Christ and the Culture Wars by Ben Chang 

'A readable review of how four varied popular social movements have common patterns of success and how the Christian church might engage with them more effectively'

Christ and the Culture Wars - Speaking for Jesus in a world of identity politics
By Ben Chang
Christian Focus   
ISBN 9 781527 109766
Reviewed by Trevor Stammers

Ben Chang’s highly readable primer on how Christians might engage more effectively in our ‘cancel culture’ is his first book and I certainly hope it will not be his last. His personal passion for Christ shines through every chapter. The book presents a concise account of where we are in Western culture and how we got there, how the church has responded to date and limitations of those responses. It explores how we might do better as presenting the claims of Christ in a moral environment in which reason and argument are limited in countering the supremacy of deeply internalised core feelings of personal identity.

The first section traces the history of four of the ‘biggest social justice movements: feminism, racial justice, gay pride and the trans rights movement’ (p17) and then identifies some of the underlying narratives of them all. These include ‘expressive individualism – the idea that meaning '...can be found though the external expression of internal emotions and desires’, society is seen as a corrupt source of suppression of this human expressive freedom, the Marxist ideology that society is struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors, and most important of all, the rise of postmodernism which sees all truth claims as relative thus denying the very existence of objective truths.  

A whistle-stop tour of the well-known and not so familiar philosophers and their ideas which Chang considers have paved the way for our current identity politics includes Philip Rieff, Robert Belah, Jean Jacques-Rousseau, Karl Marx, and Michel Foucault. The role of social media is also considered with its ‘unprecedented power to raise awareness of moral atrocities’ (p93) and its algorithms designed to act as echo chambers of our already established moral views. He give some powerful examples from social media feeds to illustrate how they are ‘fertile soil’ which encourages the formation of new identities.

‘Make yourself in your own image’ is one Instagram mantra cited. This is clearly a statement, either consciously or subconsciously framed in biblical language and this section closes with quotations from several contemporary authors such as Tom Holland, Douglas Murray and Tara Isabella Burton who argue that ‘identity politics still has the skeletal structures and language of the religion it is trying to replace’ (p95).

The second section of the book explores the three principal patterns of response from Christians to these movements. These are first, mirroring or giving back the same kind of treatment. This is critiqued and the author is not afraid to name names of Christians who he considers have fallen into the trap of using for example ‘language specifically chosen, not merely to oppose … but to mirror the accusations made by Black Lives Matter’. Mirroring is considered problematic and even counterproductive as it alienates the hearers and merely escalates tensions. More importantly from a Christian viewpoint it is simply not Christ-like, being the complete antithesis of both the teaching and example of the one who ‘when they heaped abuse on Him, He did not retaliate’ (I Peter 2v23, BSB).

Though rightly praising reasoned apologetics which proved highly influential in his own coming to faith, the author maintains that in a postmodern world, reason is insufficient and indeed, increasingly ineffective against the rise of ‘cancel culture’.

Finally the commonest strategy adopted by many churches of simply ignoring the issues and hoping they will go away is explored. Chang dismisses this as merely wishful thinking. Keeping calm and carrying on is a sure recipe for defeat in this new social paradigm shift. The times have changed and moreover postmodern subjectivism has already deeply permeated into large swathes of the Christian church. This is not totally bad in its effects – ‘Where identity politics shines a light on church practices that are oppressive, discriminatory or in any other way sinful, we should be grateful for the wake-up call and committed to repentance.’ (p131).

What then is the better way that the author points to? Three elements are suggested, the power of narrative being the first. We should work on increasing our ability to tell stories, both from our Christian experience and from scripture, which resonate with the underlying theme of identity politics such as equality, the evil of oppression, liberty, identity and justice.

Change gives plenty of biblical examples, and a whole chapter is given over to the gospel accounts in this regard. The only expanded example from recent times however is his mentor, Glynn Harrison’s book, A Better Story. That book however, despite is many merits is now well over five years old itself and much has happened since then.

The final two chapters consider the topics of being able to speak the language of the culture (citing I Cor 9v22) in order to be better understood by it. This chapter draws heavily on the previous work in this area by John Stott and his ‘double listening’, and Philip Jensen and Tony Payne’s Two Ways to Live, described as ‘one of the most popular gospel tracts in the world’ (p178). It is perhaps the least original part of the book as it relies so heavily on resources which have been around for a long time. If they are so useful in countering the more recent triumphs of subjectivism one perhaps could question why the present book was needed – which it clearly is!

The final chapter is however a spirited reminder about ‘living redemptively’ – in a way that demonstrates Christlikeness as well as speaking of Christ. Chang’s focus on the themes of release from captivity, generosity of spirit and of material giving, celebration of jubilee and forgiveness will challenge individuals and churches about whether our lives truly demonstrate what we claim to believe.
 
 

Dr Trevor Stammers is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Spurgeon’s College

This is an expanded version of a review which originally appeared in the July issue of Evangelicals Now and is incorporated here by permission