"What Are Christians For?" At Last

My ten previous posts on Jake Meador's book, "What Are Christians For?: Life Together at the End of the World", reach an end with this one. I can sum my conclusion in three words: read this book, and my critique in two points: (1) Meador's characterization of the pernicious effects of modernity in America as Whiteness adds little value to the discussion and (2) varying responses by Christians to an increasingly negative Western form of life have as much to do with innate temperament as with theology. 

Whiteness as Provocation

Quoting myself, Meador defines Whiteness more narrowly than some: 

"Whiteness," in Meador's telling, entails a profound loss of geographical place-ness ("estrangement from nature") and community, and their replacement with an autonomous imposition of the will of individuals over land and other peoples. In Meador's retelling of Jennings's "The Christian Imagination," Whiteness began first with the European migration to the Western Hemisphere and then proceeded by colonial [better: imperial] conquest to the rest of the world. And typically in the name of Christ.

But does it make sense to label this process as Whiteness? Consider the following characterizations of what others, for much of the past century, have called modernity. In 1990, Daniel Bell wrote to the effect that to be modern is to embrace "the proposition that no ends or purposes given in nature, that the individual and his or her self realization is the new standard of judgment, and that one can remake oneself and remake society in an effort to achieve those goals." Half a century earlier, C.S. Lewis wrote that "for the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men." Can we call this Whiteness? Well, I suppose. And this is true politically as well as socially. As John Rawls famously asserted, the Right precedes the Good. And what counts for the right is procedural. Is liberalism Whiteness? Is the Muslim Brotherhood White? So it might seem

In his great work, "The Desire of the Nations," Oliver O'Donovan observes that behind the disparate appearances of the various critiques of modernity now current,

We can detect a theme that recurs persistently. It centers on the notion of the abstract will exercising choice prior to all reason and order from whose fiat lux ... spring society, morality, and rationality itself. Corresponding to the transcendent will is an inert nature lacking any  given order that could make it good prior to the imposition to the imposition of human purposes upon it. To put it theologically, the paradigm for the human presence in the world is creation ex nihilo, the absolute summoning of reason, order, and beauty out of chaos and emptiness."

The account of modernity expressed in countless contemporary practices and institutional forms is characterized by an elemental belief that nature has no nature. Or, restating what should be obvious, the nature of "nature" is whatever we will it to be. At best, human life is arbitrary; at worst, capricious.

On the other hand, as most now acknowledge, such an eviscerated view of nature, the person, and the procedural state cannot account for the lived reality of human experience. From Wendell Berry to Willie James Jennings, from the dreaded Christian Nationalists to James Cone, the current state of socio-political liberalism must end. The Good must have priority over the Right. We are in a post-liberal age.

But whose Good? Meador's account of the history of European migration to North America and its effects on indigenous and African peoples and places provides an account of the not-Good, the Bad. And Meador's warm description of Christians living in thick, outward-looking  communities is an account of one form of the Good. In no clear way, however, does this form of the Good correlate to the issue of race. In other words, the term Whiteness impels readers to focus on a particular and pernicious form that modernity took in the Americas. Yet most of Meador's prescriptions, drawing on the notion of faithful presence, are equally valuable to all forms of social life in this distracted and isolated age.

"Whiteness" is certainly more provocative than "modernity." And perhaps that is justification enough for using it.

Practices or Temperament?

Less to say here but one should observe that the counter-practices Meador recommends--bearing witness to the sufficiency of Christ in our weakness and demonstrating a devout piety and generosity in commitments to our cities, neighborhoods, and home places--are excellent. Following the intra-Evangelical "winsomeness" debate on social media discloses that some folks are temperamentally irenic (promoting peace, not ironic) while others agonistic (combative). Some are bent toward finding common ground; others are thrilled to mix it up. Meador is irenic and that's good. But we should recall that polemics were once also thought to be a good thing. Even philippics have their place. Discord was (or could be) a means of reaching (or reinforcing) concord. While, notwithstanding Dobbs, the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s are over, room remains for non-élite political and electoral action. Some of it may succeed; other parts will fail. But a willingness to use some sharp elbows (and to compromise) is an equally legitimate part of life at the end of the world.

Notwithstanding these criticisms, Meador's book provides valuable insights and suggestions for ways of living that will encourage the sympathetic reader.