Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. Back in 2010, sociologist James Davidson Hunter, who's perhaps best known for coining the phrase culture wars, published a book to change the world, the irony, tragedy, and possibility of Christianity in the late modern world. The book sparked quite a debate, especially among Christians, especially with Chuck Coulson, over how best to approach cultural change. Hunter criticized just about every other strategy for cultural change, any that ignored high-prestige centers of cultural production, as he put it, like film, media, and the arts.
In his view, elites shaped culture from the top down. Though suspicious of politicized approaches, Hunter did acknowledge that power had to be wielded by someone in that arena. He therefore advocated for a strategy that he called faithful presence. Rather than seeking to reclaim culture or withdraw from it, Christians should serve as faithful witnesses within their spheres of influence. Today, 16 years after its publication, a fuller assessment of Hunter's thesis is possible.
First, it's obvious that cultural outsiders play a much more significant role in driving cultural change than Hunter's thesis allowed. As writer and cultural commentator Aaron Wren has argued, while elites often institutionalize shifts in the culture, the changes often originate from the margins. Christianity began on the margins. The apostles were not the elites of their day. Figures like Paul and Constantine were more of elite converts, certainly, but the faith's early growth demonstrates the potential for cultural impact that comes from the margins of society.
like everyday Christians rescuing babies from exposure. And that's not unlike the social change that has occurred so dramatically in the years since Hunter's book.
Social media has disrupted elite media institutions. Influencers shape narratives far more than academics do. Outsider politicians, from Barack Obama, at least that's what he's known as, to Donald Trump, have now dominated political power. While elites remain important, they do not tell the entire story about cultural change. Alternatively, there's been a precipitous decline of elite power brokers.
Just one example, the Ivy League is nowhere near what it used to be. Though they still wield significant cultural clout, many more people today question if a college education, even from one of those elite institutions that's so wrapped in critical theory and progressive political ideology, is even worth the expense. All of that comes in the wake of culture-shaping social media networks that were launched from dorm rooms by Ivy League dropouts. Hunter's thesis also underestimated the nature and purpose of politics. Though distinct from the city of God, politics is an institution of God's created order.
Though often downstream from the wider culture, in the years since To Change the World was published, the wider culture has clearly become far more political. Following the philosopher Aristotle and the example of the American founders, Charles Kessler noted, and I quote, the very notion of revolution, not to mention founding, implies that politics can change culture. It's one of politics' jobs to shape and nurture and defend a culture that encourages good motives or virtues. America, whose two hundred and fiftieth anniversary that we celebrate this year, illustrates that point vividly. The founding fathers deliberately chose, through political action, to cease being Englishmen and become Americans.
As Kessler also wrote, quote, becoming American was initially a political and constitutional choice, but finally it necessitated a series of profound transformations in business, speech, dress, literature, religion, education, heroes, holidays, civic ceremonies, and in character. Though politics is not the only means of cultural change, It's far more crucial than people recognize. Recently, the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs decision that overturned federal abortion protection and returned the issue to the states is an example of a major pro-life victory achieved through sustained political engagement. In other words, Christian efforts and politics do shape American culture. And finally, as many who critiqued Hunter's notion of faithful presence at the time pointed out, such undefined or underdefined notions downplay the responsibility that Christians have to defend truth in the marketplace of ideas.
While one should never deny the importance of faithfulness, mere presence encourages silence. in the face of growing injustice and suffering. The many people who told Jack Phillips that he should just bake the cake out of love and kindness and run a really good business were advocating for a kind of faithful presence. I'm certainly glad that Jack had a better, far more robust understanding of faithfulness than that. Chuck Colson insisted that Christians engage every sphere of life, homeschool, business, arts, politics, and education, through a Christian worldview, and that they were ready to defend the truths that they believed.
Drawing from Francis Schaefer, Abraham Kuyper, William Wilberforce, men whose faith drove sweeping cultural and political transformations, Colson observed this, quote, I'm hard-pressed to come up with a historical example of quietism and commitment to fighting injustice going together. That commitment defined the life of Coulson, and it remains a model for us today. And Oz Guinness provides a fitting concluding thought that points us in a better direction for cultural engagement. Guinness observed that, and I quote, our Lord himself was not just present. He was active, speaking, healing, delivering, driving money changers out of the temple, and so on.
And we should follow the example of Christ, actively engaged as salt and light, contending for the faith, engaging the culture with an eye towards restoration, all from a distinctly Christian worldview. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. With Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Andrew Carrico. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast.
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