Not The Religious Type

How Not to Change the World / Andy Crouch

From Dave:  Dave Thom, a frequent contributor here, passed on Andy Crouch's thoughtful review of the book we did a little preliminary discussing of last week--To Change the World, by James Davison Hunter.  Andy (briefly a congregant with us here in Boston) has written a book that, itself, made a splash along these lines last year called Culture Making.  I thought this might forward our conversation a bit.  Can we change the world?  Should we?  Let us know what you think!

Near the end of his masterful book To Change the World, we discover that James Davison Hunter does not believe we should (or can) change the world. Nor should we be " 'redeeming the culture,' 'advancing the kingdom,' 'building the kingdom,' 'transforming the world,' 'reclaiming the culture,' [or] 'reforming the culture.'" It's a surprising turn, given that a casual reader might naturally think, for the first hundred pages, that To Change the World is about how to change the world. And therein, as they used to say, lies a tale worth telling.

It is a tale of three "essays" originating in a talk that Hunter gave a number of years ago, also called "To Change the World," which has circulated widely among leaders in the evangelical movement. The substance of that talk, with its analysis sharpened and extended, forms the first of Hunter's three essays in To Change the World, and it maps fairly neatly onto the "irony" signaled in his subtitle.

The irony is that there is no phrase more beloved to a certain kind of Christian than "to change the world." But in Hunter's persuasive account, the strategies those very same Christians have pursued are, by themselves, woefully incapable of changing the world. (Hunter's greatest interest is clearly Christianity's theologically conservative varieties, though he attends to mainline and progressive Christianity as well.) One group focuses on personal renewal and national revival, while another—championing a "Christian worldview"—locates the necessary condition for cultural change not so much in the heart as in the mind. Either way, the premise is that once the hearts and minds of ordinary people are properly revived and informed, the culture will change. "This account," Hunter says flatly, "is almost wholly mistaken."

What Does It Look Like to Be a Centered-Set Missionary?/ Béckie Bray

Typically, I have thought of missionaries in an extremist way: positively, they know a lot about the Bible and have sacrificed a lot to live in a different culture and devote their lives to extending God's kingdom; negatively, they tend to be fundamentalists. The funny thing is that I wouldn't describe myself in either way, yet I leave for west Africa this summer as a leader on of a new missions movement called JourneyCorps (for more information, see my JourneyCorps page)!

As I am preparing spiritually and mentally for my journey, I seem to be facing two different struggles. First, we all have a perception of missionaries, whether good or bad - what's yours? As I have said in my blog, I am 'Not the Missionary Type' (thanks, Dave, for the idea -- I did give you credit in the post): a vegetarian addicted to Starbucks and not trained in Bible. Secondly, being a missionary in Africa means translating the centered set idea to a completely different culture (and as the resident language teacher, I *literally* have to translate it). Is there any change as we think about a blue ocean in the beautiful African bush rather than the intellectual Boston streets?

What I Learned at Harvard

Hi all and thanks for all of your provocative comments on Friday's post.

I did moderate a debate on Friday night on faith and atheism sponsored by Harvard's extension school.  (The stated topic, if I'm remembering: Is it intellectually valid to believe in God?)  Two faculty presenters--the revered and recently-retired (at 80) theologian Harvey Cox on the faith side of things and Marc Hauser (Harvard biology professor) on the atheism side.  They each had ten minutes to present and then had about a half an hour of give and take.  They were followed by two student presenters on each side, and the student presenters also had about half an hour of give and take after their opening presentations.  Then there was about twenty minutes of Q & A.  It looked like there were perhaps 250 attendees.

Can Faith and Reason Share the Stage?

I just got invited into a fun gathering of a few hundred people which was spurred into being by Lisa Miller's provocative article for Newsweek that suggested that Harvard was profoundly anti-intellectual in its refusal to entertain the thought of a religious studies major.  If there's anything to say, I'll tell you more about it next week.  But let me give you a selection from Miller's article.

In dozens of phone calls and several trips to the Harvard campus, I tried to understand the faculty's anxiety about religion. The facile explanation is that more than a third of elite university professors are nonreligious, a dramatically higher percentage than the population at large. But both believing and nonbelieving scholars clearly can teach about religion in a secular setting without crossing the line into proselytizing. And wouldn't students benefit from having their assumptions challenged in a rigorous way? (Fluency in religious history and texts, in fact, is the sharpest weapon against fundamentalism, as Sam Harris demonstrates in his polemic The End of Faith.) "My colleagues fear that taking religion seriously would undermine everything a great university stands for," the Rev. Peter Gomes, Harvard's chaplain and a professor of Christian history, told me. "I think that's ungrounded, but there it is."

Does War Imagery Work for You?

Bill Sergott kicked off the comments to yesterday's post on Greg Boyd's God at War with this observation:

I have had an ongoing love/hate relationship with warfare and battle language associated with Christianity. On the one hand, it is very off-putting when dealing with secular liberals or anyone who practices non-violence as a life discipline. On the other hand, it is very helpful for understanding the casualties and loss of life.

