{"id":17043,"date":"2018-03-15T02:36:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T09:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17043"},"modified":"2018-03-15T02:36:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T09:36:36","slug":"doing-the-ministry-of-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/doing-the-ministry-of-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing the Ministry of Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

James D. Hunter\u2019s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em> is book that gives Christians hope that their faithful presence can make a difference in a chaotic near end-times world culture.\u00a0 Hunter\u2019s world changing model is not about power, politics, or religion.\u00a0 Instead, the author says the world can be changed by the incarnational lives of Christians who struggle to resist Satan while living out their calling and existence in full view of their communities, all the while projecting a faithful presence to Christ.\u00a0 I am excited to engage Hunter\u2019s ideas on faithful presence, how he relates to spiritual warfare, his views on the impact of pluralism, and his practical recommendations on how to implement a God honoring presence into the church and community.<\/p>\n

Hunter\u2019s thesis suggests that presence and place matter to God and the \u201ctheology of faithful presence\u201d is the result of the Word and the world coming together through God\u2019s spoken word.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 I connect with this theme because I trained to become a market-place chaplain where the ministry of presence helps reach the least reached and hard to reach places in the world.\u00a0 I also personally relate to his \u201cpractice of faithful presence\u201d as a kind of incarnational leadership that crosses all boundaries, cultures, paradigms, and comes to rest in \u201cGod in the person of Jesus Christ.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Miller summarizes Hunter\u2019s faithful presence initiative as the solution to the world\u2019s problems, according to Hunter, because \u201cHe rejects all notions of redeeming the culture, advancing the Kingdom, transforming the world, or reclaiming culture.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Hunter engages the peripheral concepts of spiritual warfare in many areas of his book by relating his Biblical theologies on truth, righteousness, justice, faith, salvation, and peace. For example, when Hunter discussed how Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness with \u201cpolitical power\u201d he expanded the narrative context by introducing the effect of principalities and powers.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 I found it interesting that Hunter says principalities and powers are a \u201cparadox\u201d that function to maintain order in society, within God\u2019s permissive will, that give direction and unity to people, but \u201cthey also separate people from the true God.\u201d[5]<\/a> His example of how government works, even as a distorted and false theology, uses force in a positive manner that helps maintains chaos and restrains human evil.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

Pluralism is another theme that Hunter uses to show how the church changes and is assimilated into the world culture over time.\u00a0 My dissertation question is \u201cWhy has the North American church become desensitized to the effects of spiritual warfare.\u201d\u00a0 Hunter\u2019s discussion on pluralism is one of the reasons church leaders become blinded to the schemes of the devil.\u00a0 He says that even through missionaries, evangelists, and the body of Christ engage the world, \u201cit will experience the pressures of assimilation to the world.\u201d[7]<\/a> Hunter says it is \u201cdifficult if not impossible to resist, and even in resisting, the church can assume the character and content of the world around it.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

Hunter also uses the term \u201cpost-Christian\u201d to describe the world, culture, context, and community.[9]<\/a> For example, \u201cthe future of the church in a post-Christian world,\u201d \u201cAmerican culture has become post-Christian,\u201d and \u201cdarkness is deepened in a post-Christian context\u201d expresses Hunter\u2019s deep frustration with the current state of Christendom.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Smith summarizes Hunter in his review and says that the \u201cchurch is in exile\u201d and commends Hunter who calls Christians to unite around their \u201ccore beliefs and practices\u201d and focus on fulfilling the Great Commission while honoring God.[11]<\/a><\/p>\n

Hunter writes like a Protestant evangelical but seems to promote a Neo-Anabaptist bias that he calls a political theology.[12]<\/a> \u00a0Anabaptists are well known through the Mennonite, Brethren, Quakers, Amish, and Hutterite denominations.\u00a0\u00a0 Hunter describes the Neo-Anabaptist as \u201cmodel for a genuine Christian witness in the context of\u201d the late 20th<\/sup> and early 21st<\/sup> centuries.[13]<\/a> Rubio\u2019s review says that even through Hunter is critical of Anabaptists, he \u201cshares their desire for strong theological foundations, their emphasis on faithfulness over effectiveness, and their focus on formation.\u201d[14]<\/a>\u00a0 I really connect with Hunter\u2019s plain but powerful support for faith-based schools, businesses that break out of the capitalist mode, and artists and others who use their God given talents to unite communities.[15]<\/a>\u00a0 King in his review also gives Hunter credit as \u201che describes a company that aims to re-define the obligations of private business differently from the way they are normally thought of.\u201d[16]<\/a><\/p>\n

My wife JoAnne and I started a market-place ministry business almost five years ago that I think resembles what Hunter describes as breaking out of the capitalist mode.\u00a0 We started our business as a ministry to our employees, fellow contractors, and FedEx staff.\u00a0 We share our lives, our faith, and our help to anyone the Lord puts before us.\u00a0 Our business plan is simple; God owns the business, we are his stewards, and we give God honor and glory for our calling and service to others.\u00a0 In conclusion, I like Hunter\u2019s work that gives the contemporary Christian a back-to-the-basics approach to how to live out their faith in their home, neighborhoods, and work.\u00a0 I am glad to see Hunter promote the ministry of faithful presence as a practice and solution to help our messed-up world.<\/p>\n

Stand firm,<\/p>\n

M. Webb<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> James D. Hunter. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) 240.<\/h6>\n
[2]<\/a> Ibid., 269.<\/h6>\n
[3]<\/a> Donald E. Miller. “To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.” Sociology of Religion 72, no. 3 (2011): 378.<\/h6>\n
[4]<\/a> Hunter, Change the World<\/em>, 157.<\/h6>\n
[5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/h6>\n
[6]<\/a> Ibid. (These ideas weigh heavy on me and I will need to apply prayer for wisdom and discernment to get my mind around Hunter\u2019s ideas).<\/h6>\n
[7]<\/a> Ibid., 204.<\/h6>\n
[8]<\/a> Ibid.<\/h6>\n
[9]<\/a> Ibid., 211.<\/h6>\n
[10]<\/a> Ibid., 160, 211, 220.<\/h6>\n
[11]<\/a> David Smith. “To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 54, no. 4 (2011): 882.<\/h6>\n
[12]<\/a> Hunter, Change the World<\/em>, 109.<\/h6>\n
[13]<\/a> Ibid., 152.<\/h6>\n
[14]<\/a> Julie Rubio and James Hunter. “To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.” Political Theology 13, no. 6 (2012): 799.<\/h6>\n
[15]<\/a> Ibid.<\/h6>\n
[16]<\/a> Richard King. “James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.” Society 48, no. 4 (2011): 361.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James D. Hunter\u2019s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World is book that gives Christians hope that their faithful presence can make a difference in a chaotic near end-times world culture.\u00a0 Hunter\u2019s world changing model is not about power, politics, or religion.\u00a0 Instead, the author says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"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":[5,1192],"class_list":["post-17043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hunter","tag-ministry-of-presence","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043","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\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17044,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043\/revisions\/17044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}