To Change the World

James Davison Hunter’s recent book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World is an intellectual tour-de-force, and deserves to be read by any Christian interested in the task of culture changing. His interest is in examining how cultures change, and he takes to task the common view: get as many individuals as you can to change their “worldview,” and cultures will change one person at a time. Instead, as a sociologist he posits a more “social” view of cultural change, noting the interplay of ideas, institutions, cultural elites, and wealthy patrons. This is not the place for either a summary or a critique of Hunter’s work (I believe ultimately that the critique is extremely useful, whereas his solution, a “Theology of Faithful Presence,” is unfortunately weak). I hope to provide further posts on Hunter’s work. But it is worth mentioning the central place of scholarship and institutions of learning in cultural change (Chapter 5: Evidence in History).

Hunter notes, “In this story [of early church growth], educations was exceptionally important, for much of the spiritual and cultural creativity of the church resided in the establishment and transformation of the schools of that time.” Schools were established in all the major urban centers of that time: Rome, Alexandria, and Carthage, among others.

There were three factors related to their influence: (1) quality and quantity of intellectual output, (2) institutional strength, (3) care for the poor. First, by the end of the second century, thinkers like Origen developed a form of higher learning which combined higher learning from the Greco-Roman world with the unique insights of the biblical tradition. Thinkers like Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria challenged the central ideas of their day, and established a rich intellectual tradition that posited Christianity as not only one choice among the pantheon of Roman religions, but as the religion: both intellectually tenable and inspiring.

Second, the educational system of the Roman empire was the paideia—a system for educating the young involving a formal curriculum including grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Initially, this system served not only to educate, but provide the wealthy elite with a way to inherent and maintain power. Those in possession of paideia were trusted with influence. Yet over time, as Christians began to take the seats of learning, paideia became commonplace for bishops; and eventually the church absorbed paideia into its catechesis.

Third, Christian bishops rejected an aspect of paideia, which made sharp dinstinctions between urban and rural, citizen and non-citizen. The Christian bishops became “lovers of the poor,” and eventually came to represent not only the wealthy, but the community as a whole. For example, Basil (329-379) exploited his status as a local noble and gained “tax exemptions and personal immunities for the founders of poorhouses.” Care of the poor and disenfranchised caused pagan Roman rulers to grow green with envy (Julian the Apostate wrote a scathing critique of how the “Galileans” show compassion even for the pagan poor!).

These three factors are worth reflecting upon for Christian educational institutions today. First, and not stated above, are they located in the cities, the centers of cultural influence, or on the periphery? Centers of evangelical influence are today in Colorado Springs and Wheaton, IL, and the headquarters of the Christian classical movement is located is Moscow, Idaho. A movement toward the center will have to be a core element of Christian educational entrepreneurs who desire “culture change.”

Second, do Christian scholars and teachers interact, on a whole, with the center of idea creations, as the early church fathers both understood and challenged Greek philosophy? This is surely a mixed bag. In some fields, like philosophy, Christians have made headway in the past two decades. But in film, art, and in “public education,” Christians have been a small minority. The quality and quantity of Christian intellectual production among K-12 educators and, overall, in higher education (with the exception or seminaries), hasn’t made sufficient progress to bring about widespread cultural change.

Third, what is our curriculum? The Christian paideia has experienced a renaissance in the past two decades, but there are still only around 220 Christian classical schools, and only 1.5% of schools nation-wide could be called “Christian.” Public schools, which tend to follow a secular curriculum based on state standards produced by politicians, comprise 97% of how young people in America are trained to think. Though there are clearly good people within the public school system, the Christian classical model has produced cultural giants for hundreds of years—and they do acknowledging “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” For cultural change to happen, we need to build a network of reproducing Christian classical schools and universities that can be the incubators for superior learning.

And finally, these schools need to be accessible to the poor. This is surely the greatest challenge, as all Christian schools today must charge tuition. The challenge will be for creative young, Christian entrepreneurs to create models of Christian education that aggressively drive down the price of education without sacrificing quality.

Urban. Intellectual. Institutional. Accessible. With these four elements in place, Christians could indeed begin to change the world.