It’s all about politics. This statement is a generalization, but it is not an incorrect description of the United States cultural scene. Everything in our culture is politicized, from fast-food joints to wedding cakes to running shoes. I cannot even avoid politics when searching for a new backpacking quilt! This politicization has affected Christianity in the United States as well. Christians have followed the general public by politicizing hymns, clothing, and even Bibles (e.g., the American Patriot’s Bible).

It’s all about power. This statement is also a generalization, but it, too, describes the American cultural and political scenes. Political groups want power. People will attempt to gain or keep power in less than upright ways. Today, attempts to gain or keep power are characterized by using scare tactics, warfare language, over-the-top rhetoric, outright lies, and an us-versus-them mentality. Once again, Christians have followed the general population in holding such views about gaining political power in the United States. American Christians have not always sought political power in upright ways or by upright means.

For many years, Christians have been seeking political power in the United States. Some have tried progressive measures like the social gospel or social justice. Others have tried conservative approaches by encouraging Christians to vote and trying to get more Christians into political office. Some Christians talk about transforming culture. Others have started a fad called Christian nationalism. Still other Christians pull back from politics and refuse to participate. There are many different Christian views of politics and power in the United States.

James Davison Hunter addresses these topics and more in his 2010 publication To Change the World. In this book, Hunter answers two main questions: (1) How is faith possible in the late modern world? and (2) How do Christians live out their faith in the modern world? Although Hunter answers the first question in this book, more pages are devoted to the second question. As he answers these questions, Hunter does not simply give a few of his opinions. Instead, he explains how different Christians have answered those questions: the Christian right, the progressive Christian left, and the Neo-Anabaptist community. After examining these groups’ views on living out one’s faith in this culture, Hunter proposes a framework grounded in biblical teaching.

To Change the World (TCW) has three main parts, or essays, as Hunter calls them. In the first essay, “Christianity and World-Changing,” Hunter delves into the concept and meaning of culture. He mentions that many people believe that the essence of culture lies in the “hearts and minds of individuals” (6). Based on this, a popular Christian mindset is that to change the culture, you need to change individuals. Hunter uses Charles Colson and James Dobson as examples of this view. This was the predominant Christian view in the 1980s and 1990s.

Hunter argues that this view falls short, however, because cultures have not historically changed in this way. For example, for many years, there have been many Christians doing many things in an attempt to change American culture. But the culture is only getting worse. This leads some Christian leaders to say we need to try harder and do more to change the culture. Hunter’s critique of this view is that it is a modern version of idealism mixed with individualism. Idealism is the old notion that “ideas move history,” a sort of “pedestrian Hegelianism,” as Hunter calls it (25). This idealism “ignores the way culture is generated, coordinated, and organized” (26). At this point, Hunter engages with Andy Crouch’s book Culture Making, noting its strengths and weaknesses.

Chapter 4 of TCW is a thought-provoking list of eleven propositions that offer an alternative view of culture and cultural change. I enjoyed reading this section because Hunter listed his proposition and then explained it. For example, the eighth proposition is “Cultures change from the top down, rarely if ever from the bottom up” (41). Hunter admits that there have been examples in history of change from the bottom up, but he argues, “The deepest and most enduring forms of cultural change nearly always occur from the ‘top down’” (41). Hunter’s propositions are not based on individualism or idealism but on an alternative way of thinking about culture and change. Some evangelicals have the idealistic opinion of Dobson that “in one generation, you can change the whole culture” (45). For Hunter, this is “nothing short of ludicrous” because it is both a misunderstanding of culture and of how cultures actually change (45).

The first section of the book also provides historical evidence of Christian cultural influence that was “top down” rather than the result of changed hearts and minds. Hunter also spends time detailing the various ways Christians have attempted to change American culture with little to show for it. American Christians have poured millions (billions?) of dollars into causes advocating cultural change. They have set up parallel Christian institutions, from radio stations to movie productions to magazines and TV shows to parachurch ministries to colleges and schools. Despite all this money and all these attempts, Hunter argues that these culture-producing institutions of Christianity “are largely marginalized in the economy of culture formation in North America” (89). Much has been ventured, but not much has been gained.

The second section of TCW is titled “Rethinking Power.” This is another very interesting discussion. Hunter digs into the evangelical emphasis on winning the culture war through politics. But he argues that using political power to win the culture war is an incorrect way to view the creation mandate. In my opinion, this is a good argument. The attempt to wield political power for cultural change is a presumption that one knows God’s plans for history and has the power to carry them out (95). Hunter also notes that everything has been politicized and a Nietzschean view of the will to power is at play in our country—even in evangelical circles. This, he says, leads to “ressentiment,” which means the motives of political action are anger, hate, envy, and revenge (107). This shows up in the us-versus-them idea and military imagery for “fighting” the “culture war” against the “enemy.”

This section of TCW also contains Hunter’s explanation of how the Christian right, the Christian left, and the Neo-Anabaptists engage culture. The Christian right has used fear to motivate Christians to change culture through gaining power and by political engagement. The Christian left is animated by the desire for equality, justice, and community and “therefore sees history as an ongoing struggle to realize these ideals” (132). The Neo-Anabaptist view is to maintain distance or separation from the state, with a basic attitude of distrust toward it. Hunter explains these three views well, points out overlaps among them, and uncovers some of their weaknesses.

