A review of Jake Meador, In Search of the Common Good : Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World (IVP, 2019).

If you find our culture disorienting and frustrating; if life seems trivial and you long for it to be more significant; if you follow Jesus but wonder how that makes a difference in work, technology, relationships and politics — then you should read Jake Meador’s, In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World.

If you read The Benedict Option, and liked it, but wanted something more and more thought out, you will want to read In Search of the Common Good. I considered calling this review “Benedict 2.0”, but that would not be fair to the book. As I read it, I wondered if it was meant to be an alternative to Dreher’s Benedict Option. So, I was intrigued that Rod Dreher is mentioned in the acknowledgements, and I discovered the Meador and Dreher have had extensive interaction. There are similarities, but Meador is doing far more than repeating or reacting to Dreher.

In Search of the Common Good is a broad and thoughtful discussion which deserves to be read and pondered (not just summarised in a review). So, I‘ll give a very high level overview and then point out some of the highlights.

The basic outline is that Meador knows that “America is in decline” (p9), culturally, politically and spiritually. The evangelical church is more part of the problem than a solution. He, like lots of believers from his generation, wonders what has gone wrong and how we can live better. (You might wonder, at this point, who the ‘we’ is — and that is part of his case. “We” has to be both the wider culture and Christians, including evangelical Christians).

The book is in four parts. The first, documents the decline in American cultural life and in the church. Part two offers an analysis of the cultural sources of that decline. There is a loss of meaning because modernist thought and culture inevitably lead to existentialism in which we have to devise our own meaning. We’ve lost wonder because our culture has been disenchanted (here Meador draws largely on the work of Charles Taylor). Work has lost meaning because it has been removed for community and dominated by technique.

The third part offers three practices which can help to restore lost community — sabbath, ‘membership’ (which is more grounded than voluntary and disposable ‘community’), and the recovery of work which has meaning by being oriented to serving others. The final section offers some of Meador’s underlying thinking setting out a view of politics and society and of Christian eschatology.

There is a great deal to like about this book. Here are some of the highlights.

Meador writing is a delight. His presentation of the loss of meaning and the disenchantment in our culture is gives a poignant. If you are born before the 1980’s then the first part of the book is important reading to appreciate the way millennials and younger experience a failed culture. He crafts a story well and the anecdotes movingly crystalise his insights.

The discussion is grounded in thoughtful interaction with good Christian thinking. It is not a heavy work, but along the way are references to and obvious interaction with Oliver O’Donovan, Charles Taylor, J.K.A Smith, Calvin, Augustine, John Paul II, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jaques Ellul (to name a few). The references to classical and contemporary literature and popular culture enrich the discussion.

Meador’s assessment of the malaise of late modern capitalist culture is accessible but not simplistic. He is reflective and sympathetic in his view of the culture. The book does not have the sense of panic found in some Christian assessments of culture.

In Search of the Common Good subverts the left-right polarity of so much modern political discussion, even in Christian circles. There is more than enough to annoy both sides of politics, which is a good sign. But the subversion has a deep foundation, it is not just well chosen rhetoric.

The basis for the subversion is the recognition that politics is first about how we live together, not primarily about policy or voting. “What evangelicals most need to do in the political arena today is not elect certain candidates or support certain legislative causes. There is a place for that, to be sure. But the most important thing we can do is be properly Christian in the totality of our lives, starting with the way we shape our homes and carrying that out into our individual vocations, whatever those may be”. (p106)

Meador offers a helpful introduction to Christian political theology. He makes the important distinction between political doctrines and public policy and calls for Christians to think more about the former than the latter. Often Christians fight over policies, reflecting our party alignment, but don’t get down to the more basic discussion of political doctrine. He offers a nice introduction to three key ideas in political theology — solidarity, sphere sovereignty, subsidiarity (pp162-67).

For my money, the book strikes a balance between a concern for the common good and wider culture and society and authentic Christian community. Meador does not claim that the church living as the church will transform the society, but he does view the church as engaged with and witnessing to the society.

Meador starts his consideration of a better way of life in worship. He argues that we need to be re-oriented to time and each other by worshipping God together —cultural renewal begins with keeping a Sabbath centered on public worship. There is provocative idea! I suspect, and hope, that we might have a recovery of Sabbath, as Christians grasp this point.

The final chapter is a discussion of new creation eschatology. This is an important theological basis for the whole approach.

With all those highlights I hope In Search of the Common Good will be widely read.

Do I have any reservation? A few, but nothing major.

This is obviously an American book. The premise is that America is failing. Many Australian readers are used to translating this kind of discussion into our context, and most of it is relevant — though the particulars are different. Maybe Australia does not feel quite as ‘failed’ for most of us, and that might be partly because we have not had the same exceptionalist nationalism. The underlying issues are, however, much the same.

I wonder if the book suffers from some romantic nostalgia for bygone era. I accept there are real changes in culture, and genuine losses (and gains) through history. It is worth pondering what we have lost. Yet, every human culture has the same problem root problem — our alienation from God and needs the same solution in Christ and his gospels. Return to an older way of life is not a sufficient answer. (I don’t think that is all Meador proposes, but it leans that way at points).

Like any book seeking to set a social agenda, it risks being idealistic when it comes to practice. Meador’s desiderata for life, church and work are appealing; but I often wondered how they would work out for people locked into a life by circumstance beyond their control.  Meador’s suggestions should stimulate thought about what we can change in our circumstances, but some readers might feel a dispirited by unachievable proposals.

Finally, though I hesitate to raise this, I wonder if the gospel and gospel mission could be more central and explicit in the book. It is certainly not absent. Meador frequently mentions the gospel and his approach reflects the gospel pattern of creation — sin — redemption — restoration (though I don’t think says it that way). The practices of worship, membership and work are grounded in redemption in Christ (at least implicitly). Still, this could be spelled out more fully. What I mean, in brief, is that rest and worship are found in Christ (Matt. 11:28–29; Col. 2:16–17; Heb. 4:9–11; 10:19–25; 13:10–16); Our creaturely need for membership is finally met by being in him (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 6:15; Eph. 3:6; Col. 3:15), and in his body because we are in him; work is redeemed and reoriented as we serve Christ (Col. 3:22–4:1). To make that explicit would show the proposals are grounded in the redemption of the world by God in Christ and are not just practical recommendations for church and society. This, in turn, would help readers see Meador’s political theology is also missional (which I am convinced it is).

For a while I have been thinking that evangelicals need to develop thoughtful accounts of the common good, so I am very glad this book has been published. In Search of the Common Good is recommended reading. It offers something like the Benedict Option, which is evangelical, theological, millennial, ecclesial and missional.

A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.