James Davison Hunter’s book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, speaks to our all too often misguided attempts at leaving the world better than we found it. Don’t get me wrong, it is always better to leave things better than we find them, and this includes the world. But far too frequently our scope is the world and not our world.
I’ve attended more than my share of Christian high school graduation ceremonies and listened to more than my share of graduation speeches. A nearly universal commonality between every speech is how, now that the student has graduated, they will head out to the real world and make their unique imprint upon it. To support that claim, Jeremiah 29:11 is often used, which says, “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to pros
This reads well in the typical Christian book store and on cute little plaques we might find in the houses of well-meaning Christian Tigers, but changing the world is a somewhat impractical idea if by “world” we are thinking of the entire globe upon which all humanity exist.
Looking back through history we can probably name — on one hand, maybe two — the people who have actually changed the world; it is a very small list. For the other 15,000,000,000 or so humans that have existed, world-changing has not been in their cards. At least not in the way it is often conceived of.
James Davison Hunter’s book addresses this issue by discussing the typical World-Changing paradigms within Christianity, all of which seem to rest upon the need for power over others. He then presents an argument that we rethink what power means in a Biblical mindset. Finally, he calls the believer to “A Theology of Faithful Presence.” Instead of arming believers with a desire to gain the power over structures and organizations, he calls people to be faithful witnesses wherever they are placed.
Hunter appeals to a lesser known verse in Jeremiah to make his point, Jeremiah 29:4-7 which says “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
Jeremiah 29:4-7, which obviously precedes the well-known Jeremiah 29:11, indicates that God has told Israel that the plans he has for them, for the present at least, is to do the normal things of human life in a way that seeks the good of their neighbors. Sure, missions trips to foreign countries are good; becoming a CEO is a good thing as well. But for the majority of the rest of us we are called to be Christ’s hands and feet wherever it is that we have been sent by the Lord. We have been claimed from the earth as the Lords, and we now live in exile in a foreign land. We are called to be his emissary where we have been planted.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone who has ever been compelled to “Change the World” and wants a practical understanding of what that means.
