To Change the World

 
I'm reading James Davidson Hunter's To Change the World with a group of people (mostly in law school) and discussing with them about how Christians ought to engage culture. Hunter argues that sociology shows that culture is most effectively changed by networks of elites, not by individuals changing. He maintains that Christians have had less impact on America than their numbers warrant because they've focused primarily on "changing hearts and minds," rather than on developing strong institutions within the mainstream of society. (Evangelicalism has tended to make parallel institutions on the edges of culture.)

(Incidentally, the people I'm reading the book with are deeply uncomfortable with Christians trying to change the world, which baffles me--why are they attending a top law school? Just for the money?)

***

Makoto Fujimura is a darling of the Evangelical world. He is an American whose artistic training was in Tokyo in traditional art forms. His work is abstract and utterly modern; at the same time, it often references the past. For instance, he was commissioned to illuminate the Bible in honor of the 400th anniversary of the KJV. Other pictures nod to the Hudson River School and T.S. Eliot (you can see those paintings here), among others.

It confuses me--everyone, including him, says that his faith informs his work. But his work is abstract. When I look at his mostly monochromatic red painting of the book of Mark, I wouldn't have figured that his faith was informing it, unless he told me.

So--does art convey faith? Or does art (at least Fujimura's) only convey faith when he philosophizes about his art?

Similarly, does faith impact the work of scientists and lawyers in ways that wouldn't exist without faith? Or does it simply impact how one understands one's own work or the motivations behind that work? Or does it only come into play when one philosophizes about the relationship between science and faith or between faith and law? How does one's faith come out when being a "Christian" garbage collector, beyond doing your job well and interacting with your coworkers out of love? Are Christians called to transform culture or are we simply called to fulfill our individual vocations?