I guess, for me, I have seen people in the Church historically take the battle from being against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms to being personified and against particular individuals that the Christians deem to be immoral or pagan. In other words, judgmental Christians lose sight of the unseen enemy and look for a flesh and blood enemy. Then, labels like Antichrist get thrown around. That is not helpful.

Bill closes with thoughtful observations about the kind of war-talk he finds helpful.  But how does "war" as a metaphor/spiritual reality sit with you?  Are you helped or motivated by that kind of talk?

In my case, I totally am--assuming it's not in service of "culture war," in which case, with Bill, I'm out.  But keeping the war-talk focused on spiritual enemies, I'm there.  And yet I know many people for whom talk of war is profoundly distasteful and seems very much apart from the character of Jesus that appeals to them.

How do you respond to talk of "spiritual war"...or any other type of war that gets talked about in faith settings?

Fight Evil. Don't Explain Evil.

Two (at this writing) of you yesterday plugged Gregory Boyd's God at War as your preferred way to think about how to respond in faith to suffering without having to explain why things don't always go well, faith or no. 

I thought that might be worth a little filling out.  In a nutshell (and we'll see if this seems fairly stated or not), Boyd at some length argues that evil and suffering are to be fought, not explained.  We're in a brutal, cosmic, very real and consequential spiritual battle by virtue of being alive.  And battles have casualties. 

He makes the powerful and seemingly-irrefutable point that trying to explain suffering never goes well.  We can try for some classic church answers like, "Because of free will, evil had to be introduced to the world to give us real choice, and so, because our original ancestors chose disobedience, suffering and evil are facts of life in the world."  That may be true, but you could make the case that that never helped anyone who was actually suffering. 

Now, that said, as I watch my friend suffer, I'm not sure Boyd's answer does any more for me than all the old heady answers.  But it does encourage me to stand by my friend and "fight evil" through prayer and faith rather than wasting much time asking why bad things happen to good people, and that does seem like a plus. 

Are you helped by thinking of yourself as living in the midst of and fighting a spiritual battle?  How so?

How Do You Marry "High Faith" and "Embracing Reality"?

A big part of my emotional landscape--as many of you know, and many of you are right at the center of--has been filled with a good friend fighting a battle with cancer that hasn't been going well.  Lots and lots and lots of people have been praying for him, often heroically (long fasts and the like).  He's gone to any notable prayer hotspot we're aware of to get prayer (Kansas City, Redding, Lakeland, Georgia--to name four).

And so this raises plenty of big questions.  Many folks involved have, themselves, lost friends or family members to cancer, and so this touches a nerve. 

But, if nothing else, it seems to raise the challenge of holding two warring things at the same time--the kind of high faith that will persevere in prayer and faith, and the ability to suffer without clear answers.  Many faith traditions are good at one of those two things. 

I've been well-grilled in a take on the Bible that perhaps can help here, one which focuses on the phrase "the now (or sometimes "the already") and the not yet."  The gist of this is that, because of Jesus' announcing that "the kingdom of heaven is near" when he began his ministry, we now have a kind of access to heavenly realities that we didn't before.  Because of this, we can pray and we might well see someone get healed or released from a kind of oppression.  On the other hand, because we're not actually in heaven (where there won't be any problems like, say, aggressive cancers), some problems will remain.

What Role Do You Want to See Scholars Play?

Two updates.  The cyber-bullying of my son has taken some interesting turns.  The police have gotten involved, and, man, those folks get results fast.  They've subpoenaed Google and Facebook to get the address that created the false sites and they expect to have it nailed down by today.  And they plan to prosecute.  Yoiks. 

And I seem to have misread the review of Hunter's book sent my way by Dave T.  Mea culpa.

Thinking about Hunter's book and the responses to yesterday's post, I find myself wondering what hopes I have for scholars in this great, if nebulous endeavor that we're involved in on this fair blog.  Clearly the reason so many people alerted me to Hunter's book is that we have our own culture-shaping dreams.

And I find myself both really enjoying Hunter's book and fearing that I'm going to feel a little let down by the end, and feel let down by his very strengths.  What's great so far about the book is that he so eruditely eviscerates the culture-shaping ambitions of all sorts of people who, happily, I also don't especially believe in.  So I can root him on like I root on a local sports team. 

Should We Change Culture? Can We?

Thanks to those of you who've passed on kind thoughts and prayers for my son.  I did talk to the assistant principal of his school and they're taking it super-seriously, which I appreciate.

I've been inundated with comments that I should read James Davison Hunter's new book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, including one email review (scathing) from our own Dave Thom.  Evidently Christianity Today (not a favorite of mine, which is a topic for another day--or not) called it something like...I'm paraphrasing...the most important book ever written.  So I've picked up a copy to see what we see. 

As of about 25 pages in, I'm intrigued to be sure.  Hunter is addressing a subject near and dear to our hearts at this fair blog--can we influence culture?  His erudite answer--no, or at least not in the sense that Christians traditionally try to influence culture.  He takes on basically every denomination and Christian culture warriors like Chuck Colson and James Dobson.  He takes on the thought that the way to change culture is to convert people and therefore "change culture one person at a time."  

