his wife, Veronica, 25+ years. Together they have 4 beautiful children (to be honest, Jeff has 4 kids, Veronica says she is raising 5). Jeff loves the outdoors, including biking, hiking, camping, birding, and recently picked up disc golf.5 responses to “What are we living for?”
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Greetings from DLGP02,
Such a great post. My NPO deals with refugee resettlement I created a mobile website interlinkt.org and on March 9th, I hosted an Immigration Symposium in Texas (yes, Texas).
I used Petrusek’s advice….
Petrusek then goes on to give me advice for the potentially hostile elements that may attend my immigration symposium.
1. Try to avoid attacking “bad people” and focus on attacking bad ideas instead.” (p.464)
2. Employ the Socratic method to engage in debate. “This position is completely incoherent.” He writes, will likely shut down the conversation before it can even get started. He instructs…”the Socratic method Is usually the best technique for engaging in a conversation tht you hope will lead to an agreement. The Socratic method entails asking sincere questions and looking for sincere answers with the goal of attaining both definitional and logical clarity.
3. Seek Clarity, not simplicity (p. 467)
4. Be disposed to learn something new. (p. 467)
5. Be a happy warrior. (p.469)
6. Don’t be afraid of courage. (p. 470)
7. Don’t compromise the faith to gain a (temporary) ally. (p.472)
8. Be ready to make strategic retreats and take shelter (p.474)
9. For God’s sake, don’t make everything about politics.
It was good guidance.
At some point I think you will read, Joseph Bentley and Michael Toth’s book, Exploring Wicked Problem, “Our challenge is twofold: to make changes in ourselves while at the same time we are making changes in the world.”
Shalom, Shalom (perfect Peace)
Russ in DLGP 02 (I am waiting for my zoom class to start….Happy Eclipse Day!
Thanks Russ,
Lots of people use Socrates thoughts without even realizing where they came from. I did have a nice eclipse day. My son and I watched the 15 -20 minutes leading up to totality with our Amish neighbors.
Amish…oddly the “Yoder” name is one of the grandma’s family names on my wife side. So my very Asian looking daughter has direct ties to the Mennonites/Amish in Pennsylvania.
Too interesting.
Selah….
Hi Jeff – you mentioned that we can be tempted to worship our cause instead of God. I think you’re right – and as you said, we can see companion perspectives from Mounk. I think this can be evidenced by the hate the can come alongside a cause. In a fight against injustice, if we are also filled with hatred, we might be worshipping the cause more than the God who cares about the cause. Do you have advice guarding against this?
Christy, My brain is ready to take a much-needed break so I can’t remember where I recently heard or read this, might have even been someone’s post this week. The general idea is that we need to constantly evaluate our attitude and love we have toward our opposition. If we are not loving others, then we are probably worshipping our cause and not God. This week I split my advocacy class in half each side developing an argument they would present to a community meeting to persuade the audience on how to vote on a fake issue I developed. Half tried to persuade the audience to vote Yes to legalize sex work, the other side tried to persuade a no vote. It was a good experience for the class and both sides stated while they do not agree with the idea of legalizing sex work, each one developed empathy for why some people would want it legalized. This is what we need our churches to do, stand our moral ground and when appropriate express empathy and not hate to the opposition.