Not Just a Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Aaron Renn has issued a challenge—and not just to Southern Baptists. In his recent essay, “Use Your Voice, Not the Exit,” Renn invites conservatives, both religious and political, to resist the reflex to flee troubled institutions.
The temptation to “cut ties” when things get tough is, Renn argues, an instinct that may come naturally to Americans: “After all, we are the descendants of people who left somewhere else to come here.” But cutting and running isn’t always the right choice, says Renn.
Renn’s case is built upon Albert O. Hirschman’s work in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Although Hirschman’s book is unfamiliar to me, I suspect Renn has summed it up well. When a person perceives decline—whether in a church, a city, or a school—they’re confronted with two options: Exit, abandoning the institution for greener pastures, or Voice, staying to push for reform from within.
Renn brings the Exit or Voice decision to life with all kinds of relatable examples: a denomination divides; a family flees the city center; and parents pull their kids out of a failing zip code school. These are all understandable decisions. But Renn presses us to pause: “While there’s no one right option for everyone in every circumstance, conservatives, who have an inherent bias towards Exit, should reflect deeply before making that choice.”
Like Renn, I’m not a Southern Baptist. I’m a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). And although I didn’t live through the PCA’s split from the mainline PCUSA, I suppose I am a spiritual and institutional heir of that decisive Exit. In that case, I’d argue, like Renn does, that some people don’t leave institutions. Sometimes they’re pushed out or feel compelled to leave.
Still, Renn’s essay resonated with me. Not so much because of its opening hook but because of its deeper challenge. Am I, when faced with institutional decay, prepared to choose Voice over Exit? Would I stay, advocate, reform, persuade—rather than leave and build elsewhere? It’s hard to say in the abstract, but I’d like to think so.
I’ve said before that if conservatives want to reorder society, they must be politically present—not just ideologically, but physically, vocationally. As Renn warns, when conservatives Exit, they leave vital institutions, governments included, in the hands of those who neither share their values nor steward them well.
Renn’s prescription—more Voice, less Exit—seems right insofar as that decision goes. And while I suspect he will provide more detailed suggestions in future essays, I’d like to take a stab at answering the practical questions now. If you choose Voice, in other words, what should that look like? What should you do?
Just how does one speak effectively within institutions—churches, governments, you name it—that seem, at times, hostile to truth? What does faithful reform look like in settings where power is putrid, and the day-to-day work is often boring, perhaps even soul-sucking? How do conservatives, especially younger ones, avoid becoming either ineffective gadflies or part of the problem?
James Davison Hunter’s “faithful presence” concept, introduced in 2010’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, provides one pathway for those inclined to choose Voice over Exit. It goes something like this: embody the Christian faith wherever you are. Be patient. Serve. Quietly influence. Such imperatives are fine insofar as they provide a guide for thinking about personal piety. But I’m afraid they’re too thin to provide a guide for institutional life in the negative world.
I can speak from personal experience, as I’ve written elsewhere, about the complexity of this issue. For the last several years, I occupied an increasingly central place in a large, political bureaucracy, where I tried to be faithfully present. And I was. For a moment. Eventually, though, I lost sight of the fact that I wasn’t actually paid to “only associate with pure persons and perfect methods,” nor employed to do evangelism, even the oblique, relational kind. No, I was there to participate in the establishment of a just social order. To serve the common good. And to love my neighbor.
Such work, as my friend James R. Wood has argued, is not about maximizing openness to the gospel. It is, therefore, a category error to force our political judgments and actions—as I eventually did—through the filter of personal piety and evangelism. Why? Because again, “politics is about ordering our common life together. It is the prudential pursuit of justice and a just social order.” As much as I wish we could burn our decency for someone else’s future, as Andor’s Luthen Rael puts it, no Christian is freed to become a jerk for Jesus. That said, those committed to institutional life must be prepared to do more than eat, pray, and love.
James Hunter is right to urge Christians to be present. But Christians cannot simply be present. No, those who choose presence must make their presence known. They must embed themselves in the social and relational architecture of the institutions within which they operate. They must actively listen, speak up, and read the fine print. They must forge unlikely friendships and be willing to work alongside not only Allies but also Co-Belligerents, as Francis Schaffer understood those terms.
Those who stay must be actively present. But they must also act prudently. Voice requires discernment. As I explained above, I wasn’t good at this. But it’s a profound truth: Not every battle must be fought, and not every error must be called out immediately. Fights should be picked wisely; wars waged to achieve ultimate victory, not daily headlines. You see, Voice succeeds when it’s tethered to truth and timing. There’s a reason the wisest political actors, from Burke to Lincoln, were not simply prophets crying in the wilderness, but prudent reformers playing the long game.
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