“New Christian realism” not realistic enough
Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World
John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
Oxford University Press, 2008
370 PAGES
John Stackhouse’s new book, a theology of culture and ethics, tries to find a way for Christians to follow Christ in “the real world” (to use his highly contestable term). His writing is accessible, provocative, and challenging, and he asks important questions – many along the same lines of inquiry that our MB denomination is currently struggling with – but I want to raise several concerns in the course of this review.
Stackhouse’s project is an attempt to recover what he calls a new Christian realism, “the articulation and defense of a realistic Christian mode of engagement with most modern cultures today.” Put another way, Stackhouse sets out to answer the question, “Who are we, for Jesus
Christ, today?”
He describes the contemporary situation in a binary fashion – Christians either want to totally reshape society according to Christian values (transformational), or they embrace sectarianism, which Stackhouse construes as offering an exemplary, alternative way of life. Since both these options are inadequate, they need to be supplanted by a new Christian realism.
The project proceeds in three parts, the first section comprised of a discussion of Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebuhr’s seminal work of the mid-20th century. The second part of the book draws on the work of C.S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to display some of the themes and approaches that have shaped Stackhouse’s own work on culture and ethics.
Stackhouse’s constructive vision takes up nearly half of the book. He addresses the importance of locating ourselves in the larger Christian story, the task of understanding mission and vocation, and issues of ethical method. Entitled “Making the Best of it,” this section ends with a series of principles and practices generated by the analysis.
Stackhouse’s discussions of the contributions of the Niebuhr brothers, Lewis, and Bonhoeffer provide excellent introductions to their thought, to the secondary literature in the field, as well as to the generative basis of his own work. However, I hesitate to endorse the constructive vision of this book.
First, the modes of Christian engagement in the world cannot be adequately captured in the binary categories set forth early in the book. Not all approaches can be placed into either transformational or sectarian categories, nor will the introduction or rehabilitation of the category of realism capture all the modes of engagement.
But, more importantly, in my view, the so-called “realistic” vision that Stackhouse casts can be misleading. The language sets up the discussion so that he lays claim to a position that is “realistic,” that sees things the way they really are, and is therefore positioned such that engagement with the world will also be “realistic.” And who wants to be “unrealistic,” unable to see the ways things are and to engage them appropriately?
The matter becomes especially complicated when, interacting with the work of John Howard Yoder, Stackhouse suggests pacifists are a prime example of people who are well-intentioned but in the end unable to engage in the world faithfully because, alas, they are unwilling to “make the best of it.” Indeed, pacifism is often Stackhouse’s foil as he stakes out his new realism – pacifists cannot be but sectarians, a stance Stackhouse is keen to resist.
However, this equation of pacifism with sectarianism must be called into question – it’s too easy a characterization of a more complex matrix of issues.
A theology of culture such as this could also benefit from a more sustained discussion of the issues surrounding the church’s broader role within its wider context; questions about the church after the conversion of Constantine, and the church within a post-Christendom world are not absent from the book, but remain too much in the background. Closely related is the question of ecclesiology – the church is important for Stackhouse, but the role of the church as the church is not prominent enough.
This book does not promote the isolated Christian individual as the only locus of Christian engagement. However, consideration of the church as occupying real space, doing real things, and making real differences – as the church – deserves further attention here.
It seems the issues I raise here are all related to eschatology, whereby our understanding of the realities of this world are shaped by the realities of the future of the world in God – a reality, which while not fully transparent, nonetheless impinges on the world as we know it and also shapes our engagements with it. These considerations do not lead inexorably toward isolationist sectarianism, nor do they necessarily lead to some simplistic attitude that “it will all work out in the end.” Instead, it seems to me that we would be led to a more realistic account of the world and our role in it as followers of Jesus Christ today, an account – and way of life – that is not primarily an attempt to “make the best of it.”
—Paul Doerksen
