Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring 2013): 45-51
Review Article Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 368 pages, $27.95 By C. Clark Triplett A time-worn message of the evangelical faith around the world is the mandate to change the world, particularly because of the fallenness and brokenness of mankind. Every Sunday, sermons are replete with thundering rhetoric on the need to transform society. This is such an obvious implication of the Christian stance that it seems hardly worth arguing the point. The problem is that reality seems to consistently weigh against the well-meaning efforts of the true believer. This is the basic premise of James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World. At first glance, Hunter’s conclusion seems counter-intuitive to the title of the book and the overwhelming consensus of evangelicals. As reviewer Greg Gilbert indicates, Hunter “head-faked in the direction of a straightforward advocacy of a transformationalist way of thinking—that is, that the world should be changed and can be changed, and it is the church’s task and mission in this age to do it” (1). After a close reading of the text, however, the response of Hunter is that most of this sweat and toil is misguided. This is a weighty academic work that uses social and historical analysis with a focus on the place of political power. Hunter is first and foremost an academic serving as Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Sociological Theory at the University of Virginia. He has also served as Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the university. His discussion is rooted in social theory and provides detailed and complex evidence from the history of culture, political systems, and the church to support his critique. According to Hunter, the basic flaw in evangelical attempts to change the world is the emphasis on “idealism” as the primary means of transformation. This view states that change is primarily personal and cultural transformation occur: “[I]f you have the courage and hold the right values and if you think Christianly with an adequate Christian worldview, you too can change the world” (17). Idealism, particularly Christian idealism, focuses on individual—”one-by-one”— transformation either through conversion or the entire ideology of a culture. It also operates on the premise that cultural change is purposeful and rational and