Moral Persuasion and Moral Education: Thoughts from J. Daryl Charles

 * From J. Daryl Charles' book The Unformed Conscience of Evangelicalism: Recovering the Church's Moral Vision (IVP, 2002).

"Cultural critic Os Guinness* identifies what he believes to be strategic or 'tactical' errors that are recurring in evangelical attempts to develop a 'public witness.'  Evangelicals, he notes, have frequently concentrated their efforts in domains that are peripheral to society rather than central.  Correlatively, they have relied heavily upon populist strengths and rhetoric rather than addressing 'gatekeepers' of contemporary culture.  Moreover, and critical to the viability of the evangelical social ethic, we have sought to change society through political and legal means rather than contending in the marketplace of ideas at the intellectual level.  Thus, evangelicals have tended to rely on 'a rhetoric of protest, pronouncement, and picketing' rather than on moral persuasion.

"While there is nothing inherently wrong in a 'rhetoric of protest'--indeed there are seasons in which the Christian community is called to such a strategy--there is doubtless something to be said for Guinness's concern.  The relative inattention to winning a person's mind and way of thinking, an inattention to winning a person's mind and way of thinking, an inattention that tends to depreciate a long-term strategy of building relationships and addressing moral-philosophical complexities, has lasting results that are counterproductive to evangelicals' mission to the world.

"If one argues that moral persuasion is necessary in society, one must also assume that the church has undertaken the task of moral education."  (pp. 226-227)

* Charles is quoting Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1994), pp. 17-18

Cultural Change: Thoughts from J. Daryl Charles

* Some thoughts from J. Daryl Charles in Between Pacificism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition (IVP, 2005): 

"To attempt to change culture by merely changing its laws is at best cosmetic.  Our priority is to change the hearts and minds of people.  This is slow, arduous work.  That is why evangelism proper (in the narrow use of the term), while important, is only a small part of what Pope John Paul II has called 'evangelization' of culture.  That is, we must begin to reseed culture from the ground up, as it were, training and educating our own in terms of broader Christian worldview thinking so we are prepared to impart values to broader culture.  If we resist or ignore long-term efforts to educate and penetrate culture by changing the way people think, no amount of 'godly legislation'--or evangelism, for that matter--will ever be able to change culture at root.  It will be the equivalent of pouring Roses Lime Juice on cancer." (p. 139)

Cultural Change: Thoughts from J. Daryl Charles

* Some thoughts from J. Daryl Charles in Between Pacificism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition (IVP, 2005): 

"To attempt to change culture by merely changing its laws is at best cosmetic.  Our priority is to change the hearts and minds of people.  This is slow, arduous work.  That is why evangelism proper (in the narrow use of the term), while important, is only a small part of what Pope John Paul II has called 'evangelization' of culture.  That is, we must begin to reseed culture from the ground up, as it were, training and educating our own in terms of broader Christian worldview thinking so we are prepared to impart values to broader culture.  If we resist or ignore long-term efforts to educate and penetrate culture by changing the way people think, no amount of 'godly legislation'--or evangelism, for that matter--will ever be able to change culture at root.  It will be the equivalent of pouring Roses Lime Juice on cancer." (p. 139)