{"id":17036,"date":"2018-03-14T23:58:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T06:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17036"},"modified":"2018-03-15T00:24:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T07:24:15","slug":"the-irony-of-this-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-irony-of-this-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The Irony of This Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears that James Davison Hunter, author of To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>, may be somewhat biased against groups and organizations that are fighting for the rights of the marginalized in our country. In fact, he basically says that America has gone to \u201chell in a handbasket\u201d (my words), and this \u201cdecline of American culture is the responsibility of people, groups and organizations with a secular worldview.\u201d[1]<\/a> One of the many groups and organizations he names is the National Organization for Women. This is concerning to me because he is pointing to an organization that has been advocating for equal treatment of women and many other marginalized people for years as being one of the reasons \u201cthe soul of America is dying\u201d.[2]<\/a> Being that my research topic is all about advocating for women to be treated as equals in leadership, this got my attention and caused me to look further into this organization that he is calling out as contributing to the demise of America.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ironically (his word), The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist grassroots activists in the United States that was started to primarily champion an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will guarantee equal rights for women. On their website they state:<\/p>\n

\u201cNOW is an intersectional, multi-issue, multi-strategy organization that takes a holistic approach to women\u2019s rights. Our official priorities are winning economic equality and securing it with an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will guarantee equal rights for women; championing abortion rights, reproductive justice along with other women\u2019s health issues; opposing racism; fighting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in all areas, including employment, housing, health services, and child custody; and ending violence against all women, no matter race, age, or socio-economic class.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The irony for me is that he is pointing to an organization that is primarily fighting for the equal rights and protection of women and other marginalized groups as one of the reasons for the \u201cdecline of our American culture\u201d. I can think of far worse things that have contributed to the demise of the American culture, and it is sad how many in the church are more concerned about organizations like these, than with groups and companies that are hurting and taking advantage of these people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the author talked about the Christian Right, he went on to talk about the Christian Left. He stated that \u201cChristian progressives tend to lean toward the idea of solidarity among equals \u2013 across the boundaries of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and social class.\u201d[4]<\/a> He says they often cite the passage in Matthew 25 about how we are to treat \u201cthe least of these\u201d. Ironically (there\u2019s that word again), Christians on the left are often criticized for being too progressive or secular when in reality they are functioning more like Jesus towards the outcast in society than many of their more conservative counterparts. Also in this chapter, he states that these politically progressive Christians were concerned about movements such as women\u2019s suffrage and the female seminary movement.[5]<\/a> Of course, I had to further explore these. Most people are aware that the women\u2019s suffrage movement was nearly a 100-year fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States.[6]<\/a> What I wasn\u2019t as familiar with was the female seminary movement, which I first thought pertained to my current understanding of the term seminary (ie: Portland Seminary). What I discovered was that this was a movement in the early 1800s \u201csupporting academic education for women, and the seminaries were part of a large and growing trend toward women’s ‘equality’. In the early nineteenth century the word\u00a0seminary\u00a0began to replace the word\u00a0academy. The new word connoted a certain seriousness. The seminary saw its task primarily as professional preparation. The male seminary prepared men for the ministry; the female seminary took as its earnest job the training of women for teaching and for\u00a0Republican\u00a0motherhood.\u201d[7]<\/a> This was very interesting to my topic of research and how higher education for women began.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the chapter entitled Old Cultural Wineskins, the author highlights the fact that the leaders of conservative churches and denominations have held out hope that they could win back the larger culture where Christianity would reign again. He states their strategy was twofold: to evangelize unbelievers; and to launch a direct attack against the enemies of the Christian faith and worldview. One of the issues they fought against, among many that he mentions, is feminism. Once again, this idea of people standing up for the equal treatment of women should not be fought against by the church. The problem is\u2026radical feminists have given the term and the meaning a bad name, just like radical Islam\u2019s have to Islam. Feminism is defined as \u201cthe belief that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities\u201d[8]<\/a> I am proud to be called a feminist because I am unabashed about advocating for equal treatment of women and I feel like Jesus would join me as a feminist if He walked the planet today. When women can\u2019t find solace and support in the church for their equal role in the body of Christ, I think we end up sending the wrong message, and the church ends up being behind the culture. Paul said it best when he said \u201cThere is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hunter\u2019s solution of the “theology of faithful presence” is exactly what Jesus lived when he was on this planet. He says it beautifully, \u201cFor the Christian, if there is a possibility for human flourishing in a world such as ours, it begins when God\u2019s word of love becomes flesh in us, is embodied in us, is enacted through us and in doing so, a trust is forged between the word spoken and the reality to which it speaks; to the words we speak and the realities to which we, the church, point.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1] James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Oxford, 2010), p. 116.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [2] Ibid., 115.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [3] https:\/\/now.org\/about\/who-we-a<\/a>re\/<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [4] James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Oxford, 2010), p. 133.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [5] Ibid., 134.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [6] https:\/\/www.history.com\/topics\/womens-history\/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [7] https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Female_seminary<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [8] https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/feminism<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [9] Galatians 3:28 (NLT)<\/p>\n

[10] James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Oxford, 2010), p. 241.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that James Davison Hunter, author of To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, may be somewhat biased against groups and organizations that are fighting for the rights of the marginalized in our country. In fact, he basically says that America has gone to \u201chell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"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":[1191],"class_list":["post-17036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hunter-dminlgp","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17036"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17042,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036\/revisions\/17042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}