Paul Hessert begins his book saying, "Christianity often assumes a form that outrightly contradicts its central tenant that God is uniquely present to humans in a crucified Christ" (3). He extends criticism to the politically conservative and progressive alike. Hessert criticizes any and all who call on Christianity to make "better children, better parents, better students, better workers, better citizens, better business people, even better soldiers," to any who generally seek to leverage the Christian story primarily to make a "general improvement of life" either conforming to an ideal time in the past or toward an imagined future (3).
In his first chapter, Hessert defines the cultural structure of meaning within which these groups function and for which these groups, both conservative and progressive, work to support.
Hessert begins by seeking to understand how religion in general functions within and defines what he calls "the circle of reality." The circle of reality is that common world of symbols that binds culture together—the realm of cultural agreement supported by "what everyone knows to be true" (4).
The circle of reality is defined by structures that help individuals make sense of their day-to-day experiences. In other words, we view our experience through structural lenses to make sense of our lives. These structures are supported by generalizations, both formal and informal. Generalizations include science (demonstrable formal generalization), aphorisms (ingrained common sense), and myths and images (visceral generalizations invoked to re-establish our circle of reality when it is threatened, the "basis of doubt and certainty") (5). Humans, Hessert argues, actively use these generalizations in a largely unconscious effort to make meaning out of their lives.
Meaning itself is important to the question "Why," to give us a reason to live, to feel that things are in order and that life has a satisfactory goal worth heading toward. Meaning, then, is "the major drive for human life" (7).
Meaning also has a structure. Defining this basic structure of meaning is the key required for understanding the rest of Hessert's thought. To understand the structure, Hessert must first define the constitutive elements of the structure: possibility, progress, power, and reality.
Possibility: The first element of the structure of meaning is the "should-be" condition in relationship to the "is" condition, that is, the present. The present is always, necessarily, seen as deficient compared to how things could be. The ideal against which we see the present as deficient exists outside of time, but meaning requires time for possibility to exist. More on time and the direction of possibility later.
Progress: To actualize the timeless ideal into the timely realm of our lives is called "progress." To lack possibilities is to be cast into a meaningless or hopeless situation. It is also true that to lack the ability to actualize the timeless ideal into timely existence results in meaninglessness or hopelessness.
Power: To lack power is to lack the ability to actualize possibilities. Power, then, is the ability to manifest possibilities in time. For power to be meaningful, however, there must be a goal. Power itself is meaningless without possibilities to manifest in the actual. And again, possibilities without power are likewise meaningless. Hessert points out that if meaning is one pole of human striving, then power is the other. One is pointless without the other.
Reality: Our experience of reality within culture occurs within the interplay of possibility, progress (from actual to ideal), and the power to carry possibility into actuality. To cease to exist within this interplay is to cease to exist within the prescribed circle of reality tacitly agreed upon within the culture.
All our understanding of life—historical, biographical, and scientific—Hessert argues, happens within this basic structure of meaning (8).
We relate to this structure of meaning in different ways, but primarily through the concept of time and guilt. Time relates the present ("the 'is' condition") to the ideal ("the 'should be'"). Interestingly, Hessert points out, "if the ideal were to be reached, the time of possibility would collapse," and meaning with it (9). Thus, in our search for meaning the ideal is always rushing (or projected) away from us as we draw closer to it. Otherwise our search for meaning would cease. The present, then, is necessarily seen as deficient in order to maintain meaning.
We seek to maintain meaning by searching for one who is responsible for this deficiency in relation to the ideal. Thus we arrive at guilt: "Guilt is manifested as human responsibility for the separation of the present from the ideal." We ask why the ideal is absent and almost in the same moment ask, "Who is responsible? Who has failed? Who entertains alien goals?" Guilt then, is part in parcel with our culture. Guilt is our relationship to meaning, and thus to time itself (8).1
Most importantly for Hessert, when we experience frustration with our circle of meaning, we do not question the structure but instead seek answers within the realm of the meaning: the ideal, time, guilt, and the generalizations of science, popular aphorisms, and powerful myths and images. In so doing, we reify the structures that led to our frustration in the first place (11-13).
Often this structure is seen as divinely ordained. Religion is the traditional resource and last line of defense in legitimating meaning. In the contemporary West, we no longer turn to religious authorities for cultural legitimation of meaning, but we do tend to hear invoked a "highest common factor" of religious opinion (13). The "god" of presidential speeches, for instance. Or "In God We Trust," printed on our money. Or, "The way things are." According to Hessert, though, religion's most powerful legitimation of culture is not in its provision of authority figures, but the very modeling of the structure culture imposes upon the world. By modeling this structure, religion imparts upon it an ultimate significance it would otherwise lack (14).
In conclusion, Hessert turns specifically to Christianity, or what he calls "Meaningful Christianity." For Christianity to be meaningful, he writes, "it must validate the culture's demands for meaning and power and try to fulfill them, by accepting the cultural structure as the basis of its own understanding." Meaningful Christianity primarily does this in both its conservative and progressive forms by condemnation of the present.
Both conservative and progressive forms of Meaningful Christianity focus on moralism. On one hand: illicit sex, drugs, family values, or secularism. On the one hand: systematic poverty, greed, and materialism. Both stripes of Christianity end up supporting the same base level structure of meaning in the culture by pointing out our present separation in time from the ideal and by projecting guilt upon those they deem to be responsible (15).
Conservative or progressive, Hessert finds that Meaningful Christianity "agrees with the cultural tenant that the quest for meaning and power is the legitimate human task" (16, emphasis mine). Rather than contradict the culture, Meaningful Christianity seeks to reinforce it.
Hessert's example is illuminating. He writes, Meaningful Christianity "will not say, 'Blessed are the poor,'" which would contradict the culture, "but 'We can all be rich'" (16). Worst of all, when "Blessed are the poor" is said with contradiction of the culture in mind, the audience who hears it does not find contradiction, but instead hears, "We can all be rich," making a direct approach impossible. Rather than expunging guilt, Meaningful Christianity leverages guilt to encourage people to use their power to pursue the ideal in time, and thus to take part in the structure of meaning to which they are enthralled (17).
Hessert will argue that it is this enthrallment to the hegemony of meaning that Christ—specifically the faith of Christ crucified—offers as salvation. More on that in chapter 2.
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