Landscape with a Woodland Pool (c. 1497) by Albrecht Dürer:

Courtyard of the Former Castle in Innsbruck without Clouds (1494) by Albrecht Dürer:

View of the Arco Valley (1495) by Albrecht Dürer:

Currently reading: The Revenge of Conscience by J. Budziszewski 📚

Philip Bess, in an old two-part essay at Public Discourse (here and here), makes the surprising argument that the proposition “human beings should make walkable mixed-use settlements” ought to be considered a hypothetical tenet of the natural law. While making appropriate qualifications (e.g., Bess does not claim that living in such settlements is morally obligatory or makes one morally superior), Bess suggests that our cultural patterns of building are not merely about subjective or aesthetic judgments; rather, they root in substantive understandings of human nature and the telos of human life. Which means that the anthropology implied by “urban sprawl” is an individualist one, enamored of choice and personal freedom and private property and home ownership. As a good Thomist, Bess believes that “walkable mixed-use settlements” better accord with our nature and allow us to more fully realize our ends.

Did this to get the folding table flush with the dining table. Who says medieval history isn’t practical?

Our makeshift table in the living room for dinner/games with family this evening. It passed Lewis’s inspection.

An interesting piece from Jake Meador at Mere O on the reigning paradigms of cultural engagement within American evangelicalism: 1) the “faithful presence” approach—embodied by Tim Keller—in which Christians don’t seek (or, at least, don’t presume) control of elite, public institutions but do attempt some level of presence and influence; and 2) the “owned space” approach—Doug Wilson being the exemplar—in which Christians seek out spaces where they can have controlling influence. Meador summarizes, “This, then, is the divide that now exists within politically engaged evangelical Christianity in America. One group is trying to create ecosystems of Christian presence within pluralistic contexts while the other is seeking to build bulwarks of owned space.”

He goes on in the piece to acknowledge the strengths and shortcomings of each approach. Given his deep admiration for Keller, it’s commendable that he speaks forthrightly about how faithful presence can easily drift toward accommodation and compromise—in other words, toward unfaithfulness. Ultimately, though each approach has problems and potential pitfalls, Meador argues that the “faithful presence” approach is the best (and I would concur).

I would, however, quibble with Jake’s characterization of this divide between the two groups as “being a dispute between varieties of Hunterians.” I’ve noted before how Hunter’s work has been regularly misappropriated. To call the “owned space” view a “variety of Hunterianism” is, in my view, to perpetuate this misreading. To be clear: I’m not even commenting on the merits of the “owned space” view; I’m simply making the point that it shouldn’t be considered a species of “Hunterianism.” Wilson’s program of cultural engagement had been up and running for decades by the time To Change the World was published in 2010. The fact that Wilson happened to agree with Hunter that evangelicals possess a superificial (read: wrong) view of culture and how it changes does not mean that their projects ought to be lumped together.

Upon reflection, I think the reason why Hunter’s work has been so consistently misread is that To Change the World is part descriptive sociological analysis and part prescriptive scriptural reflection. But the term “faithful presence” flies as a banner over the whole thing. So, if you agree with Hunter’s sociological analysis (and, frankly, who wouldn’t?), then it doesn’t matter what you believe should be done in response. You might completely reject Hunter’s proposal in the last section of the book. Indeed, many people seem to derive all sorts of oughts for what Christians should do (infiltrate elite institutions, prioritize the arts, etc.) from the is of Hunter’s analysis (cultural change happens through tightly connected groups of elites operating at the centers of cultural power). Ironically (and Hunter is attuned to irony), his analysis ends up getting deployed in service of the same Nietzschean pursuits that he attempts to unmask in Part Two of the book.

So, my counsel: Let’s all agree that one is only a genuine Hunterian, a true purveyor of “faithful presence,” if one agrees (at least in large measure) with Hunter’s proposals in the final part of To Change the World. Faithful presence involves not merely agreeing about the mechanics of cultural change, but agreeing that attempts to sit in the cultural driver’s seat are wrong-headed from the start. To be faithfully present is not to strategically target elite institutions, but to embed ourselves in the vast multiplicity of spaces and environments that Christians have been scattered—whether culturally significant or forgotten, influential or despised.

I’m currently listening to The Second Mountain by David Brooks on my commute (not reading it, mind you; don’t @ me). So far I’ve really enjoyed it.

One arresting anecdote I heard on the drive home this evening (which I was also able to locate in this 2019 piece): In describing those experiences that hint at a reality beyond our ordinary existence, Brooks tells the story of a friend who, when her first daughter was born, “realized she loved her more than evolution required.”

I’ll be pondering that line for a while.