Category Archives: Church Life

I find it so incredibly interesting that when a thought comes through my mind and I begin to work it over, I find an article that seems to speak directly to it.

Just the other day there was this thought: “What role DOES the Church play in this world? Are we really better off looking for a ‘Christian’ culture? SHOULD a culture be ‘Christian’?” Thoughts like that.

Then, I run across this article. The book sounds incredibly interesting and one I may want to get soon, if at all possible.

Some initial quotes:

Hunter (author of the book) develops an alternative view of culture, one that assigns roles not only to ideas and artifacts but also to “elites, networks, technology, and new institutions.” American Christians—mainline Protestant, Catholic, and evangelical—will not and cannot change the world through evangelism, political action, and social reform because of the working theory that undergirds their strategies.

Should we be looking to change the world? What would that change really look like? Is political action REALLY working for us? We can ask that on the “left” or the “right.” I even ask somewhat sarcastically, “How IS that ‘change’ working for you?” (But I could ask that of every politcal power and every hope some Christian group has attached to that power.)

The point the book hopes to make:

The third essay offers a different paradigm for cultural engagement, one Hunter calls “faithful presence.” Faithful presence is not about changing culture, let alone the world, but instead emphasizes cooperation between individuals and institutions in order to make disciples and serve the common good.

This leaves some food for thought. What IS the role of the Church?

A key thought in this CT interview:

Christian philosopher Carl Raschke has observed that “the emerging Religious Left is just a funhouse mirror of the Religious Right.” Why do you say that the two Jims—Dobson and Wallis—mirror each other?

They both operate with a proprietarian relationship to American culture that obligates them to preserve the nation as well as their faith. They both offer different versions of civil religion. And they have both become instrumentalized on behalf of different party structures, jockeying for power.

This is a great question. Raschke’s observation is very astute. What I have noticed growing up in the Christian “right” and now observing the Christian “left” is this intoxication with power. When we get attention from a political party or movement, it gets intoxicating. Wallis was far better in his writing and observations before he became a darling of the Democratic Party.

The interview’s concluding thoughts are powerful:

Christians need to abandon talk about “redeeming the culture,” “advancing the kingdom,” and “changing the world.” Such talk carries too much weight, implying conquest and domination. If there is a possibility for human flourishing in our world, it does not begin when we win the culture wars but when God’s word of love becomes flesh in us, reaching every sphere of social life. When faithful presence existed in church history, it manifested itself in the creation of hospitals and the flourishing of art, the best scholarship, the most profound and world-changing kind of service and care—again, not only for the household of faith but for everyone. Faithful presence isn’t new; it’s just something we need to recover.

We need to recapture the sense of “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.”