{"id":25944,"date":"2020-02-19T09:40:24","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T17:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=25944"},"modified":"2020-02-19T09:43:30","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T17:43:30","slug":"from-promised-land-to-exile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/from-promised-land-to-exile\/","title":{"rendered":"From “Promised Land’ to “Exile”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our call this week we talked about the power of metaphor. Metaphors are not just rhetorical devices, but are visions or pictures by which we align our will. Metaphors capture stories by which we orient our lives. I will suggest here that we (American Evangelicals) need to exchange the metaphor of the promised land for the metaphor of the exile. And par for the course, I will expound on this metaphor for implications in innovation theory.<\/span><\/p>\n

James Davison Hunter brings the wealth of his Reformed tradition to bear on a set of essays around culture making, culture change and Christianity in his book, <\/span>To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. <\/span><\/i>His largest critique in the book highlights the use of \u201cirony\u201d in his title – so much so, that multiple reviews of his book are entitled \u201cHow Not to Change the World.\u201d Bear with the following extended quote as I think this summary captures the essence of Hunter\u2019s book.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026 I have argued throughout this treatise that we need a new language for how the church engages the culture. It is essential, in my view, to abandon altogether talk of \u201credeeming the culture,\u201d \u201cadvancing the kingdom,\u201d \u201cbuilding the kingdom,\u201d \u201ctransforming the world,\u201d \u201creclaiming culture,\u201d \u201creforming the culture,\u201d and \u201cchanging the world.\u201d Christians need to leave such language behind them because it carries too much weight. It implies conquest,\u00a0 take-over, dominion, which in my view is precisely what God does not call us to pursue\u2026\u201d (280)<\/span><\/p>\n

Here in <\/span>To Change the World<\/span><\/i> and elsewhere, Hunter provides some very pointed critique and warnings of<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"parachurch ministries I\u2019d like to address due to my involvement\u00a0 in one. He takes Campus Crusade for Christ (my organization) to task for it\u2019s imperial use of language, its slogan \u201cCome help change the world,\u201d and the founder\u2019s view of culture change. The historic Crusades were a \u201ctaking back\u201d of the \u201cpromised land.\u201d Though the organization has renamed itself \u201cCru\u201d since the publication of Hunter\u2019s book, the point remains that 50 years of the organization\u2019s existence seem to have a failure recognizing the word \u201cCrusade\u201d and its problematic heritage (Hunter, 326-327). Furthermore, T-shirts are still printed and dispersed to students with the call of \u201cCome help change the world\u201d (Hunter, 4). The language and name together describe a conquest or \u201ctaking back\u201d of the campus. Lastly, Hunter\u2019s specific critique of Campus Crusade for Christ ends with a lengthy quote of the late founder, Bill Bright, and a disagreement with his view of culture change. Bright\u2019s view posited that when enough of the population is \u201cwon to Christ,\u201d the culture will change (Hunter, 10).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Relying on similar voices (Hauerwas, Yoder, Hunter, and Niebuhr), Cru staff member, Dr. Ron Sanders, agrees largely with Hunter and suggests a shift in metaphor from the promised land to the exile. Hunter\u2019s assessment is largely the problem when culture (and a nation) is viewed as the promised land. Like Puritans using Egyptian language for Egypt and America as the promised land (Sanders, 31), this triumphalistic language has been smuggled into Evangelicalism. More timely, however, is the language of the exile – those in diaspora – \u201ca chosen people scattered among but not absorbed into the nations\u201d (Sanders, 34). He suggests three possibilities for life in exile: a deeper faithfulness to Christ, a production of excellence, and compassion and creativity (42-43).<\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter, likewise, offers the exilic metaphor for his prescription to engage a \u201cfaithful presence from within\u201d (276). He points out the counterintuitive call to link the Jew\u2019s shalom with the shalom of Babylon. Rather than insurrection or assimilation, they were called to something different. Most pointendly, Hunter calls Christians to \u201cenact the shalom of God in the circumstances in which God has placed them and to actively seek it on behalf of others\u201d (278).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Innovation in the exile, then, might be summarized in one word – incarnational. Living out Hunter\u2019s \u201cfaithful presence\u201d in the innovation field is incarnating in the midst of a people, adopting their problems as one\u2019s own, and embodying the call of Jeremiah 29:7 – that the innovator\u2019s success is wholly dependent on the peace and prosperity of this group of people. Distribution and production numbers, fame, profit, even the often noble cause of \u201cchanging the world\u201d become eclipsed by this single metric – is this group of people flourishing more as a result of this innovation? Like Ron Sanders, I see a possibility for great compassion, empathy, solidarity and creativity in the exilic metaphor. \u201cEmpathy comes with experience,\u201d Sanders writes, \u201cand we develop a deeper compassion when we enter into the situation of the other and truly understand their experience\u201d (43). Instead of focusing on preserving power, he goes on, we can address the \u201cwidow, the captive, the orphan, and the poor [who] are categories of people on the margins of society that the Hebrew and Christian Scripture put at the center of God\u2019s concern\u201d (44.) Hunter will say elsewhere, \u201c<\/span>We need to be creating a refuge of human flourishing for the refugees of our cultureless society\u201d (quoted in Lorish). <\/span>In short, Christian innovators can steward the power they have in the sphere of influence they find themselves by giving that power away, empowering those with less power, and using all they are and all they have to bring creative solutions to problems big and small so that the means and the ends are consistent with the God of shalom.<\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

Crouch, Andy. <\/span>How Not to Change the World. <\/span><\/i>Christianity Today. 2010. <\/span>https:\/\/www.booksandculture.com\/articles\/2010\/mayjun\/hownotchangetheworld.html?paging=off<\/span><\/a> (accessed February 28th, 2020).<\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter, James Davison. <\/span>To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. <\/span><\/i>New York: Oxford, 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lorish, Philip.\u00a0Vocation and the Common Good – James Davison Hunter.<\/em> New City Commons. February 8, 2018. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jprtqIwiUHE (accessed February 29th, 2020).<\/p>\n

Sanders, Ron. <\/span>After the Election: Prophetic Politics in a Post-Secular Age.<\/span><\/i> Eugene, Oregan: Cascade, 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith, James K. A. <\/span>How (Not) to Change the World.<\/span><\/i> The Other Journal. September 8, 2010. <\/span>https:\/\/theotherjournal.com\/2010\/09\/08\/how-not-to-change-the-world\/<\/span><\/a> (accessed February 28th, 2020).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our call this week we talked about the power of metaphor. Metaphors are not just rhetorical devices, but are visions or pictures by which we align our will. Metaphors capture stories by which we orient our lives. I will suggest here that we (American Evangelicals) need to exchange the metaphor of the promised land […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"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":[5,1579],"class_list":["post-25944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hunter","tag-innovation","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25944"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25948,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944\/revisions\/25948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}