Evangelicalism and 'High' Culture

I have been reading James Davison Hunter's fascinating book To Change the World - The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

There's lots to say about this provocative book, but one particular thing caught my eye. Hunter points out that evangelicalism as a movement is prodigious at cultural production at a popular level (esp in the US) but has almost no traction in 'high' culture.

There's good reasons for this. The instinct of evangelicalism is thoroughly egalitarian, in recognition of the significance of every human individual and the universal appeal of the gospel. Elitism is abhorrent to true Christianity and especially to missionary Christianity. As Hunter says, 'elitism for believers is despicable and utterly anathema to the gospel they cherish'. Heaven forbid that churches of all places be the sites of exclusion and condescension.

But populism has its own vices. As Hunter puts it:
the populism that is inherent to authentic Christian witness is often transformed into an oppressive egalitarianism that will suffer no distinction between higher and lower or better and worse. At its worst, it can take form as a 'tyranny of the majority' that will recognise no authority, nor hierarchy of value or quality or significance. When populism becomes a cultural egalitarianism, there is no incentive and no encouragement to excellence. (p. 94)

The dilemma that arises from this observation is this: the evangelical movement, which has aspirations to changing the world and not just winning souls, is addicted to a populism which is at odds with what we know about 'the dynamics of world-changing' - that is, that it comes from the production of excellent cultural items. As Hunter says:
there is an unavoidable tension between pursuing excellence and the social consequences of its achievenem; between leadership and an elitism that all too often comes with it. Is it possible to pursue excellence and, under God's sovereignty, be in a position of influence and privilege and not be ensnared by the trappings of elitism? (p. 94)

The trouble is, too, that this tendency to populism means that evangelical Christianity often imbibes the worst features of popular culture - its shallowness, its brittlenes and its attention deficit problems, for example.

Davison Hunter's overarching thesis, by the way, is that Christians need to remember that their calling is not to seize power or transform culture but to faithfully witness to it. Sounds like martyrdom to me!