{"id":4586,"date":"2015-04-14T21:42:01","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T21:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=4586"},"modified":"2015-04-14T21:42:01","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T21:42:01","slug":"method-vs-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/method-vs-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Method vs. Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

My previous post said \u201cBad Religion\u201d is my favorite book this term; James Davidson Hunter\u2019s \u201cTo Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/span>\u201d is a close second. My affection for Hunter\u2019s book isn\u2019t because I\u2019m wholeheartedly agreeing with his views on culture or cultural change, but because he\u2019s taken hold of my assumptions on culture and kicked them around a bit and shown me some weaknesses in them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to reflect on these comments; he provocatively states, \u201crevival would have a negligible long-term effect on the reconstitution of the culture<\/em>.\u201d [1]<\/a> He goes further \u201cthe call to this generation of Americans to repent and pray for revival to renew the values of the national culture may be welcome, but no one should be under any illusion about its capacity to fundamentally transform the present cultural order at its most rudimentary level.<\/em>\u201d Hunter isn\u2019t attacking evangelicalism; he comes across as highly respectful of Christian faith. He continues this argument with \u201cInvitations by Christian leaders to fast and pray are most worthy, but their main effect will be to renew the church rather than keep America from \u201closing its soul<\/em>\u201d\u201d. [2]<\/a> The issue is that evangelicals hold this common view of culture, and how culture changes: culture is primarily a matter of hearts and minds, a view that based in the philosophy of idealism.<\/p>\n

If I was pressed to define culture, I\u2019d share the popular view that it\u2019s primarily about values, which can be consistent with a biblical worldview or with a natural worldview. These two-world views create a tension in our American culture that Christians know all too well. A natural, Darwinian-supported worldview will be godless and amoral; the values that result will be, and are, widely reflected in the culture. Both worldviews believe that the repository of values is in the \u201chearts and minds\u201d of the people. Cultural change, in this view, becomes a straightforward proposition: change a person\u2019s values and you\u2019ll ultimately change the culture. Hunter cites three tactics in which Christians are working to change the world or culture: Evangelism (aka spiritual renewal), political action, and social reform. So the popular belief is that culture changes regardless of the tactic (spiritual, political or social); \u201ccultures changes when people change or as Charles Colson put it, transformed people transform cultures.\u201d [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet Hunter goes on to argue that popular view of cultural change is almost wholly wrong. [4]<\/a> To be fair, and clear, Hunter is supportive of evangelism for the sake of offering Christ, for transforming the life of the individual. He is also supportive of Christians engaged in political action and social reform yet he\u2019s clear that \u201csuch engagement may be worthy, but if the end is to \u2018save civilization,\u2019 it most certainly na\u00efve, by themselves or even together, evangelism, politics and social reform, then, will fail to bring about the ends hoped for and intended<\/em>.\u201d [5]<\/a> Hunter goes on to offer an alternative view of culture and cultural change with eleven propositions all of which make it clear that culture is bigger than the individual: it encompasses history, institutions, symbols, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 His view of cultural change is top down, it comes with no small amount of tension and change, and it isn\u2019t one person at a time.<\/p>\n

As an evangelical I have tremendous respect for Chuck Colson, James Dobson, Bill Bright, and others like them. If you asked me for a representative sampling of American evangelical leaders from the former generation I\u2019d gladly name them. Hunter clearly documents that they all believed you will change the world, change the culture, by introducing people to Christ. And I\u2019d likewise follow that train of thought. But then \u2013 why hasn\u2019t it changed<\/em>? America has a greater percentage of people confessing faith in Jesus, close followers of His teaching, than anywhere else in the world. One could criticize the quality of our faith but still America also has the greatest percentage of believers who take their faith seriously enough to find practical ways to live it out. Where is the cultural change our leaders promised?<\/p>\n

Could it be the desire to change the culture\u2014change the political, social, educational systems\u2014isn\u2019t really the mission of the church? We\u2019re called to \u201cgo and make disciples\u201d; \u201cmake more followers of Jesus through our witness.\u201d That witness of Jesus can and should engage the culture using all our abilities, gifts, talents and interests \u2013 as a vehicle of our witnesses. However, the fruit of the witness is changed lives, not changed culture. Let\u2019s be careful not to confuse method and mission.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: the Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 46.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 47.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, 16.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 17.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid, 47.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My previous post said \u201cBad Religion\u201d is my favorite book this term; James Davidson Hunter\u2019s \u201cTo Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World\u201d is a close second. My affection for Hunter\u2019s book isn\u2019t because I\u2019m wholeheartedly agreeing with his views on culture or cultural change, but because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"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":[2,5,622],"class_list":["post-4586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-hunter","tag-witness","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586","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\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4587,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions\/4587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}