by In his new book To Change the World, leading faith-and-culture scholar James Davidson Hunter describes the misplaced efforts by both conservative and progressive Christians in recent decades to change culture through law and politics. In my view, Hunter’s deconstruction of the Church’s complicity in fostering unproductive culture wars is nothing short of prophetic. But what does Hunter offer in place of political change? The phrase he wishes to promote is “faithful presence.”
“Faithful presence” does not imply that Christians should withdraw from law and politics. Indeed, Hunter also critiques the “neo-Anabaptist” approach to culture, which is at turns loudly combative and unrealisticly pacifistic. “Faithful presence” does mean, however, that the Church should not seek to “transform culture” by winning in the judicial and legislative arenas.
There are two reasons why this Quixotic quest should be abandoned. First this quest is, in fact, Quixotic; culture simply does not “transform” when laws change, at least not in the way that Christian culture warriors suppose is the case, and certainly not in ways that anyone can confidently predict. Second, this kind of quest is not consistent with the missio Dei.
This latter point, I think, is one that Christian and other religious legal scholars should explore more carefully. How did legal and political change become so central to the mission of the Church? Why does the political discourse in American Chrisitian churches, at least at the popular level, so rarely rises above the bar set by the Fox News Channel? Why do many of the messages we receive in our email inboxes from parachurch organizations read like paranoid radical libertarian hate mail (or, if the organization is “progressive,” like Marxist propaganda)? Is this what we believe life, death and resurrection of the Son of God, and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, are all about? As religious legal scholars, how can we help shape conversations about law and culture in ways that reflect a humble “faithful presence” rather than a drive to “win” at all costs?
Hunter predicted that his proposal would generate significant opposition, in no small part because the warrior mentality is now so engrained in our spiritual DNA. Not surprisingly, for example, in a response to Hunter’s book in Christianity Today, Chuck Colson dismissed the notion of “faithful presence” as “quietism.” This sort of response baffles me. Whatever happened to Romans 12:18: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone“? It seems the Apostle Paul lacked a sufficiently Kuyperian / neo-Calvinist take on culture and politics.
I do, of course, appreciate the push-back that some great moral movements in history were motivated by a form of religious engagement that seemed like more than “faithful presence.” The abolition of African slavery is Exhibit A in this regard.
And yet, upon closer examination, slavery is a curious case because the justification for slavery in the American South became increasingly “Christian” as the country careened towards the Civil War. What if the Southern Presbyterians had exercised “faithful presence” in the antebellum years, rather than insisting that African slavery was part of God’s providential design and branding the abolitionists heretics? The drive to eliminate American slavery was not a case of Christian abolitionists fighting against pagan or atheistic slave owners. It was, tragically, in addition to all its other historical, economic and political dimensions, a contest of competing Christian theologies. It seems to me that this cannot be compared to what the Church’s political presence should look like in response to openly anti-Christian culture. (Anyone who argues for slavery as a case study in Christian cultural engagement should read John Patrick Daly’s book When Slavery Was Called Freedom: Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War.)
In short, “faithful presence” seems to me exactly what Christian faith requires.
There’s a lot here– way too much to discuss in a few blog posts and comments. But a few quick observations may be in order.
First, I don’t understand Colson to be opposed to “faithful presence.” He’s in favor of it. He can fully embrace, I believe, the injunction from Romans. He just doesn’t think that role exhausts Christian obligations under the present circumstance.
Hunter says that he anticipated the charge of “quietism.” He anticipated it, I suspect, because in fact this is a natural concern that will arise in reaction to a position that seems to advocate “faithful presence” while criticizing more active forms of involvement. Hunter says he’s not advocating withdrawal or disengagement. But it’s not at all clear to me what forms of active engagement he supports.
Second, Hunter’s criticisms of political or legal action may be “prophetic,” but they don’t strike me as very persuasive. Like other critics, he’s concerned about Constantinianism. Fair enough, but that doesn’t seem to me to capture the role Christianity has primarily tried to play in the American experience. He thinks Christian involvement is often an expression of resentment (excuse the English spelling) and victimization. No doubt it can be, but I don’t see any reason why it needs to be this. (I admit that I don’t receive the kind of mail that David describes. If I did, maybe I’d have a different attitude.)
It’s surely true that political and legal efforts by Christians aren’t going to “change the world” in the sense of bringing about universal peace or ushering in the Millennium. But is it fair to suppose that Christians have any such illusions? From my perspective, Christian political efforts as often as not are attempts to address specific evils or perceived threats; I doubt that many Christians have the sorts of grandiose dreams that Hunter seems to be addressing. Political and legal action may well be useful for more limited aims. And if we acknowledge more limited ambitions, I think it’s fair to ask whether we think the social and political scene would be improved by Christian withdrawal. (Which is not to deny in any way that “Christian” involvement in the world often has been and can be deeply misguided. The question should still be asked.)
