JAMES DAVISON HUNTER, director of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Culture at the University of Virginia, who coined the phrase "culture wars" in the 1990s
Idea: Keep politics out of the pews
Mr. Hunter argues that the Christian community should move away from the "politicization of everything." Churches are now too often destructive battlegrounds of an ideological right and left. He advocates something called "faithful presence" – a humble reappraisal of what is distinctive and different about church and its public expression. "This is active, not passive; it requires engagement, not an opt-out. It is not ideological, but it is public," he says.
The title of Hunter's controversial new book, "To Change the World," is ironic. While American Christianity often imagines itself a major player in US public life, it is, in fact, marginalized, he says. Despite large numbers, they don't influence the actual structures of power and culture. Worry that a Christian America is fading has not brought a deeper commitment to church but anger. Political efforts to conform law or policy to narrow or sectarian teaching are often acted out coercively, not compassionately.
The "faithful presence" Hunter calls for transcends politics. The point, he says, is to serve faithfully and well in relationships, tasks, and networks of social influence. "Christians need to abandon talk about 'redeeming the culture,' 'advancing the kingdom,' and 'changing the world,' " he said in the magazine Christianity Today. "Such talk carries too much weight...."
In the case of abortion, he suggests that 10,000 families could get together in Illinois and announce they will adopt a child of any background and declare no unwanted children in the state; it's a public but not a political act.