I appreciated Hunter’s explanation of power from a biblical perspective in section 2 of TCW. It is true that “the natural disposition of all human power is to its abuse” (188). Hunter explains “power” in a Christian way for Christians to practice by examining Jesus’s life: (1) in submission to the will of the Father, (2) in rejecting status and reputation, (3) in his compassion, and (4) in the “noncoercive way in which he dealt with those outside of the community of faith” (191). Discussing power from a biblical perspective offers a much-needed insight into the power struggles in our culture. “Power” for Christians means something different from what “power” means for unbelievers.

One other helpful part of section 2 is Hunter’s instructions on a “postpolitical” Christian witness in the world. First, we need to “disentangle the life and identity of the church from the life and identity of the American society.” Christianity has indeed attached itself to politics in such a way that people identify political parties with Christianity. For this reason, critical pundits sometimes call Christians the “useful idiots of the Republican Party” (128). Second, Hunter writes, the church and Christians need to “decouple the ‘public’ from the ‘political.’” Christians should be thinking about public life and the common weal without making everything a matter of politics. “Politics is just one way to engage the world and, arguably, not the highest, best, most effective, nor most humane way to do so” (185). It is good and proper for Christians to engage culture, but we do not always need to do so with politics on our minds. This is an excellent point. If my neighbor across the street lost his garage in a fire, I should help him without considering his political party, immigration status, or his views on gun control. Common good is about loving one’s neighbor. There is no need to politicize that.

The final essay of TCW is called “Toward a New City Commons: Reflections on a Theology of Faithful Presence.” This section is Hunter’s positive contribution in answering the question of how Christians should live out their faith in this modern culture. Rather than adopting (1) the Christian Right’s view that Christians need to fight and take America back for God, (2) the progressive view that redistribution of wealth and power is needed, or (3) the Neo-Anabaptist view of separating from the violence or coercion of democracy and capitalism, Hunter says we should resist the belief that there is one defining challenge. Instead, he argues, many challenges in different communities have different effects at different times. Cultural engagement is not a one-size-fits-all reality.

Hunter’s view of engaging culture is “faithful presence within” (237). After looking at Scripture’s teaching on the Great Commission, peace, and loving one’s neighbor, Hunter says Christians should live faithfully within the culture God has placed them in. He reminds readers that Christians are pilgrims in the world. And he mentions that the world is a fallen place, so there are tensions while we live here. Yet common grace is a reality that keeps us from being too pessimistic. “Faithful presence within” for Hunter does not mean “building the kingdom of God,” “taking over” culture, or “winning” culture wars (233). “This side of heaven, the culture cannot become the kingdom of God, nor will all the work of Christians in the culture evolve into or bring about his kingdom” (233). God will establish his kingdom at the consummation, the end of time. Although we should live out the ethics of the kingdom, it is not ours to bring in by gaining power or through our cultural and political activities.

Positively, “faithful presence within” is based on God’s presence with his people. It is based on the gospel: God is with us in Christ. “Faithful presence within” means being faithful to one another. It means being faithful to the tasks God calls us to do and to our spheres of influence (246–47). Leadership is also involved in Hunter’s view of “faithful presence within.” In this final section of TCW, Hunter notes that we are all leaders and have some influence in various aspects of our lives. The Christian’s goal is to use the power and influence we have to serve people out of love, to refuse to misuse power, to promote justice, and to seek the well-being of others without politicizing everything. “Faithful presence within” also means understanding that, ultimately, we are not the ones who determine the right course of history. Nor do we have to do everything we can to keep it on the course we want it to take (285). Christ is on the throne; he is sovereign over the course of history. He is victorious over the principalities and powers in his death, resurrection, and ascension. “It is this reality that frees all Christians to actively, creatively, and constructively seek the good in their relationships, in their tasks, in their spheres of influence, and in their cities” (286).

I could say much more about the contents of TCW. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Hunter challenged my thinking and prodded me to engage more deeply with various views on culture and Christianity. I appreciated his critiques of the various common views of Christianity and culture. I, too, have been uneasy with the marriage of Christianity and politics. I was also fascinated with his description of power and how Christians can (and have) misused and abused power. Finally, Hunter’s explanation of “faithful presence” resonated with me. It made me focus more on living the Christian life without always thinking about politics or the fear-inducing idea of losing the American culture war. If you have wrestled with the interaction of Christianity, culture, and politics, I highly recommend To Change the World.

©Shane Lems. All Rights Reserved.

James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010).

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Post authored by:

• Shane Lems

  

  Shane Lems is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California and has a DMin from RTS Orlando. He has been a church planter and pastor in the URCNA. Since 2013 he’s been serving as pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Hammond, WI. He is married and has four children. Shane has written numerous articles for Modern Reformation, New Horizons, and other publications. He is also the author of Doctrines of Grace: Student Edition and manages a book blog, The Reformed Reader.

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