Want To Change The World? Well, You Can’t!

Reading in this month’s Christianity Today, I stumbled across an interview with James Davison Hunter, author of To Change The World: The Irony, Tragedy, And Possibility Of Christianity In The Late Modern World.  What?  You don’t know who James Davison Hunter is?!  You’ve never heard of this book?!  You don’t even understand its title?!

Neither did I.

However, I’m really glad I stumbled across this interview, and I am even more excited to get my hands on this book.  Before you read the following excerpt, know that Dr. Hunter’s book title is ironic.  In a sense, this entire book on changing the world (i.e. culture) is actually about how it can’t be done.  He even argues that James Dobson and Jim Wallis are actually mirrors of one another striving for the same thing.  Here’s an excerpt that really astounded me:

“What are the consequences of this [the politicization of American public life] for the church’s public witness?”

“The state is the sole legitimate source of coercion and violence. When Christians turn to law, public policy, and politics as the last resort, they have essentially given up on a desire to persuade their opponents. They want the patronage of the state and its coercive power to rule the day. What makes this problematic, in my view, is that the dominant public witness of the church is political, rooted in narratives of injury and discourses of negation. The sense of deprivation among Christians leads to an ethic of revenge, or what Nietzsche called ressentiment. In different ways and to different degrees, the prevailing political theologies in American society today—the Christian Right, the Christian Left, and even the neo-Anabaptists—partake in that ressentiment and consequent will to power. And here’s the tragic irony: Whenever Christian churches and organizations partake in the will to power, they partake in the very thing they decry in society.”

Continue reading here.

And trust me, if you didn’t even understand everything in that quote (I didn’t), it’s still a really good read about the notions of power and status within American society and how Christians are striving for the very thing they fight against.

~ t

Guilt Trips Galore, You Should Do More

Guilt trips are hard to take at times, and they seem to come from every direction: you should do more to shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, support this ministry . . . there are so many terrible things in this world, and YOU should be doing more.

But the worst guilt trips always seem to come from ourselves. We seem to lay the burden of saving the word on our own shoulders rather than resting in the sufficiency of Christ and his work.

This is a personal issue for Danielle and myself because we’ve been struggling with the question of what more we can do.  After an evening of tears laying out these struggles and subsequent guilt concerning what more we could be doing, it was extremely refreshing to wake up and read a post by Kevin DeYoung called “On Mission, Changing the World, and Not Being Able to Do It All”.  Here’s a quick excerpt:

“Maybe it’s because I’m Type A or left brained or a beaver or an ESTJ or a good pastor or a people-pleasing sinner, but I often feel like I could, perhaps should, be doing more. I could do more evangelism. I could pray more. I could invite people over for dinner more. Because of this tendency I actually prefer the “do not” commands of Scripture. ‘Do not commit adultery’–that’s tough if you take the whole lust thing into account. Obeying this command requires prayer, accountability, repentance, and grace. But it doesn’t require me to start a non-profit or spend another evening away from my family. I just (just!) need to put to death the deeds of the flesh, die to myself and live to Christ. Not committing adultery is, of course, easier said than done, but the command doesn’t overwhelm me. Changing the world, doing something about the global AIDS crisis, tackling homelessness–those things overwhelm me. What can I do? Where do I start? How will I find the time? I have four small kids, a full-time job, I give much more than 10% away to Christian causes, I try to share Jesus with my neighbors, I pray with my kids before bed, I’m trying to be a better husband. So is it possible, just possible, that God is not asking me to do anything about sex trafficking right now?”

I highly recommend this lengthy but spectacular article.  If you’re like me, there is always a lingering since of guilt of what more you can be doing.  And I know that at times I am lazy and I should do more, but at other times the personal guilt trips only serve to diminish Christ in my own life.  I pray that this article can encourage you.  DeYound makes some stellar conclusions, and you should read the whole thing to appreciate them, but here are some wonderful final statements:

“I’m not for a minute advocating a cheap grace or an easy-believeism. But the yoke still is easy, right? And the burden still is light, is it not? The danger–and it’s a danger I’ve fallen foul of in my own preaching–is that in all our efforts to be prophetic, radical, and missional, we end up getting the story of Pilgrim’s Progress exactly backwards. ‘Come to the cross, Pilgrim, see the sacrifice for your sins. Isn’t that wonderful? Now bend over and let me load this burden on your back. There’s a lot of work we have to do, me and you.’ A cross, yes. Jesus said we would have to carry one of those. But a cross that kills our sins, smashes our idols, and teaches us the folly of self-reliance. Not a burden to do the impossible. Not a burden to always do more for Jesus. Not a burden of bad news that never lets up and obedience that is always out reach . . . the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”

The painting of Sisyphus (again taken from DeYoung’s blog) complements this post very well.  If you don’t know much about the myth of Sisyphus, he was a man stricken by the gods to carry a large boulder up a hill for eternity.  As he would near the top, the gods would stretch down their hands and send the boulder back to the bottom, causing Sisyphus to return down and start again.  Too much of our religiosity puts us in the same position – we are commanded to do things FOR God (as if he needed them), and when we near completion, there is always some other task that we must complete.  Our God is not one of heavy burdens but of a light yoke.  And yes, there is always more we can be doing, but those things are not outside the lordship of Christ.  We are commanded to do good deeds, and we should, but let us remember that our own salvation is not dependent on such.  We do good works to magnify Christ, not diminish his dominion over all things.

~ t