I’m doing a chapter-by-chapter summary of James Davison Hunter’s new book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010).
The first “essay” of the book is on “Christianity and World-Changing,” and the first chapter in on “Christian Faith and the Task of World-Changing.”
Genesis 2:15 says that Yahweh “took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate [Hb. abad: work, nurture, sustain, husband] and keep [Hb. shamar: safeguard, preserve, care for, protect] it.” “These active verbs,” Hunter writes, “convey God’s intention that human beings both develop and cherish the world in ways that meet human needs and bring glory and honor to him” (p. 3). Christians therefore view human beings as designed by God to be “world-makers,” reflecting God’s goodness and his design for human flourishing.
With regard to the cultural mandate, Christians have a legacy of ambivalence: “There is much for Christians to be inspired by and much of which repent” (p. 4).
Hunter lists numerous mission statements from denominations and parachurch organizations “calling each other to engage the world and to change it for the better” (p. 4).
In the first essay, Hunter’s goal is to examine the ways in which diverse Christians “actually think about the creation mandate today, examining the implicit theory and explicit practices that operate within this complex and often conflicted religious and cultural moment” (p. 5, my emphasis).
What will Hunter argue?
I contend that the dominant ways of thinking about culture and cultural change are flawed, for they are based on both specious social science and problematic theology.
In brief, the model on which various strategies are based not only does not work, but it cannot work.
On the basis of this working theory, Christians cannot “change the world” in a way that they, even in their diversity, desire. (p. 5, my emphasis)