Is it your hope to change culture?  Or to change the world?  What's your battle plan?

Were You Bullied?

From the lighthearted (yesterday's conversation) to the super-heavy.

My beloved state has been in the news again for less-than-optimal reasons because of the bullying-induced suicide of a South Hadley high school freshman girl and the aggressive prosecution of her alleged bullies. 

I'll fly my flag up front and say that this is on my mind today because of two shocking/distressing bits of news I got this morning in a five-minute span.  One is that my own bright and sensitive son is being targeted by an online bully who's set up a site posing as my son and then posting attempts at humiliating him.  And then, in something that's unrelated yet feels related (in the strong-targeting-the-weak sense), I heard that this past Saturday, a particularly beloved Seek grad from 2001--who experienced faith with us, got married, and then moved to the Midwest several years back--was strangled to death, allegedly by her husband, on Saturday.  They have three young kids.

Life According To Phineas and Ferb

I've been giving a lot of thought to Phineas and Ferb, which has followed several years of giving a lot of thought to Dora the Explorer, which followed a good many years of giving a lot of thought to Thomas the Tank Engine, which itself followed some strong attention to the many facets of The Wiggles.  I'm hopeful of making it to some solid middle school material someday soon.

What Lost Has Taught Me about Ethnicity

Some years back, a friend pointed Grace and me to TV's Lost as a powerful picture of being physically lost becoming a metaphor for being spiritually lost. We were intrigued, and we've since jumped on the maddening, exhilarating bandwagon that is soon to rumble to a close.

Maybe the most powerful aspect of the show for me has been its uncanny interest in ethnicity.  It's taken us to South Korea to follow the lives of some characters, to...I'm forgetting...Ghana?, to Iraq, to South-Central LA, to Australia, to Ireland and England, to the Deep South, to Spain and I'm sure other places I've forgotten (there have been brief forays to Russia and Japan).  It's seemed shockingly impressive that one set of writers could have the curiosity about each of these cultures that they do.  I'm sure they've caricatured and missed the boat all the time as they've done this.  But nonetheless, I can't remember another TV show with this particular ambition.

Thoughts on the Enneagram, or how to use guilt productively/ Jeff Heidkamp

About three months ago I was introduced to the book The Enneagram by Richard Rohr, and have been helped immensely by it.  Having read it with my wife, we find it almost impossible to stop ourselves from endlessly analyzing ourselves and others according the the "9 types".

On the surface, the Enneagram feels essentially like another personality test (think Myers-Briggs, DiSC, or StrengthsFinder).  But, as a junkie of such tests, I am tempted to say that this one is different in at least two substantive ways.  Perhaps if I describe these differences, you can get some sense of how it works.

My Holograph Preaches Better than Your Holograph/ Crispin Schroeder

 

I am a big fan of technology.  As Kip sang in his wedding song on Napoleon Dynamite, “Yes I love technology but not as much as you, you see…” I love blogging, podcasting, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook and so on.  And as one who is just a few months into planting a church I am finding how the internet can do a whole lot to connect folks and get the message out for very little money.  For instance, our church has been going through a faith experiment (inspired by the folks at Not the Religious Type) through this season of Lent which is called 40 Days of Faith.  Because of technology, each day I am able to post a new reflective reading from scripture that a lot of people in the church follow along with on our website.  On top of that I am able to podcast the messages from our weekly services within hours of the service so folks who can’t make it can still stay connected with the content.  This has been very helpful for the folks of our small congregation not to mention a handful of others from around the country who are following along with us.  So yes I love technology.

The Secret of Happiness?

I hope your Easter was a winner!

As someone who, some years back, spent too many years in low-level depression, I've thought a lot about happiness.  I read a lot of the happiness literature that comes out each year.  Just last week I read David Brooks' very provocative essay "The Sandra Bullock Trade" which explores professional versus personal happiness.

And, maybe proving our hypothesis that the universe is fundamentally relational, this is the sort of insight one hears again and again as one listens to the researchers.

Contrary to the belief that happiness is hard to explain, or that it depends on having great wealth, researchers have identified the core factors in a happy life.  The primary components are number of friends, closeness of friends, closeness of family, and relationships with neighbors and co-workers.  Together these features explain about 70 percent of personal happiness.  (Niven, The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People, p. 22.)

I wonder what you make of that?  As someone who can be tempted to find happiness, say, in the sense that I'm progressing towards my goals (and who can crash when it feels like I'm not) and who can run to time by myself when I'm feeling stressed, this seems both simple and encouraging and also a bit surprising.

But clearly this suggests a particular skill set leads us to the secret of the universe--the skill set of valuing, pursuing and maintaining many good relationships, some of which will be deep and some which will be superficial.

Does this seem true to your experience or off-track?  And, if it seems true to your experience, what does this suggest to you about God?

Happy Good Friday Everyone!

I'll do my best to have us back and rolling with a new post on Monday.  And keep those guest posts coming!  (Special shout-out to Marc Sondreal's great post this week.)  Happy Easter!