{"id":12306,"date":"2017-03-09T23:17:57","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T07:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=12306"},"modified":"2017-03-09T23:17:57","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T07:17:57","slug":"persistence-is-futile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/persistence-is-futile\/","title":{"rendered":"Persistence is Futile?"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 50 times each week, I ask myself what the heck was I thinking when I gave up my career to go back to school. I mean, I know I did it out of a sense of calling and purpose, but can one middle-aged woman really make a difference in the world? After reading the first chapter of To Change the World<\/em> by James Davison Hunter, I felt like I was suffocating under a heavy blanket of \u201cNo she can\u2019t!\u201d followed by a storm of \u201cThere is no such thing as changing the world \u2013 give up now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunter seems to offer up a whole lot of NOPE when explaining that \u201cChristians cannot \u2018change the world\u2019 in a way that they, even in their diversity, desire.\u201d[1]<\/a> He gets right to the heart of the matter by explaining why Christians who have tried to act as the moral compasses and gatekeepers to the truth in this country have failed and will continue to fail. In short, Christians have idealized the individual worldview, believing that transformed individuals transform culture.[2]<\/a> Hunter says that we have been doing this all wrong and that we need to give up on the notion of changing the world and\/or transforming culture.<\/p>\n

Great. NOW what am I supposed to do with my life? Could someone maybe have mentioned this BEFORE I ditched my successful career for a pile of student debt and a misguided sense that I have been called to use my agency to create change?<\/em><\/p>\n

Still, by the time I was halfway through Hunter\u2019s book, I began to notice that I was nodding along to his explanation of how the power of politics has taken over while the idea of living faithfully has become a bit of an afterthought. Christians \u2013 left, right, and otherwise \u2013 have adopted the idea that political power and coercion can force culture to align itself with the ways of God. The problem is, we aren\u2019t really about using that power for God\u2019s intentions, but rather our idealized view of how \u201cOne nation, under God\u201d should look. As Hunter notes, the way of Christ is only about obedience to God and serving the good of all, \u201cnot just the community of faith.\u201d[3]<\/a> This is what he calls, \u201cfaithful presence.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

It starts to feel a bit like Hunter is speaking in semantics, but by the third essay, I realize that he isn\u2019t talking about doing away with \u201cchange\u201d per se, but rather he is asking us to shift our vision and our allegiance. The idea that we are going to \u201cchange the world for Jesus\u201d is, at the very least, arrogant and domineering. If we do good things for people, tell people about Jesus\u2019 deep love and sacrifice, and seek justice on behalf of the marginalized all because we are focused on some sort of Christian global domination (in Jesus\u2019 name, of course), we are sadly missing the point. Hunter explains (and I agree) that faithful presence is about loving and honoring God with our love of neighbor, love and care for creation, and obedience to the way of Christ. Good things will, of course, happen. We will likely see beauty, love, and justice flourish in many ways, but that is not the end that justifies the means. Rather these things are the delightful consequence of faithful presence.<\/p>\n

But I thought I was supposed to change the world. So now what? Is it the highest irony that I learn I can\u2019t change the world while I am in a doctoral program that I thought would teach me to lead as an agent of change?<\/em><\/p>\n

First of all, Hunter\u2019s ideas about power, change, and faithful presence actually release me from the feeling that I \u201cshould be doing something.\u201d I have an activist\u2019s heart, but the call to faithful presence frees me to slow down, look around, and listen carefully to what the Spirit is doing both within me and within my community. The call to faithful presence, in my view, is a call to the long road rather than the short-cut. Of course I still fight for justice and speak prophetically as I am guided, but the frantic drive to push for or curb legislation eases just a bit while I take time to ask what would best honor God and serve all.<\/p>\n

In the end, I don\u2019t think Hunter really believes we can\u2019t or won\u2019t change the world, we just won\u2019t (as Heath and Potter phrased it) jam the culture, and create some sort of Christian utopia where all the bookstores carry only what the CEO of Lifeway deems appropriate, all art involves crosses (or worse, bunnies), and all movies are \u201cshedding the light of Christ in the darkness\u201d with B-rated scripts. We will still change the lives of people because the kind of love we have can\u2019t help but change things. We will focus on individuals and communities with love that springs from the depth of our love for God. I think this is what God meant when God called Abraham and told him that the nation of Israel would be blessed to be a blessing. Love God and love people because everything else rests on these things, right?<\/p>\n

And for the 46th<\/sup> time this week, I absolutely did the right thing because I love the God who asked me to do it.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1]. James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern <\/em>World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 5.<\/p>\n

[2]. To Change the World<\/em>, 9.<\/p>\n

[3]. James Davidson Hunter, \u201cChapter Abstracts of To Change the World,\u201d http:\/\/www.jamesdavisonhunter.com\/to-change-the-world-abstracts\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]. To Change the World<\/em>, 95.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 50 times each week, I ask myself what the heck was I thinking when I gave up my career to go back to school. I mean, I know I did it out of a sense of calling and purpose, but can one middle-aged woman really make a difference in the world? After reading the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[866,5],"class_list":["post-12306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-change-the-world","tag-hunter","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}