{"id":21986,"date":"2019-03-02T19:56:54","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T03:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=21986"},"modified":"2019-03-02T19:56:54","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T03:56:54","slug":"is-changing-one-man-worth-the-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/is-changing-one-man-worth-the-effort\/","title":{"rendered":"Is changing one man worth the effort?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story is told of the boy on the sea shore who was throwing fish that was washed to the shore, back to the ocean. As he threw them back into the sea, one by one, a stranger came by and criticized him citing the time it will take to finish. The boy was quick to say that for one, its makes a World of difference for this one, I\u2019m just trying a difference and it\u2019s well worth it. The concept of changing the world circles around changing the prevailing culture. Hunter clearly states that to understand how to change the world, one must understand what is to be changed and it all hinges on how we understand the nature of culture.[1]<\/a> Hunter goes on to describe culture as the accumulation of values and the choices made by individuals on the basis of of these values and wonders why the American public culture is so profoundly secular in its character yet the greatest number of religious people and the greatest vitality of religious observers tend to be evangelical and orthodox catholic.[2]<\/a> It is clear that as Christians, we\u2019re by calling obligated to engage the world in pursuit of God\u2019s restorative purposes over all of life which involves changing the world.[3]<\/a>While we would desire to see the whole world changed, we encounter the challenge that it\u2019s not possible to do it all at once and within a short amount of time. There are many dynamics to consider and Hunter contends that change happens one person at a time through the change of heart and therefore their values by becoming a Christian. It would therefore take the Christian to work hard, to pray and increase their efforts at evangelicalism to bring many to faith and therefore bring the desired change. If this is the case, is it that the Christians in America and other parts of the world are not Christian enough and are not praying and working hard enough to influence the culture, why does the public culture remain so profoundly secular and why is the influence of minority groups like the gay community felt more. Hunter challenges the common view that we can change the world just by the pursuit of evangelism, influencing politics by election Christians and through social action to influence values which he calls idealism [4]<\/a> as it ignores the institutional nature of culture and the way culture is embedded in the structures of power.<\/p>\n

Hunter who is a social theologian invites us to understand that culture is as much an infrastructure as it is ideas and takes shape in institutional form. Culture thus has to be viewed not only as a normative order reflected in well-established symbols but also as the organization of human activity surrounding the production, distribution, manipulation and distribution of these symbols.[5]<\/a> One has to understand that ideas are good but you also have to understand the nature, workings and power of the institutions in which these ideas are generated and managed. Culture is therefore a thing, manufactured not by individuals but by institutions such as the market, the state, education, the media of mass communications, scientific and technological research, and the family.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

If change is to happen we have to rethink power by disentangling the life and identity of the church from the life and identity of the society.[7]<\/a> Jesus rejected the status and reputation associated with the social power institutions of his day and the privileges that accompany them and were therefore called to do the same.[8]<\/a> Rather than approaching change from an individual point of view, changing one person at a time, we should also seek to change the institutions if we are to achieve effective change. This seems so much to agree with the seven mountains approach advocated by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade and Loren Cunningham of Youth with a Mission (YWAM). They advocated bringing change to a nation by reaching its seven spheres or mountains that influence culture which they identified as religion, family, education, government, media, arts and entertainment, and business. Change has therefore to be given an institutional approach. In still belief that as Christians we have to practice our spiritual discipline with diligence in order to be effective at reaching both the individual and to effectively influence the institutions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> James Davison Hunter (2010). To Change The World:The Irony, Tragedy, And Possibility Of Christianity In The Modern World.<\/em> Oxford University Press, New York, 2010. USA.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid\u2026.pg 19<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid\u2026.page 4<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid\u2026\u2026pg 27<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid\u2026..pg 34<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid\u2026..pg 34<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid\u2026184<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid\u2026..189<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story is told of the boy on the sea shore who was throwing fish that was washed to the shore, back to the ocean. As he threw them back into the sea, one by one, a stranger came by and criticized him citing the time it will take to finish. The boy was quick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"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":[1321,5,1202],"class_list":["post-21986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp9","tag-hunter","tag-to-change-the-world","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21986","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\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21987,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21986\/revisions\/21987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}