I say all this with some embarrassment, as someone who does not naturally have any inclination to politics, who typically has been averse to heavy political involvement by churches– and also as someone who has greatly admired Hunter’s work. (My admittedly limited perusal of this most recent book left me a bit disappointed in this instance.) No doubt Hunter’s current critique identifies dangers and provides material to think about. But his overall diagnosis, critique, and prescription leaves me pretty emphatically unpersuaded.
Steve — not to pick on Colson (I admire his prison work and his Evangelicals and Catholics Together efforts), but his thinking and style with respect to cultural engagement are a foil for Hunter (and me) for good reasons.
When I think of the opposite of “faithful presence,” what comes to mind first is Colson’s infamous First Things diatribe in 1996, in which he stated:
To me, this is a place at which “faithful presence” clearly and obviously crosses over into something very different, very frightening, and very, very wrong.
As one good example of the sort of rhetoric and spirituality this kind of deeply misguided view of cultural engagement creates, here’s something from a Family Research Council email I received a while back relating to the California gay marriage issue, under the heading “Here Come the Grooms”:
These folks really believed that a change in the law of California could “undo thousands of years of natural marriage” and trigger massive social chaos! Somewhere along the line, they forgot that “marriage” is first something inherent in the created order, second a sacrament, and only derivatively something encoded in civil law. Even a law purporting to outlaw marriage altogether couldn’t “undo thousands of years of natural marriage” any more than a law purporting to criminalize gravity could “undo billions of years of gravitational forces.” How did law become such a power for these folks?
Here is another example, from a Concerned Women for America website on the Matthew Shephard Act:
The CWA site, consistent with other religious right organizations, informed the faithful that gay people were trying to control their minds. And people ate it up.
Put together things like Colson’s “revolution” quote, the FRC “social chaos” email, and the CWA “thought control” website … and it’s no wonder that many ordinary people are frightened by what has become of religious cultural engagement — and no wonder that wiser people such as Hunter want to find a more balanced and patient approach.
I’ll happily acknowledge that all of the statements David quotes are ill-advised and hyperbolic. (It might be that more charitable interpretations of the statements are possible, but let that pass.) My impression is that politics does often provoke or elicit ill-considered and hyperbolic statements, from Christians and non-Christians alike. (Like blogging, but even more so?) Years ago, when I was in college, I noticed this problem, and pretty much resolved to avoid it by staying as detached from politics as possible; and I’ve largely stuck to that resolve.
But I’m not sure this is a very responsible position to take. And I just don’t think one can leap from bad or offensive examples of this kind (which could no doubt be multiplied ad infinitum) to the conclusion that Christians (or anyone else) should avoid political and legal engagement and confine themselves to “faithful presence.” I suspect there’s something irresponsibly utopian about this prescription.
Maybe Christians and religious folks generally have more justification for taking this attitude– “Live your own life well and leave the external things to God”– than others do. But I’m skeptical.
BTW, since it’s so easy just to be critical, let me offer an example of an organization that IMHO is an excellent illustration of “faithful presence”: The Institute for Global Engagement. Here you won’t find alarmist rhetoric or shallow thinking. There’s a scholarly journal, monographs, respectful dialogue, and active diplomacy, from a religious / Christian perspective, focused on the poor and marginalized, yet pragmatic and realist.
I need to read Hunter’s book, and I’m thankful that David pointed us toward it. Meanwhile, I have two initial reactions to the descriptions of it here. First, much of the cultural wars debate concerns the expressive function of the law. I doubt that those on either side expect the civil or criminal enforcement of a law will eliminate the conduct that they oppose. Instead, the debaters see the law as providing social legitimacy for their preferred position and illegitimacy for the opposed position. The California gay marriage controversy fits that paradigm: as Fred Geddicks as written recently, once California extended all of its civil benefits to gay couples, the remaining argument is simply whether such couples are entitled to be seen as “married” by the law — and if the law says they are married, then private individuals should accept that.
My second thought is that Colson and CWA and others are responding to real opposition to Christianity. Not just to the place of faith in governance, but to the very teachings of the faith. For example, sometime recently I remember seeing an L.A. Times story that called for the Catholic church to change its attitudes toward sexuality. The concern wasn’t about the role of the church in public policy, but rather a call for change internally within the church because the church’s teaching was wrong according to whatever standard the Times holds. It would be easy to collect similarly inflammatory quotes against both the role of Christians in the public sphere and Christian teaching itself. There is a chicken-and-the-egg aspect to such quotes: are they responding to what someone else said, or are they initiating the incident themselves. Either way, Christians are called to engage in such discussions with civility, and we often fail in that. The hardest question, as I see it, is how to respond to attacks in a way that faithfully presents the teachings of the faith but that does not alienate people from that faith because of our ill-chosen words.