I am in the midst of my doctoral field research, interviewing pastors on their definition of discipleship, their methods, and what multiplication looks like in their context. Going into the interviews I tried not to assume or say much, rather my interest is to really glean from their work. After conducting another group conversation today, I am picking up multiple emerging themes. The most outstanding theme thus far is that discipleship is active, and it encompasses all of life. As one moves more and more deeply into mature space, an activation of their life occurs through serving others by their personal initiative and care for the wellbeing of their community.<\/p>\n
Caring for others through service is a small thing but at the same time huge. It takes people outside of themselves to love their neighbor in a tangible way. This may not change the weather but overtime it does begin to change the climate to one of service rather than personal gain.<\/p>\n
In the work of James Davison Hunter, sociologist and scholar who has written more than eight texts and is known to have coined the phrase \u201cculture war,\u201d the need for a shift in climate over weather patterns is essential to the faith of Christianity in late modern America. Speaking on his text To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em> in 2010 with a group of journalists at the Faith Angle Forum, Hunter explains his text is not meant to be a negative critique on the political culture of America and the Christian response but rather a constructive text on how Christians might engage in incarnational ways over a longer period of time.<\/p>\n Hunter\u2019s metaphor of climate verses weather help to keep his audience poised for long range ministry as the Church rather than momentary trends and popular antics attracting flash mobs to political cultural wars. Hunter explains, \u201cI speak about the difference between climate and weather. Most people think about current events, about politics, about the things that are going on in our world, in light of the weather. Today it\u2019s sunny, tomorrow it\u2019s rainy, it\u2019s cold, but it\u2019s going to get warmer, those kinds of things. That tends to be our orientation, and it tends to focus our attention on the surface. The work that I do tends to be oriented and framed in terms of climatological changes that are taking place, for which the weather could or could not be indications of what\u2019s going on at that deeper and more implicit level of social and cultural change.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n For decades Christians in America have focused primarily on beliefs and values, teaching them weekly in pulpits and Bible studies, making belief a core aspect of disciple making. Once a person believes in Jesus and begins to learn more about the Bible and Christian theology, the church has won a convert, or a new disciple. Yet, the actions of that disciple may be no different than before and may have no bearing on their perspective of culture at large, particularly political culture. This perspective of discipleship flies in the face of Hunter\u2019s book, and is indeed part of his prompt for writing his manuscript. Early on, Hunter argues that the \u201cChange in a culture or civilization simply does not occur when there is change in the beliefs and values in the hearts and minds of ordinary people or in the creation of mere artifacts.\u201d[2]<\/a> On first hearing Hunter\u2019s argument Christians may protest. But if one sticks with the text through the third section they will come to further conclusions potentially not so far from their own.<\/p>\n The culture of Christianity in America reveals three dominant theologies, as Hunter sees it, that do not actively incarnate Biblical teaching as Jesus did more than two centuries ago. Hunter uses the space of his first two essays (or mini-books) to argue the theologies of engaging the culture as \u201cdefensive against,\u201d \u201crelevance to,\u201d and \u201cpurity from\u201d while never fully immersing the larger paradigm at work. In his final section he gets to the fourth theology, which is the \u201cFaithful Presence Within.\u201d \u201cThe heart of that paradigm depends upon an understanding of climate and weather, of the difference between the two, of the dynamics of culture versus the dynamics of politics\u2026\u201d the heart of \u201cFaithful Presence\u201d quite frankly, is a theology and practice that is fundamentally committed to human flourishing, not just for the community of Christian believers, but for everyone, all right?\u201d[3]<\/a> His purpose is to help, through his personal Anabaptist and academic sociological perspective, to create a more integrated approach to the way Christians engage public life with their faith.<\/p>\n The journalists who conversed with Hunter on the nature of To Change the World<\/em> at the Faith Angle Forum, including Ross Douthat, had little dissent in their perspective and primarily reframed to test Hunter\u2019s thesis in light of other historical periods such as the Reformation. However, when reading reviews of Hunter\u2019s work, not everyone feels the same. As Richard King points out, \u201cTo<\/em> Change the World<\/em> suffers from excessive abstraction and a lack of concrete examples. Not until the end does Hunter offer a few examples of what \u201cfaithful presence\u201d might mean.\u201d[4]<\/a> King is concerned that the ideal of faithful presence is not sufficiently developed so as to escape dogmatism.<\/p>\n In the end, discipleship of pastors to their congregations is all about living into the idea of faithful presence, embodying the values and beliefs in action daily, individually and communally. Discipleship, as my interviewees wisely understand, encompasses more than the heart and mind, but rather transforms the whole of one\u2019s life into people who seek the Shalom of God in their everyday context. As Hunter aptly said, \u201cword and world come together through the word\u2019s enactments.\u201d[5]<\/a> This climate shift requires the continual response of yes to the incarnate Christ, \u201cThe Word,\u201d in the midst of day-to-day culture.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Allen, John L. and Paul Vallely. \u201cDr. James Davison Hunter, Ross Douthat, and Amy Sullivan at the March 2010 Faith Angle Forum.\u201d Ethics & Public Policy Center. https:\/\/eppc.org\/publications\/hunter-douthat-and-sullivan\/ (March 14, 2018)<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>. University Press: Oxford Scholarship Online, 2010. 77<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Allen, John L. and Paul Vallely. \u201cDr. James Davison Hunter, Ross Douthat, and Amy Sullivan at the March 2010 Faith Angle Forum.\u201d Ethics & Public Policy Center. https:\/\/eppc.org\/publications\/hunter-douthat-and-sullivan\/ (March 14, 2018)<\/p>\n