{"id":5,"date":"2014-07-15T20:34:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T20:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=5"},"modified":"2014-08-11T19:57:59","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T19:57:59","slug":"culture-creation-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/culture-creation-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture \u2013 Creation Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the beginning\u2026out of nothing\u2026God created.\u00a0 We, created in the likeness of the Maker who makes all things, are ourselves world-makers.\u00a0 This is our birthright.\u00a0 There are those who still actively name this birthright and call us to living into its freedom, joy and responsibility.\u00a0 The Presbyterian Church USA works toward \u201crenewing the church to transform the world.\u201d The Episcopal Church claims that a \u201crevolution (of justice and peace) is precisely what God\u2019s work, God\u2019s mission, is all about.\u201d The Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America states that \u201ctransforming the structures of society, working for justice, and preserving the earth.\u201d And the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops in writing about world-change offer, \u201cOur faith demands it. Our teaching calls us to it. Our nation needs it and others depend on it. We can make a difference.\u201d[1]<\/a> These are examples of so many more organizations and people that also encourage us into creating and creating well.<\/p>\n

This is how James Davison Hunter powerfully begins his book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility in the Late Modern World<\/em>.\u00a0 Sadly, Hunter notes that many see their Christianity as that stereotypical crutch \u2013 something to help them deal with the complexities and hardships that come their way.\u00a0 Too few see their faith as a bolstering, enlivening, power-bequeathing and generative principle.\u00a0 Yet, there are those who do understand their faith in this manner and we celebrate them the world over \u2013 Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, and the like.<\/p>\n

What I appreciate about Hunter\u2019s text is his emphasis on the need for institutions in order to really be effective at sustainably changing society.\u00a0 While I do find that he has a bit stronger emphasis on this, at the expense of personal interaction, than I would like, I generally agree that substantive, sustainable change must involve institutions in some form.\u00a0 Hunter writing from a sociological perspective recognizes that institutions in central societal positions bear most possibility for significant influence and he notes that many in the church occupy comparatively marginal positions.\u00a0 And thus, he wisely suggests that we stop putting quite so much pressure on people to be \u201cworld-changers\u201d writ-large.\u00a0 Instead, how we should encourage them toward \u201cfaithful presence\u201d where they happen to be on any given day at any given place.<\/p>\n

I agree\u2026and yet\u2026here we are following in the footsteps \u2013 two some centuries on \u2013 of a backwater villages Carpenter\u2019s son who gathered some lower-rungs-of-society (overall) companions to him.\u00a0 He walked around with them, got a lot of people angry and then got himself killed.\u00a0 Later, many of his companions managed to also get themselves killed even after a previously unheard of resurrection from the dead transpired (you\u2019d think they could have gotten a bit of street cred from that\u2026).\u00a0 So, while I do agree with Hunter\u2019s analysis overall, I also retain just a bit of wonderment at the beautiful unpredictability of just how God works in the world and remain glad that I am part of that tradition.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Hunter, James Davison, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 3.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the beginning\u2026out of nothing\u2026God created.\u00a0 We, created in the likeness of the Maker who makes all things, are ourselves world-makers.\u00a0 This is our birthright.\u00a0 There are those who still actively name this birthright and call us to living into its freedom, joy and responsibility.\u00a0 The Presbyterian Church USA works toward \u201crenewing the church to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-hunter","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","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\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1321,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}