To Change The World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World

James Davison Hunter

Apr 2024 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Lee Goettl

About this audiobook

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the twenty-first century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive answers to these questions. Hunter begins with a penetrating appraisal of the most popular models of world-changing among Christians today, highlighting the ways they are inherently flawed and therefore incapable of generating the change to which they aspire. Because change implies power, all Christian eventually embrace strategies of political engagement. Hunter offers a critique of the political theologies of the Christian Right and Left and the Neo-Anabaptists. Hunter argues that all too often these political theologies worsen the very problems they are designed to solve. What is really needed is a different paradigm of Christian engagement with the world. He offers real-life examples, large and small, of what can be accomplished through the practice of "faithful presence." Such practices will be more fruitful, Hunter argues, more exemplary, and more deeply transfiguring than any more overtly ambitious attempts can ever be.

About the author

James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of religion, culture, and social theory at the University of Virginia and director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He is the author of Culture Wars and The Death of Character.

Lee Goettl resides in the Midwest with his wife, daughter, and three dogs, enjoying all things book-related. He has recorded over eighty audiobooks, including playing two characters in Seth Rogen's Yearbook. He also works as a voice artist for commercials, e-learning, and medical narration.